Top 10 Genius Hacks For Lazy Parents

Every adult who’s ever taken multiple kids on a road trip has had to suffer through the backseat battles that ensue. Children hate sitting still and they like stimulation. A long car ride is essentially psychological torture for their little minds and bodies, so you can’t really blame them when they start to squabble and fight. While misery loves company, sometimes isolation and space are required to maintain the peace. It might look ridiculous and feel a little cruel at first, but by placing rigid pieces of cardboard between the car seats, you can create a simple sense of division. For older kids, you may need to invest in an actual store-bought equivalent.

Little bodies and their whirlwind lifestyle tend to create a whole lot of chaos in the home. Sadly, they seem to struggle at applying that lust for life to productive tasks such as tidying up the mess they’ve created. This hack is an oldie but a goodie: make cleaning a fun game rather than a chore. If it’s time to tidy the rec room or play area, make it a time challenge. If you want help with sweeping, tape off a tile of the kitchen floor and challenge your young one to bring all the debris to that one spot. Think outside the box and the possibilities are endless!

Let’s be clear: a young child should never be left unattended in the bath. But there’s a difference between keeping a watchful eye and having to constantly intervene as they splash around in the tub. If they bathe in a full-sized bathtub, chances are you’re always having to bring their floaty bath toys back to them or suffer sudden bursts of blubbering as that rubber ducky floats beyond their grasp. This solution is simple - a little silly to look at, but ultimately brilliant. Submerge a plastic laundry basket in the water and then place your child and their toys inside it. The edge of the basket forms a natural barrier - keeping those toys within reach.

Okay, if you’re big into home decor, you may find this particular approach a little unsightly. But if you’ve got little ones in your life, chances are that design sensibility has given way to practicality. And what inflatable pools lack in style, they make up for in functionality. Playpens are often smaller than exploratory crawling babies might like. They also likely cost a small fortune and can feel wasteful, considering you only need them for a short while. Inflatable pools are cheap and come in a wide variety of sizes. And they bring the added bonus of being made of a soft, bouncy surface should your baby experiment with standing and fall onto the edge.

Kids love forts! Maybe they’re born with an inherent desire to become homeowners, but we doubt it. Most likely, it’s a balance of having a cozy space, which, relative to their small size, makes them feel safe, while also providing a spatial canvas for all sorts of imaginative adventures. Not all kids are little architects however, and may require some help. Sadly, not all parents are architects either. Fortunately, with a hula hoop and a bedsheet, you can easily make a simple, hanging fort that works in both indoor and outdoor spaces.

“Sticky Fingers.” Before you had kids, it was just another solid album from the Rolling Stones with a fun interactive cover on vinyl. Nowadays… they’re a very literal reality of your daily life, which tend to ruin things you love, including your vinyl collection. There’s no universal solution for eliminating sticky fingers, apart from frequent hand-washing or a bottomless supply of wet wipes. But this nifty hack does neatly tame one of the worst offenders… popsicles. Take a standard coffee cup lid, turn it upside down and shove the popsicle stick through it. Voila! The drips are caught rather than covering the child’s hands.

Nothing says family fun like a day at the beach! Although sure to result in memories that everyone will cherish for years to come, it is also a complicated outing. You need to pack a day’s worth of food, plenty of fluids for hydration, an umbrella for shade and much more. And then there’s the sand. SO... MUCH... SAND. It gets in everything! If you have a youngster who’s still scooting or crawling, this sand is sure to get all over them. To diminish sand and contain the child, without spending money, use a fitted bedsheet, held in place by the many aforementioned bulky items you’ve brought, to make a lightweight but effective playpen.

Young minds crave stimulation, but in this techno-centric world, many parents have embraced the simplicity of the tablet as creative arts studio and babysitter over the old standards. As convenient as paint apps may be, they are no substitute for real world arts and crafts. Thankfully, there are ingenious parents out there who have found ways to foster creativity in kids the old fashioned way while minimizing mess. Bless them... and bless the bubble lid! This plastic cup and dome-shaped lid, as distributed by Starbucks (and other franchises) works as a GREAT paint container, that diminishes spills and drips thanks to its shape and small opening.

It might look silly, but this brightly-colored reverse door stopper could very well save you a trip to the emergency. Little kids have the tendency to slam doors, and it takes a few years for them to develop that sixth sense about keeping their fingers off the edge. It’s even worse with multiple kids. One child slams the door only to catch another’s fingers in the process. By performing an incision along the length of a short piece of pool noodle, you create a nice padded piece of foam that prevents slamming doors from pinching any little fingers. This also works to stop auto-locking doors.

Fair warning: this hack is so downright adorable that if you don’t already have kids, you may want to start a family immediately. The childhood fear that something ominous lurks in the space between bed and floor is a quintessential part of growing up. But why, in this age of modern scientific marvels, should Mom and Dad have to risk life and limb by physically investigating? Holy spray bottle solutions, Batman... Let’s use Monster Repellant! It’s just water in a spray bottle, decorated in a kid-oriented, anti-monster theme, but it works! You can do the spraying for them, or you can use it as a tool to help them face their fears in baby steps!