Have you tried any of these?
If there's one thing we love, it's a life-hack. Parenting sometimes means it can be hard to catch a breath, so anything that simplifies a process or makes less work is a winner with us.
A thread on Mumsnet was on fire recently with parents sharing the tips that make their lives easier. Some of them are nuggets of genius we can't believe we didn't think of before. Others are completely daft... But we still might try them.
1. Drying clothes in sunlight
The mum in question used this trick to remove tomato sauce stains from clothing, having previously soaked things for hours, only to be left with orange marks.
We can vouch for this working. Top tip: It also removes poop stains, for those early days when the stuff is everywhere!
2. Buy two lunch boxes
This next one is so simple — like all the best ideas. The poster explains: "Buy two lunchboxes and water bottles per kid for school. Then one set can go straight in the dishwasher after school, and the other can be prepared for the next day whilst making dinner. Saved me lots of time washing out a lunchbox every night before making the next day's lunch."
We're absolutely doing that one.
3. Use only your second name on clothing labels
If you have a few children and plan to pass clothes or uniforms down from the eldest to their siblings, label them with your surname instead of their first name, so they don't have to be redone each year. So clever, but this only works if your name isn't super popular like O'Brien or Murphy. Soz.
4. Separate laundry baskets
One clever mam suggested giving each of your children a different washing basket, saying it meant, 'no sorting whose socks or clothes are whose.'
Another one that's so simple, we don't know why we haven't done it already.
5. Freeze your spuds?
Another suggested we "batch cook as much as possible. You can even freeze mash potato!"
Hmm... the jury is out on that one.
You can read the rest of the life-hack tips
here. We'll leave you with our favourite comment from the whole thread: "Ironing is overated."
Preach.
