Mums share the parenting hacks they wish they’d known

Every now and then you stumble across a gem of an idea that you can’t believe you didn’t know before – this is especially true for parenting.

Because babies don’t come with a manual (seriously, why not?!) one parenting forum has asked its users to give other parents the cliff notes on raising kids in today’s world and some of them are GENIUS!

Mumsnet posed the simple conversational starter, ‘The two parenting tricks that I learned years too late’, and they have been flooded with responses.

Here are some of our favourites…

“Give them music and headphones for long car journeys. Shuts them right up. My eldest is 10 and I’ve only recently learned this.”

“Peel the negative space off the sticker sheet and your small child can peel off the stickers independently. Without ripping them. Yes, even cheap stickers. WHY didn’t anyone tell me this one??!”

“Mine is what happens if you count to three on your toddler still hasn’t done as requested. The answer to this is ‘if you haven’t put your socks on by the count of three then I will (small pause) do it myself’. Cue toddler scrambling to do it. Genius and literally changed my life. Doesn’t work with a lazy eight year old though sadly.”

“Use old cardboard boxes as colouring games. My two-year-old is only allowed to use felt tips when colouring inside an old box.”

“Tip my ex mother-in-law] gave me; warm the cot mattress with a hot water bottle remove just before laying baby in cot asleep then the cold doesn’t shock them awake.”

“Stroke a baby’s nose from between the eyes to tip to get them to fall asleep. They close their eyes as they follow your finger down.”

“An hour ago I told my 11 year old that she couldn’t clean the car in case she did something wrong. She’s been out there ever since.”

“Use baby wipes on sore noses instead of tissues.”