Parent Hacks

Babycape: Easier and more versatile than a jacket

Most of us are still in for plenty more cool weather. But now that Spring is around the corner the on-and-off nature of kid jacket-wearing is already full swing. Too hot! Too cold! Take it off to buckle into the car seat! Put it on again! Annoying for all involved,...

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links for 2008-02-29

Postcards Traveling The World | Moewes.com A postcard pen pal network. Looks like fun. Decorate a room with paper and string » Rookie Moms So easy and cute.

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Underbed box under the clip-on highchair catches dropped food

Debbie's hack is sure to make us all slap our foreheads and wonder why we never came up with this ourselves: Our one year-old daughter eats in a clip-on chair attached to our kitchen island. We put a large plastic "underbed" storage box under her chair to catch what she...

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CD rack as board book shelf

M's storage solution: A CD shelving unit is the perfect depth for board books. In a regular bookshelf, board books can get pushed back too far, are hard to see when mixed with regular books, are often too small for use with clip-on bookends, etc. When we put board books...

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links for 2008-02-28

Alpha Mom™ - Zero to Forty Weekly Pregnancy Calendar Written by Amalah, here's a week-by-week coundown that will educate AND entertain AND make you so glad you're pregnant during the Internet era. (tags: pregnancy babies) DeliciousBaby Journal | Advantage Rent-A-Car's Frightening Car Seats Debbie may have just changed the world...

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Tie a ribbon around the doornob to help out a forgetful Tooth Fairy

Suzy's come up with the perfect way to assist the Magical One with her dental "work": Is the tooth fairy sometimes forgetful in your home? We find that ours sometimes flies right by accidentally. To correct this problem, we've put a ribbon (it reads "Lost Tooth") on the bedroom door...

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Parenting: No amount of practice makes perfect, nor should it

In response to my guest post on Zen Habits yesterday, Bee left the following fascinating comment: …just please, please, please leave gaps in your shiny optimised parenting to get wrong and messy. Teaching kids how to surf on the crest of chaos and anarchy, is one of the most useful...

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Baby washcloths as "green" mealtime napkins

Susan's come up with yet another use for baby washcloths (they are surprisingly versatile): One of my New Year’s resolutions is to reduce our household waste, including paper products. We’ve started using our old baby washcloths as napkins for the kids. They can be used wet or dry at mealtimes,...

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links for 2008-02-27

21 Tips on Keeping a Simple Home with Kids | Zen Habits We're on a Zen Habits roll! Thanks for the pointer, Sara! Thingamababy: Review: Revolving Toddler Shoe Tree Mmmmmm. Looks nice. (tags: toddlers, home organization) Baby Toolkit: Come on in My Kitchen: Win a Copy of Annabel Karmel's delicious...

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Lower the highchair so your toddler can play the electronic keyboard

Raven's going to have a two year-old maestro in the family: My 16 month-old loves to play around on our electronic keyboard . With all of the different instrument and style options available, who doesn't? Up until now, I've always held her on my lap to let her play since...

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Video game addiction. Talk amongst yourselves.

We are the happy owners of a Nintendo Wii. We fit the demographic to a T; the kids play a bit in the afternoon, and then Rael and I fire up Guitar Hero after hours. (I made a full confession on mywiistory.com.) All in good fun, right? The dark side...

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Parent Hacks: The Zen Habits Collection

As part of our guest post swap, Leo Babauta asked me to choose twenty of my favorite tips and write them up as a post for Zen Habits. "Favorite" is impossible to capture because there's more wisdom and good will on this site than any list could cover, but it...

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Rain pants work for cool-weather beach visits

Debbie's got a great tip for off-season beach visits (a wonderful time to go): We sometimes head to the beach when it's too cold for swimsuit (or when we're headed off somewhere else after). I pull the kids' rain pants over their clothes. The pants keep them warm and dry...

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When one twin gets medicine, the other gets apple juice

Kristin's got the opposite "problem" many parents have -- her kids want to take medicine! When one of my 2-year-old twin boys are prescribed medicine, it's inevitable that the non-sick boy will pitch a fit for medicine too. So...I have two dispensers ready to go, one with the real medicine...

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Tie video game time "currency" to chores

Rich is a man after my own heart: My kids were addicted to their video games and would give us attitudes when we asked them to do chores. So we fixed that right away: we put the kids on a point system where when they do chores, they earn points...

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