Lazy mum hacks for when you REALLY can’t be bothered – including a budget game that’ll keep kids entertained for hours

Lazy mum hacks for when you REALLY can’t be bothered – including a budget game that’ll keep kids entertained for hours

01/25/2021

SELF-confessed ‘lazy’ mums have been sharing their parenting hacks online to make life ‘as easy as possible’ when they really can’t be bothered. 

Whether it’s by using paper plates to avoid washing up or cooking frozen food in the toaster in order not to dirty up the oven – most parents are guilty of wanting an easier life.

But these mums have made it their mission to come up with the best lazy hacks – from hilariously pretending to be asleep while the kids do life drawings of them to giving their little ones free reign of the snack drawer. 

And one of them even revealed the best budget game to keep her kids entertained for hours  – with minimal effort. 

Kerry Davies, a self-described ‘lazy mum’ who shares her tips with her 11,000 followers on Instagram, said she sets challenges, tasks and competitions for her two sons. 

This is a ‘free’ game and all she has to do is sit and judge – while another mum said setting her kids on a ‘mission’ is her cheap and easy game to keep her little ones entertained. 

Kerry – and lots of other mums -are proudly sharing their ideas to cut corners on social media, with a few reckoning they’ve even invented some time-saving tips. 

Mum-of-two Pauline Slepoy from Melbourne in Australia said she loves using ‘lazy’ hacks to help with day-to-day life and raising her kids.

Self-described as The Lazy Mum on Instagram, the Human Resources Manager, 37, regularly shares fun hacks including using a bedtime app as well as telling little white lies. 

The mum, who has a cleaning timetable for big household chores, admits it isn’t possible to get everything done in one day.

She said she ‘purposely breaks it up’ and this gives her more time.’

Pauline added: ‘I have not yet mastered how to to keep the kids entertained, however, a new robot friend, which we got for Christmas, has helped a great deal. 

‘It's an interactive children's robot, they love it and spend lots of time playing with it. 

‘Setting the kids on a “mission” is the best way to get 10 minutes of free time. So I tell them they need to build the best spaceship ever out of Lego. 

‘My son gets super excited to build and show me what he has done.’

Pauline also uses a sleep app, Calm, to make bedtime easier and said her two-year-old now falls asleep within 20 minutes. 

‘The Lazy Mum’ said she has come up with a hack to get her kids to eat the food she makes. 

She said:  ‘My kids love eating the food they get given at daycare, but not what I make. 

‘So I told my son that I get all the food from daycare and he eats it. Not sure if it's the best and most honest hack out there, but it works! 

‘Another great hack I found to give them nutrition quickly and easily is through smoothies. I add spinach and berries – otherwise, there’s no chance they will eat any greens!’ 

Elsewhere Charlotte Lock, 43 from Bournemouth, has become somewhat of an Internet sensation after sharing her hilarious ‘relatable mum’ videos on her TitkTok page. 

The brand influencer and business owner of The Bournemouth Wrap Girl, said most mums are ‘sleep deprived’ and ‘time poor’ so hacks are always useful if they make life easier. 

She said: ‘Generally most mums are sleep deprived and time poor so if there’s little hacks to make life a little easier or fun then we should definitely be sharing them.

‘Having three kids is fairly relentless! I have three – a seven-year-old daughter and four-year-old twins. 

‘If there’s a mum hack to make life easier, I’ll give it a go. Even better if it keeps the children quiet for 5 or 10 minutes!’

Charlotte shares some of her hilarious mum hacks online – one being a fun clip which sees her pretending to nap on the sofa while her children draw her. 

She titled the clip ‘best mum hack’, saying: ‘Grab yourself 10 minutes sleep while the kids are doing some ‘life drawing”.’ 

While another clever hack Charlotte shared – saw her solve a kitchen problem that many mums face.

After struggling to fit more than one dish in the microwave, Charlotte came up with the clever hack of putting an additional dish on top of a mug to make room for both.

She joked: ‘Best hack ever! I cannot believe I got through life not knowing this!’ as she was finally able to fill up the microwave. 

Elsewhere the mum-of-three said she had come up with another fun hack to make parenting easier.

She wrote: ‘Want to hear a great parent hack? 

‘I tell my kids that my burglar alarm sensor is wired to the North Pole and Santa is watching their behaviour.’ 

Meanwhile mum Sianne, who shares hilarious videos on her Tiktok page, said an easy way to keep kids entertained – with minimal effort – is to give them a kitchen utensil.

The social media savvy mum said: ‘Give them a colander and some pipe cleaners, they’ll be there for hours!’ 

However her funny ‘What’s the WIFI password?’ hack on Tiktok hilariously sees the mum get her kids to ‘clean their rooms’ in exchange for the password.

But self-confessed ‘lazy’ mum Kerry Davies insists there’s no real ‘hacks’ to motherhood as she admitted ‘parenting is hard.’ 

The mother-of-two, 39, from Crewe, Cheshire, said her style of parenting is often referred to as ‘lazy’ but she thinks it's the best way to prepare her children for the real world.

The Estate Agency Director said she aims to find the quickest and easiest way for parenting and maximises the use of technology. 

Kerry said: ‘My style is very much, get the children to do things for themselves and make life as easy as possible for me in the process.

‘Some call it lazy, some call it selfish but ultimately I am preparing my children for the world instead of protecting them from it.’

Kerry, who is mum to 14-year-old Gabriel and 10-year-old Zachary, said mealtimes are the perfect time for the boys to help themselves.

She doesn’t force her sons to have breakfast, while she encourages them to make their own packed lunches. She said her favourite ‘lazy’ hack is definitely the slow cooker. 

Kerry commented: ‘Before work, I fill the slow cooker with chicken breasts, frozen veggies and add a casserole packet, mix to water, stick it on low and then when the boys help themselves. 

‘This minimises the number of pots that need cleaning and also means that the boys can feed themselves without waiting for me to get home.

‘The boys literally just help themselves to the contents of the slow cooker and will add a microwave packet of rice to it or bread or tortilla chips.’

She also lets her sons make food for themselves using the microwave and she has shown them how to heat up tins of ravioli and spaghetti bolognese. 

The mum-of-two said: ‘They can also make grilled tortilla wraps using the George Foreman grill; Zachary learned this on Tiktok.

‘When I go food shopping I specifically buy products that can be simply warmed up or are easy for the boys to make themselves.

‘They also have free access to all food in the house including our snack drawer – they eat when they are hungry. We have a dishwasher so I don’t have to wash up.’

Another ‘lazy mum hack’ Kerry swears by, is to not separate her washing. She said everything goes in together on a quick cool wash as this saves time. 

Then most items go straight in the tumble dryer or are hung onto coat hangers to dry – and she doesn’t iron bed sheets either.

‘Most of the clothes just get folded or hung straight up with the exception of school shirts,’ says Kerry.

‘I don’t want to spend my evenings and weekends ironing clothes or doing laundry. I don't even have grass in the garden – so I don’t have to mow it or maintain it.

‘I use cleaning wipes for everything – everything gets wiped down, it’s one size fits all.’

Kerry’s lazy hacks also include taking full advantage of technology – even when her sons were little, the mum would put subtitles on their TV programmes to help the boys learn to read. 

She sets reminders on their phones for homework and encourages educational apps – Zachary enjoys the new learning stream on TikTok and loves watching YouTube. 

The mum tells Gabriel and Zachary to ‘Ask Siri’ or ‘Ask Google’ if they have a question and says they are both ‘tech savvy enough’ to be able to find answers for themselves.

She added: ‘If we are doing something as a family we plan it in advance and everyone gets a say in what we do – freedom to choose their activities.

‘If we have nothing planned then they do as they please. During the week Zachary goes to bed when I do but if Gabriel wants to stay up so he will set an alarm to go to bed.

‘Zachary wakes up early even on the weekend, he likes to play out and will play out for long periods of time. Gabriel sets his own alarm for when he wants to get up.’

The mum, who shares her fun lazy hacks on her Instagram page, said she keeps in contact with her sons via mobiles and they have Find My Phone apps so she can see where they are. 

10-year-old Zachary often Facetimes his mum to show her where he is and what he is doing.

Kerry said: ‘We have a very open and honest relationship with our boys, they ask a question, they get the truth.

‘They are well behaved boys because there are few boundaries to break and we let them make their own decisions. 

‘A lot of parenting stress is as a result of imposing lots of rules and having high expectations.

‘I always seek out the quickest, easiest way to do things, be it cooking, cleaning or fun.’ 

She said one of the laziest hacks that her whole household uses – is ringing and texting each other, when they are all in the same house. 

Instead of spending money on budget games, Kerry gets her sons to amuse themselves. 

She often asks them to find something or set a challenge like ‘who can make the best paper airplane?’ and she will judge them. 

The mum added: ‘A budget game with minimal effort is a challenging one; I often get them to find out how to make something.

‘Or I will say “who can build the most impressive fortress on minecraft” and I will judge them, sometimes they make TikTok videos and see how many likes they can get.

‘I often find that setting the boys a task or a competition is the best budget game – this way, I don’t have to do anything and I just judge their result!’

And a mum of triplets shares brilliant hacks to make daily life easier including how to transform a washing line into a swing.

In other parenting news we shared how a mum creates an epic carnival in her garden for the kids using cheap eBay buys and people are blown away by her efforts.

 Plus parents-of-six make daughter stunning fairy tale bed with huge play area and glow-in-the-dark paint for just £100.

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