Millennial Parenting Hacks

I think what being a great parent (besides love & teaching them about Jesus) means, is ALWAYS strive the best for their kids and help set them up for their own success whatever that may be. Micah and I try our very best to do that by setting healthy boundaries to learn and even using gadgets to help with parenting. Today I want to share my top 5 favorite parenting hacks and tips!

Table Chair

A table chair is a chair that attaches to the table. You can attach it to your kitchen table to save room or when you go over to a friends house, but we just use it when we go out to eat. Instead of using a highchair that 2935872394 other (sick, teething, drooling, dirty etc.)babies have used, we bring our own! We don’t have to waste wipes or our time wiping down the highchair or worry if our kids will remove the seat cover and touch the dirty highchair. It gives us peace of mind because we know where the chair has been and who has been in it.

We have the Inglesina Fast Table Chair. It’s so easy to use, very secure, and super portable. It folds down really small. We even take it on vacation with us. It comes with a bag to carry it in. The best part is the bag is attached so you never have to worry about losing it. We always get comments or questions about it, and I always recommend getting one.

We love this! It’s so worth the investment. You can order one by click here!

5 Minutes

This is something that is so silly and small but IT WORKS! For almost a year now, Ella has been all about telling us “5 more minutes” for almost everything! We would tell Ella it’s time to go to bed and she would respond with, “can I do it in 5 minutes? 5 minutes!” If we didn’t give her the 5 minutes she would cry and whine. We would get upset because she was taking back and not obeying us the first time. She was upset, we were upset. There was no winning. But after talking to Micah about it, we decided to use it to our advantage.

Now is tell her to go to bed 5 minutes early so if she asks for 5 more minutes we can let her have it. We created wiggle room so she thinks she is staying up later but in reality, it is according to our timetable. In those 5 minutes we give her tasks to do, and if she finishes early she has a few minutes to do whatever she wants. We also make sure that she asks us and doesn’t tell us to give her 5 minutes. Before we let her have 5 minutes she has to understand that when the time is up she has to do what she was told without crying or whining. By doing this, we are giving her independence to make decisions, within our safety nets.

** Disclaimer: We do “5 minutes” normally only before bed. Sometimes we use this hack for other situations, but this works best in our kids’ bedtime routine.  

We don’t say “No”

We were inspired by the book “Loving Our Kids On Purpose” to not say no but say it in a different way. We normally say “Ella, is that a good idea or a bad idea?” Or we ask her if she should be doing that or not.

The purpose behind it is to make her think of what she is doing instead of telling her what to do. This helps our kids stop and think of what they are doing, and know the consequences to their decisions. It’s about helping them understand the WHY behind the no. There are times were we do have to correct her and tell her that’s not a good idea or you shouldn’t be doing that. We also realized by not using the actual word ‘no’ it was never their favorite word. They didn’t even know that was a word until they started school.

This is the book that really inspired our parenting style. You can order your copy here!

I’ve learned you have to parent your kid according to your kid. Every kid is different. You can’t stop learning how to parent your kids. Kids grow and change, and so must parenting styles. If it’s by getting the newest gadget or by reading a new book that has unique parenting ideas, find what works BEST for you and your kids. What are some of your parenting hacks?