50 mom-approved tips and tricks for everyday life

Life happens, especially with kids, and sometimes there are just little things that can make a big difference in your everyday life and make it a lot easier, especially if you have to react quickly sometimes. We’ve compiled some mom-approved tips and tricks that might help you as well in everyday life situations!

Bo-bos and owies

1. Use vanilla extract to avoid bruising. Just put some of the extract (artificial is enough) onto a bump and chances are very likely that you will not see a bruise the next day (works for adults, too). (Valerie @ Glittering Muffins)
2. Bicarbonate of soda for bee stings. Really worked for us! (Margarita @ Red Ted Art)
3. Cutting an onion and putting it on the sting also works, since it pulls out the bee’s poison. (Alex @ Glittering Muffins)
4. If your child gets an owie in sensitive places, let him eat a bowl of ice cream and have him put it on his lap. It’ll help make things numb. (Ticia @ Adventures in Mommydom)
5. Sucking on a Popsicle for a cut lip will help clot and stop the bleeding. (Ticia @ Adventures in Mommydom)
6. You can use concealer or lipstick as “special medicine,” for those owies kids swear need a bandaid, but really don’t. Can you tell my kids are active and get lots of owies? (Ticia @ Adventures in Mommydom)
7. We keep a few soothers (dummies/pacifiers) in the freezer for those many mouth owies in the toddler years! (Jane @ Mama Pea Pod)
8. For a small burn/singe, apply toothpaste asap.. keep for 30 secs and then hold under water .. The skin darkening doesn’t happen.. I tried it many times on myself .. I am a messy cook. (Shruti @ Mindful Meanderings)
9. Toothpaste on bug bites takes the itch out and makes you look silly enough to forget the bite ( White works- blue not so much) (Mel @ Play Activities & Raising Playful Tots)
10. An oatmeal bath can bring some much needed relief to hives. Grind up oatmeal until it’s a fine powder, then pour in a lukewarm bath while the water is running. It will temporarily relieve all the itchiness and can bring a lot of comfort. (Terri @ Creative Family Fun)

Arts & Crafts

1. Do you have half full glue bottles that are stuck closed, clogged, and unusable? Close the glue bottles as tight as you can (glue and all) and then run them through the dishwasher on hot cycle- make sure they are sitting with the nozzle end facing up. When the cycle finishes, take them out, open them up, and wipe down the lids and bottles with a damp cloth. (Deborah @ Teach Preschool)
2. Do you want to use plastic baggies for a fun art idea but hate the word “Ziploc” plastered across the bag. Just put a little fingernail polish remover or rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and it will wipe right off. (Deborah @ Teach Preschool)
3. Oversized button up shirts (Big boys or small woman’s) make great smocks. Just put them on backward. (Jillian @ A Mom With A Lesson Plan)
4. Use a plastic pant hanger (free when you buy pants) to hang up art that needs to dry. (Jillian @ A Mom With A Lesson Plan)
5. Put petroleum jelly (white glue bottles) where you twist to open and shut the lid (orange part on Elmers) and you’ll never have problems with the lid staying open or being glued shut. (this was a life saver for an art teacher!) (Melissa @ Imagination Soup)

Cleaning

1. Rub a walnut over scratches in wood furniture to make it look like new. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
2. WD-40 should remove crayon from television and computer screens, although I have never tried myself and would be nervous to. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
3. Hydrogen peroxide takes out blood with no bleach effect. (Jamie @ Hands On : As We Grow)
4. Polish Remover removes permanent marker. (Jamie @ Hands On : As We Grow)
5. Once my son drew with permanent marker all over my wood floor. My friend told me if I rubbed dry erase marker over the top it would come off and it did! (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
6. OFF Bug spray also take off permanent marker. (Kristin @ Sense Of Wonder)
7. Vinegar can get out grape juice stains! (Melissa @ Imagination Soup)
8. Mr. Clean sponges only work on white walls and doors – but they’re great! (Kristen @ Busy Kids Happy Mom)
9. Baby wipes can wipe off most anything – we’ve even used it to clean permanent marker off pumpkins (drives me nuts when they write the price right ON the pumpkin!) (Jane @ Mama Pea Pod)
10. If you use cloth diapers and someone uses diaper cream or washes them with softener you will get a build up. If you soak them in dawn dish soap it will strip the build up out of the diapers. (Kristin @ Sense Of Wonder)

Baby care

1. Breast milk is a great treatment for pink eye! (Allison @ No Time For Flash Cards)
2. Breast milk helps unclog a stuffy baby nose too (Alissa @ Creative With Kids)
3. Breast milk is also great for ear infections (Kristin @ Sense Of Wonder)
4. Breast milk is also great for eczema. (Allison @ No Time For Flash Cards)
5. Breast milk is good against eye infections like conjunctivitis. (Margarita @ Red Ted Art)
6. In the winter baby wipes tend to freeze so instead keep a a dry washcloth in a baggie and you have something not frozen to do your diaper change which I’m sure baby will appreciate (Valerie @ Glittering Muffins)
7. Always, ALWAYS put down a clean diaper before removing the dirty one. (Jamie @ Hands On : As We Grow)
8. For a young baby crying…turn the tap on, the running water sound will often make the baby go to sleep. (Helen @ Curly Birds)
9. Cut the tops off of toddler tube socks and use them as knee pads to save your child’s knees when they’re learning to walk. Like leg warmers for the knees – not fashionable, but they work! (Kristen @ Busy Kids Happy Mom)
10. Babies love white noise. A dark bathroom with the fan on can (sometimes) calm a crying baby. (Kristen @ Busy Kids Happy Mom)
11. Use baby powder to get sand off of bodies after being at the beach. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)

Bugs

1. If you have ants draw on the floor with a white chalk near where they come in and you won’t see them anymore (Valerie @ Glittering Muffins)
2. Ants also don’t like cinnamon. You can make a barrier from that as well. (Kristin @ Sense Of Wonder)
3. Dryer sheets will keep off mosquitos. (Kristin @ Sense Of Wonder)
4. Cloves stuck into oranges will keep insects away. And it also is very decorative. (Alex @ Glittering Muffins)
5. A little tea tree oil behind the ears to avoid lice. And tea tree oil in shampoo for prevention as well. (Jennifer @ Kitchen Counter Chronicles)

Food

1. Push a straw through the bottom of a strawberry and up to the leaves to take them out and still have a pretty strawberry. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
2. After cutting and apple put it all back together with a rubber band to avoid browning. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
3. Take a popsicle and put a cupcake liner through the stick…that way it can catch all the drippings. (Akane @ Juggling With Kids)
4. Turn your muffin tin over and bake cookies onto the bottom of it to make a cookie cup for eating ice cream in. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
5. A pizza cutter works great for cutting up food into toddler size bites, be it toast, pancakes and other stuff. (Alex @ Glittering Muffins)

Various

1. Use a clorox disinfectant wipe container (the tall ones) to store plastic bags. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
2. Put a nylon stocking over your vacuum hose to find small items like an earring that fell. (Laura @ Art 4 Little Hands)
3. Put handi-wipes in the cup holder in your car and juice boxes under the seat (only when needed). (Kristen @ Busy Kids Happy Mom)
4. For bath toys, use a plastic strainer. put the toys in there and the water drains away. (Alex @ Glittering Muffins)

If you have any tips and tricks that we do not have in our list yet, please leave us a comment, we would love to read them and maybe add them to a second edition

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