When you have kids, weird issues arise on virtually an hourly basis.
I’m talking about the kinds of difficulties we parents are liable to encounter that are quite possibly not covered in the BabyCentre email. You know, those weird scenarios that usually arise when you are alone and are so bizarre that whenever they crop up the thought “so this is happening now” pops into your head and reminds you that you’ve come a long way since the perineum massage talk at the antenatal class.
10 practical solutions to really niche parenting problems:
1. You need to pump your boobs while also keeping your hands free for essential snacking
Behold the ‘mother-udder’, this was the name I gave to the bra that I cut holes in and used to hold that sexy double breast pump in place while continuing to read and eat Malteasers.
2. Baby won’t keep the baby mittens on
In the early days, I was obsessed with the baby mittens. Every time I put them on him he would just flick them off. I thought they were so essential that I masterminded the ‘mittened baby top’ by cutting a hole in the crotch of a pair of baby pants that had feet on them. The Man thought this was pretty mad, which it was.
3. Nappy disposal
To avoid accumulating nappies in a festering bin in the baby’s room, I threw them directly out the window into the garden to be gathered up the next time anyone went out there. So you know, the nappies could fester outside in the garden presumably fertilising the soil instead of festering in the house. Yeah, the logic of early parenthood is a bit skewed…
4. The baby is finally napping…. ON you
The phrase ‘nap-trapped’ came about when I was late for a meeting when the baby randomly fell asleep on me. Because the mantra “sleep begets sleep” had been so drilled into me, I was afraid to move for fear of waking him up. It’s hard to disengage from this position. I recommend keeping the phone on hand and sending out a message to whomsoever you were supposed to meet saying “can’t move stop trapped under something heavy stop send chocolate stop.”
5. White noise cleaning hack
In the early weeks I was desperate to try anything to get the baby to go to sleep, I didn’t realise at the time that he’s a baby, he just doesn’t sleep. I’d heard about the white noise thing and went in search of five-hour white noise compilations on the internet (of which there are many to choose from). Then I copped that I could actually create the white noise myself with the hoover and as long as I was running the hoover at 3 am sure I could do a bit of hoovering while I was at it. Yes, the ideas we come up with at 3 am are quite strange. The neighbours love me.
6. Parenting cleaning hack
Hoovering at three in the morning is the kind of thing you only engage in during the early (ker-azy) weeks of parenthood. These days however I’ve gone the complete opposite direction and am now claiming that the baby has developed a fear of the Hoover and by extension cleaning of any kind. It’s great.
7. Sticky snots
Sometimes (practically every week if you’re me) we pick our kid’s nose for them. This is true isn’t it? It’s not just me, right? HOWEVER often I will pick the nose without thinking it through and will have no receptacle lined up to dispose of the snots which are bizarrely sticky. WAAAAYYY stickier than normal snots. My practical solution is to wipe the snot on the sole of your shoe. This is nearly always acceptable except when you are a guest in someone else’s house. In this case you may find your self the unlucky bearer of a super sticky snot with nowhere to stash it, I am not proud to say that in this instance I just put it in my pocket.
8. Up piss creek without a change of pants
This continues to happen to me on a virtually a weekly basis; I’m starting to suspect that I’m just not very good at this parenting lark. When The Baby was small, I noticed that you could dry the wet pants and get a decent upper arm workout by slowly lowering the baby in and out of a Dyson hand dryer.
9. Clean the baby’s face without creating more laundry
Eat the food directly off the baby’s face, no bib required. It’s tasty AND economical.
I know you’re probably thinking surely natural selection would have eradicated me from the breeding process by now due to severe stupidity right? Unfortunately for humanity this is NOT the case.
10. Eating on the go
Here is the instructions for my ingenious invention Toast On a Rope (patent pending). We’re always late, and I often try to feed the baby while we’re on the go, however when he’s in the car seat invariably he drops the food on the floor and goes mental at me (cuz, ya know, it’s all my fault). Enter Toast On a Rope. The name definitely makes it sound like more of a thing than it actually is, it’s basically pieces of toast threaded onto a piece of string that is then tethered to the Child’s wrist. Boom. Toast On a Rope – I predict it’s gonna be HUGE.
