So much advice.
Just think about it – how many times since you first announced you were pregnant have you been bombarded with advice on how to do just about anything in regards to motherhood and life with a baby/toddler/child.
The famous one being the aul’ ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ advice, which, honestly, in my opinion, is just absolute rubbish.
I mean; when the baby sleeps, as we all know, is when you have to do pretty much everything else when you are a new mum, such as shower, eat, clean, hang up laundry, sit down and have a cup of coffee – while it is actually still hot.
However, some advice is pure gold, and this one here that I recently came across pretty much sums up my own method when it comes to dealing with kids who are a little bit cranky and whingy.
Are you ready for it?
Put them in water or take them outside.
So simple, so effective.
My mum was the one who first let me in on the whole ‘just add water’ bit when it comes to cranky kids. Seriously, trust me on this, if your child is having a sulky, whingy kind of a day, plop him in a bath. Add some bubbles and toys for good measure, and watch his mood transform. The same goes for fresh air. It works like magic on moods – both our children’s and our own.
Recently, a post what was shared on a US Community Midwives Facebook group went viral because it offered up this very simple piece of parenting advice:
“Put them in water or take them outside.”
The Lincoln Community Midwives Facebook group, which is a professional page for the Lincoln Community Midwives who provide prenatal, intrapartum and postpartum care, shared a posting from a mum who wanted to offer up some advice that she received from her own mum about taking her child outside or putting them in water in order to calm their crankiness and crying. She warranted it as far more valuable than the old adage of “sleep when the baby sleeps.”
This mum speaks of this advice as some of the “first useful parenting advice” she ever received. Her baby was quite little then as she remembers his age was just “measured in weeks” when she called her mum crying and frustrated that her son Nathan was not hungry or wet or tired. It was then that her mum suggested to either put him in the bath or bundle him up and take him outside for a burst of fresh air. This mum claims that it certainly worked that day when she took her mum’s advice and it has worked many times since.
The mum even went on to speak about how this practice has worked wonders for her as her children have gotten older and grown up a little. For instance, when they were fighting for what seemed like the “17th time since they got home from school”, she said that instead of losing her patience on both of them and perhaps snapping at them in a manner she would no doubt regret later, she put one of them in the bath and had the other one go outside to play and it was enough to do the job until her husband got home from work and could help.
Just think about it for a second, though, and you’ll realise how true it is. Water or fresh air – it works. For us adults too. I know if I have had a crappy day, soaking in a hot bath, or heading out for a walk in some fresh air, it just makes things better again. And the same goes for kids.
Just try – I bet you’ll be amazed at just how great this little nugget of parenting advice really is!
