Life Hacks For Moms With Lots of Kids

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Today I am sharing all my favorite life hacks for moms. I have been perfecting these for the last 11 years, and it’s not “drink more wine”. 

Ok in all seriousness, I really thought hard when I came up with this list of life hacks for moms because I wanted them to be brilliant and helpful and save your life. However… some are just simple ideas that could be new to someone and just help their day go easier! Either way, I love reading little lists like this, and I hope it has some helpful takeaways!

First one little note about something that is too obvious to be a “hack”- but from one mom to another, if you are not getting your groceries delivered, this is game changing! They say money doesn’t buy happiness but the $50 I spent to get my groceries delivered all year long is soooo worth it and I have used all the extra money I’ve saved on wine. Only kind of kidding. We use Shipt- here’s my link to get it for $50 a year instead of $100. (Not sponsored. Grocery shopping is just so last year. That’s all I’m saying!)

Ok, on to my list, of my own life hacks that will be helpful for other moms, and dads, but especially parents of big families, and slacker moms like me, or just moms who have low patience levels and no longer have the ability to form complete sentences because you are always interrupted.

1. No More Missing Socks

Stop trying to “match” socks with the pair that went missing, you over achiever. Instead, buy them all the same color so they all match. In big families that means you buy each kid one color. Someone gets white, someone gets gray, and so on. You won’t even know when socks go missing. They will always have a pair.

2. Code Words With Your Partner

Both Jose and I hate when one of us is getting frustrated with a child, and the other (calmer-than-you-are) parent butts in with “Hey, stop yelling at him!” Even if they are overreacting, it discredits the validity of the parent in the child’s eyes. So when one of us is freaking out because we are convinced our kid is going to kill us and perhaps we went overboard with our booming voice, the other parent uses the code phrase “The oven’s on.”

That just means, take it down a notch with your loud and rude voice at the kid and take a breath. For some reason it’s much easier to hear this dumb little phrase when you’re losing your sh*t on a kid, then the other parent all “woah, woah, woah. You are way too worked up!”

3. Shoot Flies, Don’t Swat Them

Nobody in my house ever gets excited to use a fly swatter. But one of my husband’s bar fly friends (see what I did there) bought this silly gun that shoots flies (off Amazon!) and was raving about it one day. This gun kills flies with salt pellets. My husband and my 11 year old are obsessed with this thing. When a fly or a bug is buzzing around the house they get so excited to kill it, and I love that it’s immediately gone. (The gun doesn’t hurt people).

4. Baby Wipes in the Kitchen

I still buy wipes even though nobody wears diapers in our family. Why? Because when a kid has sticky fingers and you’re doing a zillion other things, telling them to help themselves to a baby wipe is one thousand times easier than wetting a rag and wiping their fingers down. Especially for the little toddlers who can’t handle these tasks quite yet. I have seen little wipes just for hands but buying a pack of the all natural baby wipes is the best value.

5. Frozen PB&J Not Fresh

If your kids eat peanut butter and jelly in their lunches, this is for you. Also works with sun butter and almond butter. We started making an ENTIRE loaf of bread into PB&J sandwiches on Sundays a few years ago. The whole loaf makes about 12 sandwiches.

Wrap them up individually in foil, and freeze them. Each morning during the week you take out a frozen wrapped up sandwich, pop it in their lunchbox (doubles as an ice pack if you’re really on your slacker game!) and it fully defrosts in their lunchbox by lunch time. It doesn’t seem to change the taste. (I know they sell those Smuckers frozen sandwiches too but if you look at the ingredients they are not clean at all, so we try not to buy those).

Living his best frozen PB&J lifestyle!

6. Use a Job Jar

My favorite life hack for moms out of all, is something I only do when the kids are out of school. I stopped sending my kids to their rooms in the summer when they misbehave. Instead we have a Job Jar. Now I get help around the house- unless they pull out the darn “no jobs today” slip! Read more about the idea here.

7. Facebook Mommy Groups.

Join them. I know what you’re thinking… but these groups have been SO helpful to me. I’m in a local group where I find out about all the good kid stuff happening in my town, and I’m a lurker in one a few towns over because the women are always sharing the BEST tips! Just stuff they buy they love, cute clothes, ideas for Father’s day gifts, drama, mom advice… it’s just good reading from people in the same stage of life as you!

8. Multiple Hair Stations Around the House, With One Main Station.

I LOVE this life hack! It’s obvious but so helpful! It is especially great for moms of girls with long hair.

Put the Grand Central of hair stations right by your door where you enter the house. All the hair supplies, thrown in a basket, and sitting by the door. Ours is in our kitchen, and then we have a smaller one upstairs. The one in the kitchen works the hardest, because that’s where we’re running out the door and I’m seeing hair that needs fixing. The hair station could be as simple as a basket or a kitchen drawer. We have a drawer filled with several wet brushes, hair ties, spray, bows and ribbons… and even a hair straightener.

9. Washable Art Supplies ONLY

At one point we owned a sectional with a child’s graffiti ALLLLL over every cushion. That was fun. So after finally biting the bullet and enforcing this rule, kid drawings on the wall/furniture/floor are not much of an issue. All you artsy peeps might roll your eyes at this one, but: I don’t bring art supplies into my home that doesn’t say “washable”. Every crayon, marker or paint has to say washable on the label, or its probably getting donated. We don’t keep slime after they play with it, either. I know, I’m the fun mom.

 

10. Stop Folding Clothes Life Hack For Moms and Dads With Laundry Problems

When I do laundry, I’m just sorting into people’s piles of clothes. Then I call the kids to come and grab their piles – if they are in school I set the piles on their beds for them to tackle when they get home. The 2 younger ones are free to stuff their clothes into their dresser as messy as they want, as long as it’s going in the correct drawers. When toddlers look for outfits to wear they just mess everything all up anyways!

My older kids (8 and 11) have to fold their own pile of clothes and put them away. So that means when I fold laundry, I’m just sorting everything into piles, and then just folding my own clothes and Jose’s. I do like to hang up the girls’ dresses for them, so I do that too.

11. Shop The Floor Samples Even When You Aren’t Furniture Shopping

So less of a life hack for moms or dads, and more of a general tip. I have been able to fill my home with quality furniture this way, and I really don’t think enough people do this! Whenever I am at the mall for something, even a quick trip, I try to pop in Crate and Barrel, West Elm, and sometimes Pottery Barn Kids, and head straight to their floor sample corner and quickly glance around. This is where they put heavily discounted furniture that is only marked down because they don’t have room for it anymore- not necessarily because it’s damaged (although that happens too).

For some reason at my Pottery Barn their floor sample area is pretty small, but I have found Crate and Barrel to have the BEST floor samples! They will move all kinds of furniture over that is in perfect condition and slash the price majorly. Shopping the floor samples is how I got my son’s dresser seen here, and this hunky media cabinet too! It was about 40% off and in perfect condition.

12. Mosquito Joe

Ya know what else is so last year, besides doing your own grocery shopping? Bugs. Pesky bugs in your yard is so 2018. Although I was against this idea at first, Jose convinced me that we should spray our yard (naturally!) for our own sanity and for the sake of our children’s skin, which was being eaten alive. I was hesitant to agree because I didn’t want to hurt the other bees/frogs etc in our yard.

But Mosquito Joe has a natural mosquito repellent for the yard (heavy concentrated oregano mostly… I think?). The company comes out and sprays our entire property twice a month and y’all, it is not a gimmick. We don’t have mosquitos anywhere on our property anymore. Life changing! We can actually all hang outside in the evening and nobody gets bit!

Mosquito Joe is who we use and the only one I can vouch for. They are a franchise so they might be in your area too- but there are lots of these companies.

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For more mom hacks, visit these pros who are giving you all their top mom hacks as well today:

Laundry Hacks For Large Families by Arin Solange at Home

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10 Mom Hacks To Make Life Easier by Paisley + Sparrow

Mom Travel Hacks by Alex Marie Jordon

10 Favorite Mom Hacks by The Babbling Blondes

10 Mom Hacks to Make Life Easier by Lovely Lucky Life

Mom Hacks on the Go by Navy Berlin

I hope you enjoyed these life hacks for moms (or dads!). Thanks for reading!

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