With the 3 older bros at varied heights, with varied ability to accurately aim, and varied amounts of experience practicing… suffice it to say I offer an “at your own risk” warning if someone who stopped by unexpectedly asks to use the restroom. But even if we have advanced notice of company, it’s difficult to know that a recently cleaned bathroom will remain clean because… well, a lot can happen in a few moments without parental supervision in our home.
We were at a party at our neighbors’ house when the mom (of 3 boys) made an admission that I found beyond brilliant and therefore cite as my 7th parenting hack:
After you’ve cleaned the downstairs bathroom, lock the door from the outside so that your children – by process of elimination (no pun intended) – have to go upstairs and use their own bathroom instead. Just before guests arrive, unlock the downstairs bathroom door.
Hack #7: They Can’t Make a Mess of the Bathroom if They Can’t *GET* to the Bathroom.
We are currently potty training A, making this our 3rd go at this developmental milestone in 4 years. We aim for about 3 years old as that seems to be most reasonable for our boys understanding some bodily cause-and-effect, as well as being able to handle the mechanics of an elastic waistband. (Aside: whoever decided to put buttons on pants for sizes 2T – 3T: shame on you.)
We generally subscribe to the crash course pants-less few days to kick things off, sending a preemptive apologetic text to our neighbors for the inevitable nudity they will witness. We do a sticker chart and mini positive inducements (read: sweets) along the way, and “mega prizes” to mark milestones like 10 successful trips to the potty. It’s not perfect and we send a lot of changes of clothes to daycare during the weeks that follow, but I feel as though we’ve been generally successful in our pursuits.
That said, we picked up one invaluable parenting hack from our daycare itself, and I didn’t even realize what a gem it was until I was giving my 3-year-old nephew pointers when he was just potty trained a couple of months ago as well. Let’s call it “Pythagorean Potty Lean.”
Remember Pythagorean theorem: a^2 + b^2 = c^2? Picture the toddler boy as c^2.
Standing on a step stool facing the toilet, a toddler boy can lean forward and brace himself on the back of the raised toilet seat such that his body creates that hypotenuse length of a triangle. When he… ahem, goes, it “goes right in!” (in the words of my nephew).
There you have it. Not necessarily the most profound parenting hack, but one that will matter very much in my next few months nevertheless.
Hack #5: Space is the Secret to 1:1 QT
I am one of five children and a bona fide middle child. While I know there were daily choices my parents made to ensure none of us felt like we were anything less than a top priority, my mom set a particularly amazing precedent: the “Getaway.”
“Getaways” with Mom were epic when we were kids. Getaways were 1:1 overnights, and the general tone was “treat yo’self” before that phrase was in vogue. My siblings and I talked about these for months (years) afterwards and they live on in our shared narrative.
My Getaway memory — crystal clear even 20+ years later — is as follows:
- We went on an extensive trip to an exotic location
- We saw Homeward Bound in theater
- She let me buy something from the quarter machines at a store when I asked (that was a hard pass in any other context… and now that I’m a parent, I understand why)
- We talked about everything I wanted to talk about, and ate what I wanted to eat
- We went to a hotel (with a pool!!!!) and stayed the night
- I had a great time
I found out many years later that we had only gone as far as Ann Arbor, <1 hour from home.
So when I wanted to get some QT with A, our resident Daddy’s Boy, I knew just what to do.
Friday I picked up A from school early and we hit the road! We went to a hotel not far away and swam in the rocking indoor pool with a massive shallow end. We got room service pizza and pasta and ate on the hotel bed like it didn’t matter if we spilled. We shared a slice of chocolate cake that was not contingent upon him finishing some portion of his entree. We stayed up late and slept like logs. We had continental breakfast and I didn’t blink when he wanted to spoon his strawberry yogurt into the dregs of his orange juice. We went for an extended joyride on the elevator. We swam again and played out roughly 70 scenarios where our pool noodles were hoses extinguishing fires. We listened to his favorite tunes all the way home (who knew?).
Could A articulate what we did by the time he got home and Dave asked how his adventure was with Mom? No.
Did my 2 year old tell me in no uncertain terms that he would be riding a motorcycle when he “got bigger” because we saw two on the drive? Yes.
Did this Getaway help reestablish our bond that has never been the same since C came along? Perhaps not.
But did he have a good enough time that he requested I join him in a resounding and very public “hip hip, HOORAY!” chorus over our breakfast orange juices?? You bet he did.
Eggo’s chocolate chip waffles are the breakfast MVPs of minimal mess. Almost 0 crumbs and don’t require syrup or utensils.
You heard it here first.
What’s this?? Two hacks in quick succession? Yes, lucky readers (all 3 of you), I’m feeling particularly helpful (& opinionated) at the moment.
Hack #3: All You’ll Really Need For Your Infant Is Whatever You Have On Hand
(aka “Baby Gear Can’t Save You, but You’ll Survive Anyhow”)
Imagine my surprise when — between my first child and my last — several new mom friends recommended “must have” items that straight up did not exist when I created my baby registry just 6 years ago. Could technology really move so fast as to substantially improve one’s ability to weather the “4th trimester” in the span of just 6 years?
Two such items I used and liked:
- The Haakaa: a silicone breast pump that exists solely to catch the “let down” on the breast opposite the one you’re using to feed Baby (amazing and depressing to see how much would go to waste otherwise).
- The Spectra breast pump: as comfortable as any pump can be, I imagine, but infinitely quieter than the model I started using in 2015. (Breast pumps now covered by insurance! Thanks, Obama.)
Every other “must have,” however, didn’t inspire me to purchase.
Case in point: the Snoo. This is a ~$1500 bassinet. It has a number of features designed to help soothe Baby back to sleep during the night. Do you know how much I would have paid for something that claimed to help my baby sleep when I was a first time mom? Any. All of it. All the money.
But this brings me to my hack: whatever you have on-hand for your infant is what you’ll get used to, and that’s all that you’ll need. Which is to say: the volume of things baby stores claim you should register for… is a total racket. I just did a quick check of the Buy Buy Baby suggested checklist and only marked 50% of these items as things I actually used/needed for any of my 4 children. No judgment of any one item… though a fair amount of confusion about why a baby food maker is a separate product from a kitchen’s existing blender, or why anyone wants to keep a diaper pail in their room vs just regularly taking the stinky diapers to the outside bin, or why Mom and Dad need separate diaper bags (because the only way to worsen the process of monitoring diaper bag contents would be to have to do it twice). Just saying, by the numbers and for my own kids, half of these items were absolutely non-essential and we never missed having them.
Using the Snoo as our case study, I’ve seen a number of online forums praising it, showcasing the app with long sleep stretches for baby as of the 6-8 week mark. To feel like reliable sleep in >90 minute increments is around the corner — it’s a glorious thing, I know. But I’m pretty sure that a baby can sleep through the night — at least metabolically speaking — once they’re > 12 lbs. I would venture to say many (most?) babies start giving longer sleep stretches right around 6 – 8 weeks. I’ll definitely vouch for my own kids, who have all been able to sleep reliably long stretches by the 8 week mark in their $75 pack ‘n play/bassinet combo. So while the Snoo may be a great piece of tech, I can’t help but feel like it’s preying on new parents by taking partial credit for a mix of Baby’s biological development and the fact that parents are more willing to let a baby practice self-soothing (read: fuss for longer before hauling one’s exhausted body out of bed… again…) 1.5+ months into the sleep deprivation gig.
Just to be clear: I have no issue with people shelling out for high quality products for their babies if means allow… smoother strollers, prettier bouncers, certainly smart bassinets. If we were having our first today, with 6 extra years of earning power than when we were first expecting, we might be inclined to do the same. And goodness knows we feel justified in the places we splurged now that we’ve gotten 4 kids worth of mileage out of these things. But I can almost feel the cliche “back in my day we didn’t have these newfangled things and our kids turned out fine!” phrases coming out of my mouth before I have to laugh that “back in my day” practices were as recently as O’s infancy, 3 years ago.
The truth is that the transition to parenthood is incredibly challenging. The gear associated with this stage, however, has very little to do with that fact, so it’s not worth sweating about being properly stocked as new parents inevitably (and unavoidably) figure out so much on the fly and establish a system as they go using what they have on-hand.
A moment of humility: we had to use our pack ‘n play up north recently and left it there, borrowing our friends’ swanky Halo bassinet to keep at home for a few weeks. This thing swivels, vibrates, plays music, makes toast (maybe; we’ve never actually turned it on). It’s beautiful and worked great until C got heavy enough and fidgety enough that he started shifting his body weight into “corners” of the peanut-shaped contraption. He’d wake up prematurely, not yet hungry but actively irritated to be cramped against the mesh lining. In case you haven’t already picked up on this, I consider waking up to a hungry infant a worthy cause to forgo sleep, but almost anything else is unacceptable. The swanky bassinet had to go.
C, 7 weeks old, slept much of the past week like this:
And just for the record, he clocked 9 hours last night.
Hack #2: Everything Is More Exciting With A Scenery Change
18 months after the pandemic began in earnest in Michigan and we are back to 2020 rituals in a lot of ways. O’s daycare class had a positive COVID case as of 6 days ago, so he’s home quarantining as a “close contact.” This means we are spending the holiday weekend keeping to ourselves and hoping we have a(nother) negative test before J and A would theoretically resume school/childcare on Tuesday.
All this to say, I am revisiting old tricks to fill the hours without… you know, interaction with the outside world. Enter this parenting hack: change out the scenery of normal events (& add snacks) to make them an exciting, half-day event in & of themselves.
3 example applications:
- Epic Walks. Grab a “snack pack” (a bag of assorted snacks that wouldn’t normally be found together – better still if you can have your kids assemble a pack themselves) & hit the road. Stroll, scoot, bike – just go, and set a meandering pace that incorporates a goal (mileage, a landmark, time before you turn back) or a game (I Spy, or Geocaching). Pro tip: make sure to bring a stroller in the event you need to lug your child’s bicycle back manually… see photo below.
- Picnic Meals. This does not have to be over-thought. Sure, a picnic can be Bento-box-style, Instagram-worthy meals on the side of a vista. OR it can be burgers enjoyed on your driveway, Lunchables consumed overlooking the neighborhood retention pond, or McDonald’s eaten from the comfort of your submarine — I’m sorry, your SUV’s trunk that turns into a submarine just for the duration of the meal.
*Drumroll for the fan favorite change of scenery:* - Drive Out Movies. This is, proudly, an event I invented after I realized the pandemic-friendly “drive in” movies started too late for my kids’ bedtimes. Our Drive Out Movie nights involve me downloading a movie to my phone, packing the boys bags of popcorn and treats, and watching the movie in the front seat of the car, parked in our own driveway. Could we watch the movie in our house on a much larger screen? Yes. Could we eat the snacks with much easier access to refills (& much less concern about crumbs) in our own living room? Yes. Could we be much more comfortably situated on a couch vs crammed with me in the driver’s seat and the two older boys sharing the passenger seat? Yes. But you better believe those Drive Out Movie nights are infinitely more memorable than regular movie nights due to novelty alone.
Chowing down and making bets on what color car would pass by next. 
We got more than a few comments from other trail walkers as we had both a tricycle and bicycle loaded on the stroller over O’s “rumble seat,” had J riding on D’s shoulders, and me carrying Scooch. 
It took >1 hour to walk .5 miles to the pond, and longer to get home. A great investment on a day otherwise in desperate need of not being cooped up at home again.
And finally, an update on parenting hack #1: still going strong.
NB: I am really enjoying the title of this post, as if – after 6 years of practice – I have some secret cache of parenting tricks. I don’t, but I’m pretty confident a few of the things we learned to do on the fly, or habitually (but originally accidentally), can be helpful to others, so I’ll try to spot them and share along the way.
Hack #1: Snack Foods as Inspired by Still Life Paintings
We used to stock a small drawer with “snack foods” to encourage the boys’ independence. Unfortunately, however, those snacks that could be stashed without refrigeration were almost all convenience foods (read: not particularly nutritious and packaged individually in a way that makes me cringe at our ever-growing waste production).
One day, I bought a big, casual-looking bowl and stocked it full of gorgeous fruit: apples, pears, clementines. I left it right in the center of our kitchen table. The boys saw it and went bananas (ha). They ate so much fruit in the following days that I was able to catch up with Steve the Wine guy twice that week. We now buy 2 small bags of lunchbox-sized apples each week just to keep the bowl itself stocked. To the boys, they seem to enjoy it not just because they can help themselves to snacks, but also because there’s this choose-your-own-adventure component involved.
With very few exceptions, we make a point to give them the green light when they ask if they can help themselves to the fruit bowl. Does it interfere with dinner appetites sometimes? Yes, but then again, there are worse things than filling up on fruits and carrots (which we also dole out liberally if they simply cannot wait for the meal itself & their pleas for food are so intense that surely someone will call CPS if they find out in which conditions we force our children to live).
All that said, a warning: appealing though the fruit bowl may be for those of us that live here & have few qualms sharing germs with small children (which is to say, those of us who prefer not to follow in Sisyphus’ footsteps), a visitor to our home should double check their fruit selection as closer inspection of our beautiful bowl of fresh fruit does — on occasion — bear the signs of a certain toddler’s early efforts at eating in moderation.
