Parents have to stick together.
Some mothers have discovered the easy secret to an enjoyable trip with a toddler: Painter’s tape.
“I swear to you. It’s great on the plane but in addition on vacation,” Canadian photographer, creator and mom of two Nichola Knox wrote on Instagram last month.
“Label the child’s cups, a bandaid for when your toddler ‘really needs one,’ taping over locks and drawers you don’t want them entering into. The list goes on. It’s eternally the ‘weird’ thing I bring on trips.”
Knox’s followers commented with just a few more uses, including covering automatic flush sensors on public toilets; making a hopscotch grid; and taping over light switches so kids can’t play with them.
One traveling-with-toddler tipster called painter’s tape “such an underrated item,” especially on a recent trip.
“I boarded the flight somewhat bit before my husband and son, and I put some painter’s tape on the latch to the tray table,” the TikToker explained in May.
“And we didn’t spend our entire flight attempting to keep him from opening the tray table. It was amazing.”
One other avid traveler says she uses painter’s tape to create stickers and a play mat on the tray table of airplanes and to tape over outlets and any dangling items in hotel rooms.
“That is your babyproofing workhorse,” she gushed as she held up a thick roll of blue painter’s tape.
Social media users have called the tape hack “expert-level parenting.”
“So easy but so amazing,” one raved.
“That is incredible. Huge brain energy. It potentiates their creativity, is ecological, mess free, and useful too,” one other praised.