Wisdom in a swipe — the best TikTok parenting hacks
For Parenting Media Source Social Ages Advice Of All Good A Be Of Can Children picture: Istock
Whether concerned about your toddler’s soother addiction, your nine-year-old’s refusal to listen, or your teen’s attitude problem, practical advice is just a few clicks and scrolls away.
Here’s a selection of TikTok parenting hacks for 2025.
We all have things we wish we knew as first-time parents, and Autumn Grace, who shares parenting hacks on social media, is no different.
In one video, Grace offers a hack for transferring your baby from the warmth of your arms into their cot and all you need is a heating pad.
“If your baby keeps waking up and crying as soon as you transfer them to the crib, try laying a heating pad in their crib, while you do their bedtime routine and, once you’re ready to lay them down in the crib, remove the heating pad,” says Grace, explaining that, this way, babies “don’t even notice the warmth difference between you and the crib”.
I wish I’d known.
In this video, shared by Adelynn Minnee, the conversation between mother and toddler daughter, Bella, goes like this:
“Bella, can you drink water?”
“No like it.”
“No like it?” echoes Mum in a mildly surprised tone. “Can you drink some water?”
“No like it.”
“No?” asks Mum. “Water’s good for you.”
“No like it,” says Bella and repeats the words, while pushing away the bottle.
Mum puts the bottle on the table within Bella’s reach, then picks up her own water bottle, says “cheers”, and offers it for clinking against Bella’s.
You’ve guessed: Bella picks up her bottle, they clink, she repeats “cheers”, and drinks water in imitation of her mum.
The video concludes with Mum asking, “Wanna do cheers again?”. And Bella does.
This works, says Minnee, because it combines fun with example.
“The best way to help your child get in to the habit of drinking water is to do it together. Children learn a lot by copying what you do. [Routinely] drink water with your child, and add a little happy ‘cheers’ each time you both take a sip.”
That Minnee smiles at her daughter throughout, stays calm, and echoes back her child’s words to her — showing she’s hearing her — all help, too.
But there is a caveat: The hack “works 90% of the time; there’s no 100% when dealing with toddlers”.
Nanny Amies, who gives parenting advice on TikTok, likes to explain the rationale behind her hacks.
“When babies are born, they have a suckle reflex: It keeps them alive, helps them feed, and is involuntary for the first three months,” she says, adding that some babies’ suckle reflex is so strong they’re still “rooting” and seeming hungry, even after feeding.
Dummies, she explains, are designed to comfort that suckle reflex.
In her video, Amies shares her wishes for her own daughter’s dummy use. “I don’t want her to be two years of age when she no longer has the suckle reflex, [yet] still needs that dummy in her mouth to feel comfortable.
“The dummy should be an intermittent thing. Discomfort should be intermittent. So if the dummy’s in her mouth more often than not, she’s really only going to feel that comfort when it’s in her mouth, and, therefore, discomfort when it’s not in her mouth.”
Amies’s preventative for dummy dependence has three steps:
- When your child’s upset, first offer yourself as comfort. “Try rocking, patting, shushing, singing,” says Amies.
- If that doesn’t work, calmly offer the dummy, but don’t talk about it. Don’t say, ‘Here, here, have your dummy — this will help’. Have no language surrounding the dummy, advises Amies. “This just sends the message to the little one that nothing’s going to work but the dummy. I don’t want to send that message. I want her to know she can calm without it.”
- When offering the dummy, pop it in your child’s mouth; once she has calmed, “whip it out again”.
This is usually enough, says Amies, who finds — if there’s upset at the dummy disappearing — that rocking and shushing of the child calms them at this stage.
Amies has one further tip: Offer different dummies, so your child “doesn’t get hooked on one”.
Rachael Rogers, aka Considerate Momma, has this parenting hack: “Instead of making demands and commands for your strong-willed child... start asking them questions and getting them to think critically about the scenario for themselves.
The parent coach says all children have a basic need for some sense of power and control, and strong-willed children even more so. “And if you’re a strong-willed parent, it’s very likely you find yourself power-struggling with this strong-willed child more often than you’d like.”
Illustrating a positive communicative approach, Rogers recommends trying: “We’re about to go to Grandma’s, and I see a lot of toys on the floor. What do you think could happen to your toys if we leave them out with the dog?
“Yeah, the dog could chew them up. Are you OK with that?
“I’m not either. So what should we do about that?
“Yeah, I think picking them up is the best idea.”
It’s an approach that can be adapted to different parenting scenarios, says Rogers.
This is undoubtedly a tricky age and paediatric psychologist Dr Ann-Louise Lockhart has a bite-sized hack for what not to do.
“When your teen’s giving you attitude, don’t automatically give it back,” she counsels, while acknowledging that this is easier said than done.
“This feedback loop means — as they are oppositional, defiant, and argumentative — parents will often find themselves being standoffish, more argumentative, or ignoring them.
“And when you’re doing that, you’re communicating to them, ‘I’m going to allow your feelings, your attitude, your behaviour, to influence and affect me [to the extent that] I’m going to give your approach right back to you’.”
That’s not the way to go, says Lockhart, who explains it is not our place as parents to assume the same inappropriate attitude as our child.
“We’re supposed to take the higher road. We’re also supposed to be the one modelling regulation and regulatory behaviours: Calmness, self-control.”
Lisa Bunnage, of Bratbusters Parenting, understands that parenting is the hardest job that has the least amount of training. “And yet, everyone expects you to be an expert, especially you.”
She shares her top-three tips for parenting teens in her video:
- “Listen to understand and show empathy. Don’t listen to gather information and lecture, or they will shut you out. Use these [ears] more than that [mouth].”
- “Negotiate pretty much everything. It’s not a blanket statement. It’s just something like this: ‘Hey, I want you to put your dirty clothes in the hamper from now on, what do you want from me?’”
- “Don’t sweat the small stuff with teenagers. If they do something stupid, say, ‘Well, that was stupid, do you want to hear what I did at your age?’ And laugh it off.”
In a video that went viral, mom influencer Hannah Flint shares some uplifting clips featuring her ‘hard-to-parent’ child: “This is our ‘hard child’, our ‘doesn’t listen’ child.
“She is also our resilient child, fearless child, independent child, our try-anything-child, the one who makes us laugh the most and speaks her mind. So just in case you need a reminder on those hard days, the ‘hard’ ones are the ones who will change the world.”
It’s a beautiful reminder that in every parent’s life, a little rain must fall, but that the result can be beautiful.