The two parenting tricks that I learned years too late.

[SharingMichelle]

1. Give them music and headphones for long car journeys. Shuts them right up. My eldest is 10 and I've only recently learned this.

1. Peel the negative space off the sticker sheet and your small child can peel off the stickers independently. Without ripping them. Yes, even cheap stickers. WHY didn't anyone tell me this one??!

For older kids, to get them to tidy their room hide a £5 note and tell them they have to tidy their room to find it....

I have another one to avoid Frub yogurt explosions.

Snip at the top just wide enough for a straw. Insert straw. Pass to DC. They can suck the yogurt through the straw and then the whole lot goes in the bin. Virtually no yogurt mess at all.

One of mine is the difference between a 'b' and a 'd' when DCs first start learning their letters. Make a "bed" with your left and right hands into 'thumbs up'. Left (should) look like a 'b' and right thumbs up is a 'd', IYSWIM. I'd take a pic to demonstrate but I can't work out the timer.

Whatever gets the most sleep for the most people is always the right thing to do.

So much yes.

mine is for the emetophobes.

Buy a bin, line the bin with a bin bag.. get them to vom IN the binbag.. then all you have to do is clean up, lob the wipes into the bag with the vom, tie the bag and launch it.

You dont have to touch it, you don't have ot look at it and there is NO MESS to clean up. You just put a new bag in the bin/bucket!

If your child has trouble sleeping, and won't settle, tell them you want them to try their hardest to stay awake, and whatever they do they have not to fall asleep. I learned this trick from a hypnotherapist who was helping a little boy with insomnia. I also found that it can sometimes work with tantrums. If he has a tantrum, I tell my son to cry as loud as he can but he's not allowed to smile or laugh, then I give him marks out of ten for his efforts!

If your child vomits on the the floor, throw cat litter over it, go sort out the child, come back and sweep the cat litter up. Easy.

Use an upturned fitted sheet on the beach to keep your area sand free....

Pre potty training, sit them on the loo to wait as you run their bath, with toys, on one of those toilet adaptor seats. If you do this at a routine time then the sitting opens the bowels and they have the excitement of hearing the "plop". They associate it with bathtime. Then later when actively potty training, over half the job is done already (so to speak).

I got to baby number 5 before I realise what the envelope necks on clothing were for

To dry baby's neck after bath time, turn them onto their tummy.

Place marking for my little one due in September. I'm going to try to the sticker one with DSC tonight- quite excited!!!

someone needs to explain the fitted sheet one.. Unstretched they just bunch up into a lump?

With the fitted sheet on the beach - you use your bags in each corner to make it a kind of "pen"

We bought a travel potty for long journeys. DD 7 yrs now but we still use it for late night camping wees, beach as refuses to wee in sea and fields on long walks as i remember "a friend" misaligning her girly bits with nettle patch. Best thing i ever bought and only toddler thing i refuse to rehome.

If you have car sick DC keep the travel potty in the car - forever. I was an appalling puker parents kept a bright yellow potty in the car for me to throw up into. V useful saved the day (or at least the car) on many occasions.

That said when I had to potty train my first child the sight of a potty immediately triggered me to feel sick! Soon got over it though. Thankfully both mine brilliant travellers so never needed this tip!

Thanks so much for the sticker trick!

Mine is baby bundlers. Bloody great invention for night time.

www.marksandspencer.com/2-pack-pure-cotton-cloud-print-boys-bundler/p/p22332011

I realise these are out of shock, but places like John Lewis do them too.

Stock even

Brilliant!!

Once children are old enough to dress themselves but not willing (DS I'm looking at you!), then try "morning challenge"

Tell them that pending challenge winners get a sticker and the object of the challenge is to get dressed, have teeth brushed and bed made before mummy can do the same.

Shout Morning challenge and off they go!

Even 4 yo DS who is generally completely uncooperative in the morning will rush around to beat mummy.

Obviously it's rigged so that I lose every day but keep the excitement going.

Lots of giggles from DS and DD about mummy being a loser.

We count down from 5 so the children know there is an end, and follow through with whatever was said i.e. no tv, ice cream, laptop or whatever.Counting up never stops.It works on all ages.

potato - I was gievn two of those baby bundles when ds was small. He hated them and so did I.
He couldn't lie the way he wanted to, and his feet stuck out the bottom and got cold, because socks always come off in bed, and they rode up so that they were bunched round waist and bottom half was cold.

Sorry, but babygrow and sleeping bag all the way.

tip for being somewhere hot at night:

make a sleeping bag out of sheeting fabric. Mine was slightly heavier, like a flannette sheet.

Then baby sleeps in it with just a vest. It feels safe and comfy like their normal sleeping bag, but is much thinner and cooler.

Mine is that if your baby is poorly, properly poorly really needs calpol (dd had febrile convulsions) and will not or cannot take calpol (let's face it it's all thick and gloopy)

• buy the 6 plus and reduce the dose dd went from 10ml of pink slime to 2.5ml of thinner less gloopy shite (It was actually a hospital Consultant who told me to do this )

I know MN likes to make fun of French and their love of suppositories, but if baby cannot or will not take Calpol, paracetamol suppositories can be a lifesaver, plus they work really fast.

5 kids later. Didn't know the vest one! That would very been so useful. Youngest is now 8yrs old. I've done the sticker one before though.