Hacks for Around the House/Getting Out and About

There is no doubt, that getting out of the house with small humans can be a lengthy process (and a trying one at times).

Here are a few hacks that have helped us around the house and in getting away on time (for the most part).

Note: This post was written when I had all small humans at home - ages 4, 3, 1 and baby

Hydration 💧

With four small people who need to be well-watered, I decided that they needed to take hydration into their own hands. My job is to keep their water bottles full. Their job is to drink water and return their bottles to the ‘water bottle bench’. Each child has 2 bottles that are identical – so that one is always at home and the other is for taking out in the car/on trips. Each child knows their own bottle (even our one year old) and know they are responsible for returning them to the station. It works brilliantly!

Sun Safety ☀️

Hat basket – hats are easy to lose. We have one hat box/basket that all hats get dumped into as we return from an outing.

Pump suncream – near the hat box, is a pump pack of suncream that the kids/I apply before we go out – that way you aren’t scrambling for creams/losing children once out and about.

Snacks 🥘

Once you’ve got toddlers, snacks are life. You can survive without your nappy wallet for an outing, but if you’ve forgotten your snacks… You. Will. Pay. 😂

For getting out of the house quickly, particularly in the season of having a newborn, I have pre-prepared snack tubes – the nude food ones that screw together. Each child has a colour so mine are in stacks of 4. Easy to hand out, easy to pack away, easy to tailor to each child and great on the go. You could have a few towers stacked and ready in the cupboard or have an empty tower stacked that gets fruit put into it the morning of, so there is a fresh element too!

Leaving a clean house behind 🧼

There is not much worse than returning from a morning out with ratty toddlers to a house that is out of control. I am a firm believer in getting the kids (from toddler-age) to tidy things up. My motivation? TV time. It happens twice a day – morning and late afternoon.

My kids don’t get to watch TV unless the house is packed up. I am lucky to have kids that sit while watching (I know not all do) but it means that for half an hour before we head out, the house is tidy and we will return to calm rather than chaos (well, that’s the goal anyway!)

My friend suggested doing the same thing in the evening before dinner – no TV until the house is all tidied up – and that has worked brilliantly too as it reduces pack away time post-dinner when there is already a mammoth clean up to contend with!

Baking 🥖

Sometimes you just want your kids (or yourself) to have home made rather than store bought foods and my kids don’t like eating thawed baked goods from the freezer. It is almost impossible to bake fresh on a morning when you have to get out the door with multiple small people, if you are cooking from scratch.

My life hack for this – do a big cook up on the weekend of batters/doughs – biscuits, muffins, pikelets etc and freeze portions in snap locks. Pop them in the fridge the night before you want to use them to thaw out and then bake them fresh in the morning. Simply snip the corner of the snap lock and squeeze them out! No real mess to clean up and generally cooking time is around 10 minutes. Who doesn’t have that?!

Sandwiches Hack 🥪

When you have a new(ish) baby, packing lunches has to be quick! In those early days, I would buy a couple of fresh loaves of bread (frozen fresh means they are still yummy and fresh when served) and make batches of cut sandwiches – again, freezing them in snap locks. I would have a Vegemite, peanut butter (not for outings to playgroups due to allergies), butter (my biggest likes them plain sometimes) and honey. I cut them into different shapes to keep it interesting for them. Once you’ve got that stash of sandwiches, if you have a good, sealed lunch box like a Yumbox, you just grab a few sandwich pieces out and toss them in – and they are thawed and fresh-feeling by the time they are wanting to eat them. Lots of time saved of a morning and quite quick to punch out on a Sunday afternoon ready for the week!

Bottle Feeding Station (For those who aren’t able to breast feed)

Bottle-feeding can be something that takes a lot of time with the prep, cleaning/sterilising and storing of all the bottle bits and pieces. I had a station set up in the kitchen so that they also are easy to grab and go.

I found that Pigeon stacking formula storing towers were very helpful https://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/buy/7130/pigeon-powdered-milk-container-3-pack?gclid=Cj0KCQiAz53vBRCpARIsAPPsz8XLek2uvZ_fTguTayN7G9ZzMEeBR29tsDuJHVRfNBbY-1TzsJ0wFTkaAgCzEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds as i could could out the portions the night before and have all feeds ready for the following day – bottles filled with cooled, boiled water, ready to be mixed, shaken and served (these do not need to be heated, just served at room temperature). Below is a picture of our set up – It’s just an IKEA pantry shelf with a container beneath (for dirty, rinsed but not properly cleaned bottles/sippy cups)and non-slip matting on top to allow things to drain after being cleaned. We also had 2 full voss bottles of cooled, boiled water beside the station so you don’t run the risk of running dry! Everything was all in the one spot next to the Tommy Tippy steriliser. Again, there would be a stack for going out and another for being at home, just to make things easier.

I’m sure there are MANY more hacks out there, but these have been a few that have helped us get to where we are going, relatively on time! (most of the time)

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