Save
Author: natosha
How to stage a house to sell in a day
Home Staging To Sell Your House Fast
If you’re doing some home staging to sell your house fast, you’re in the right place. I’m going to share my favorite home staging tips for a quick sale! We just listed our house for sale. It’s been a long journey to this point, but when all is said and done, we have a beautiful house as an end product. And staging the house was just the cherry on top. We sold our last house in 36 hours and this house already has 3 offers on it!
This is the general overview of how to stage a home. Check out this post if you’re looking for a detailed step-by-step list of how to stage your house to sell.
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
Steps to Stage A House To Sell Fast
Get a vision of what it should be.
Think of a vacation rental or your favorite homes in magazines. When you are listing your home for sale, it should look like a vacation rental. It is clean, it’s organized, and it’s decorated. It’s simple but not bland. It’s equipped but not cluttered.
The Most Important thing: Prepacking!!
The absolute most important element of home staging is decluttering. If you don’t need it every single day, it shouldn’t be out. Would you pack it to take on vacation? Nope? Then you don’t need it while your house is on the market.
And the things that you will need the next few weeks (like a toothbrush) need to be tucked away in a proper place (like a drawer). If you absolutely must keep something out that is not solely decorative, put it in a basket. Every surface in your home should be for decorative purposes only (except maybe your cable box under your tv). Even your soap dispensers should be simple but decorative. These soap dispensers are inexpensive and will appeal to almost anyone.
If you aren’t committed to pre-packing and decluttering, then why list your house for sale at all? Commitment to a show-worthy house will make is sell-able. So, either, you’re in, or you’re not. So decide now because if you can’t pre-pack, then you aren’t ready for the next step of staging a house….
Take everything away. AKA Declutter again.
This part hurts a little so get ready. You’ll need to pack away everything that you either don’t use every day or doesn’t make your house beautiful. Get a stack of boxes and moving supplies (this kit makes it easy to get started). Make a pile in the center of each room with all the things that did not fit in their proper place (like extra towels, knick knacks, and appliances (fans, humidifiers, toasters, etc)). You are going to put each of these things in a box. Clear off your entire kitchen counter top and upper cabinets, too. No, it doesn’t really look that nice. It needs to go.
After you have your pile of extras, start boxing it away. I like to keep my boxes per room (bathroom extras), not per category (small appliances). If you mix rooms, it will take longer to unbox the mixed up boxes later. I prepacked and decluttered about 20 boxes worth in both homes I staged recently. This is hard work but selling your house for full price is worth it, right?
Decluttering is the absolute most important part of home staging.
Put a few things back.
Before you tape up your boxes, look at your pile of items and begin to replace the necessities. In our first home, I emptied a drawer of extra dish towels to hold all of my large kitchen utensils like wooden spoons that I used every day because my spoons just didn’t look very nice. But this time around I had a cute little crock and kept them on the counter because they fit in with the decor and made me feel like cooking.
Decorate in scenes.
After you put the necessities back out on the counter, you can start the fun part: decorating. I didn’t spend a lot on our decor for home staging. Instead, I got all of my decor items out and put them where I could see them. Then, I went around the house creating vignettes in each room. A vignette is like a little picture-perfect scene that’s part of a bigger picture.
To create a home staging vignette, you want to look at each large piece of furniture or decor in the room as an anchor. You also want to make sure you have enough similar pieces to fill that particular room.
Example: Even though I’m trying to phase teal out of my home decor (the hubs isn’t a fan :/), I have a lot of teal decor items left that I just can’t part with. It was an easy decision to use teal as an accent color throughout the house since it tied each room together, making the house feel more cohesive. I also moved the furniture around the house so that no room had only one type of furniture material (e.g. the black dresser in the foyer came out of my son’s all-wood bedroom so it wouldn’t stand out).
After you have your furniture and accent colors ready, you just build up some height and soften it with some greenery. Pairs are romantic (good for the master bedroom) and 3s or 5s are easy on the eyes. I also tried to have at least one (albeit fake) plant or flower in each room. Each piece of furniture should be a complete, but simple, ensemble.
Don’t forget about your walls. Leaving empty walls can leave a house feeling cold and unloved. And, I’m not going to lie, there were some strategic placements of art that said “Home Sweet Home” and art about embracing possibilities, only one chance, & making life beautiful. Did it make a difference? Probably not, but the wall art definitely softened each room.
Are you feeling like your home decor just doesn’t measure up or you need something extra to freshen up the space? I totally get that, too. We purchased a comforter set (similar to this one
If you know you need something but aren’t sure what, check out my post on my favorite home staging necessities.
Hide the ugly.
Let’s be honest. Life isn’t always magazine-worthy, but deep down in there, don’t we all dream of living a mess-free clutter-less life with zero maintenance issues? That ideal is part of what you are selling to potential buyers. “Living here is a breeze. Look, I don’t even have trash.” Yep, you read that right. I even hide the trash can. I also use decor items as an opportunity to hide the imperfections in our home that give it it’s…uhum…character.
Take my steps, for example. (Pardon the hazy photo.)
You think these plants are merely decorative? Think again. The bottom step needs replacing soon. The watering can takes the attention away from where a sliver of a step came off. And that stately boxwood at the top is cleverly (sort-of) concealing a hole we patched in the wall. Tread carefully here, though. You don’t want to draw attention to the flaws. Just pull some of the attention away from the mundane and make the potential buyers’ senses come alive.
Skip the extras.
You want to work in groups of 3’s and keep things simple. You want potential buyers to see the floor and see themselves in the space. You’re selling square footage and the hope of a nice home. If you wouldn’t see a vignette like that in a magazine, skip it. NOTHING is better than something wrong.
I really wanted to make this little entrance more inviting, but I just couldn’t find the right wreath or element to go here (everything at the stores was covered in Easter eggs this time of year), so I just left it alone. It eventually did get a pail of white flowers to hold it open, though.
Clean.
After you get your whole house decluttered and vignetted up, it should be crazy easy to clean. (Want to know why you’ll never buy Mr. Clean Magic Erasers ever again?) There’s always a few more details that need to be taken care of (like those left-over decor items). After you box those up, it’s time to call your Realtor!
If you’re ready for even more step by step help, check out this post for a list of steps to stage your house to sell.
Ask a pro (or at least a friend).
If you’ve already given staging your house a try, but you still aren’t sure if you’re doing the right things and just need a second opinion, I totally get it. Sometimes it helps a ton to have an outside perspective, especially in a house. You have a tendency to see the day-to-day messes, while an outsider will have an overall perspective.
By the second house I staged in a year, I had the listing process down to a science. Similar to the rules of home decor, there are rules to home staging. I understand the rules and can help you sell your house in no time.
For this month only, I am opening a few free mini home staging consultations! I am offering a free mini-consultation (worth $149) to give you custom advice on what to do with your home.
You can send me up to 5 pictures of what your house looks like now, and I will respond back with a list of items you can do in each room to get it listing-ready. Think action items like “Declutter desk” “Hide/remove toilet bowl brush” and “Move sofa to “x” location.” You’ll get steps you can actually take to get your home show-ready in no time with no guesswork involved.
To reserve a free mini-consultation, you just need to hit this box and drop in your email address to claim your spot. You’ll hear back from me soon with our next steps so that we can get you the feedback you’ve been needing.
So, if your house is currently on the market (or you wish it was), this time next week you could be preparing for appraisals, inspections, and closings. Or you could be wishing that you knew what to do to get your house show-ready before it hit the market three weeks ago.
Which one do you want to be?
I think I know the answer.
I’ve been there. Let me help you.
Turning $4000 of life’s lemons into lemonade
Today was a bittersweet day for us. Our house was remediated yesterday. The crew was really sweet. They made our (sheetless) beds, cleaned our rooms up, and even fixed some things that were broken around our house. But that kind of work doesn’t come without a price.
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
A hefty price, at that. It actually broke our hearts to have some of our worst fears confirmed a few months ago. We spent 5 months pouring love into (renovating) this house and got to spend only 2 sick months in it before we moved out “just to see” if the house was making us sick. Suspicions confirmed.
Sometimes life gives you lemons and you’ve just got to put on your big girl panties and deal with the bitterness. But, the good news is that if you can find some sugar and water, you can come out with lemonade.
Our lemonade comes in the form of credit cards. For our Dave Ramsey family, this is taboo, but it’s the silver lining for us at the moment. Yes, this house put us in serious debt. I wouldn’t recommend it. But, I would sometimes recommend using stellar credit to your advantage. Here’s how we did it.
Right now (and often), Southwest and Chase are offering their Southwest Premier card with 50,000 bonus points. And the Rapid Rewards program is awesome. We used it for our 5 year anniversary to upgrade our wedding rings and I wear the bonus from that credit card on my finger every day. Real diamonds and gold.
It doesn’t come without strings, though. The first string is that you have to spend $2,000 with the credit card in the first 3 months of having it open (the details vary). And the second string is it comes with a $99 annual fee. So, basically, when you open the card, you already owe them 100 bucks.
But here’s the good part. 50,000 rapid reward points comes out to $500 in gift cards! You read that right! So, I pay $100 and get $500 back in gift cards. It’s not a bad deal. And if you’re like us, you can get one for each person. That comes out to $200 in fees spent for $1000 back in gift cards.
Don’t forget you have to spend $2000 for each card, though. Before we found out about our house situation, I planned to make the $2000 happen by putting everything I could on the card, including bills. But, it just so happens that our remediation is $4,000. See where I’m going with this? We’ve already got our spending taken care of!!! Sugar for our lemonade!
The next thing we have to do is sell our house and pay off the hefty balance, which should happen in the next month or two. And then, we pick out our gift cards! Hooray!
So, in essence, we’re spending $4200 ($4k for remediation and $200 in fees for 2 cards) and getting mold remediation and $1000 in gift cards. That’s really not a bad deal when you think about it.
Want me to make it even sweeter? Because, I mean, who doesn’t like a cherry on top? I’m going to get Walmart gift cards. Not that sweet? Well, Sam’s accepts Walmart gift cards. And guess what they sell at a discount? Disney gift cards. It’s about 5% off (just like at Target if you have a Red Card). So, if I spend my $1,000 at Sam’s on Disney gift cards, I’ll be getting $1,050 to spend on our Disney vacation.
I know. Our sad mold remediation just turned into half of a Disney vacation that we were praying to be able to take next year already anyway. Now, we’re just praying that our cute little (healthy) house sells now. God is good!
How to clean a chandelier
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
We moved into a really cool, very old home with beautiful light fixtures. I should say beautiful but disgustingly dirty light fixtures. The house had been a rental home until a smoker bought the place. Can you even?
Lord help me. I cleaned the you-know-what out of that house, repainted, replaced light switches, everything I could think of.
And when I was whooped from a day of painting on top of a ladder in a house that was 85* (and who knows how hot it was on the ceiling), I would crash into my chair and stare up at the ceiling.
Only to see the grossest, brownest, beautiful light fixture looking down at me. Begging me to clean it. And honestly, day after day I was just too sore or too tired to clean it. It glowed a weird creamy brown color. Really.
But one day my mom came for a visit. She helped me hang curtains in the whole house. And when I had hung curtains in 4 rooms, she volunteered to clean my light fixture for me. So it was her turn to climb the ladder.
Hooray! Mom to the rescue. She got some cleaner (we used Windex). I was surprised how easily it cut through the tar and grease from the cigarette smoke.
You’ll need a roll (yes, a roll!) of paper towels, especially if you have a chandelier with a lot of sparkly things. And you’ll need a trashbag.
You’ll also want a tarp to catch the yucky drips.
And if you’re a weenie like me, you’ll want cleaning gloves.
Here’s what you do.
- Lay out your tarp and set up your ladder to the side of your chandelier.
- Put your paper towels and cleaner on your ladder.
- Turn off the light.
- Gloves on unless you’re a really brave soul (like my mom).
- First, spray down the entire chandelier, taking care to miss the light bulbs.
- Then, start working on the top few sections. You want to spray the main areas then wipe it down.
- Once you finish one arm of the chandelier, you should get a dry paper towel to sparkle up the dangling crystals.
- Continue working your way down the chandelier until you get to the bottom.
- **This is the important part** Step down off your ladder before putting your supplies away.
- You’ll most likely find one or two pieces that you missed. And if you don’t climb back up to clean them, they’ll taunt you until you do.
It only took us 20 minutes tops, from the idea to having a white sparkly chandelier. And since we cleaned it, I can’t tell you how much more relaxing it is to crash in the chair after a long day of work.
Are you flossing all wrong?
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
Are you flossing wrong?
Have you ever done something your entire life only to find out it was a waste of time because you were doing it all wrong? This is Nathan’s story about how his first cavity was caused by his faithful flossing fiasco. I’m giving you the whole story so hopefully you can save yourself some cavities and wasted time from improper flossing.
He’s a straight-up guy, my husband. He does what he’s supposed to. Skip brushing your teeth because you’re tired? Um, no? Eat a cupcake because you’re mad? Why? Turn off the air conditioner before turning off your car? Most definitely. This guy does almost his entire life by. the. book. And I love him for it. Usually.
And so he flosses his teeth. I’ll be honest. I’m not a very good flosser. I know it’s really good, but it really hurts because the floss always gets stuck and then goes full force into my gums. My mouth is really small. Just literally, though.
So he flosses. I don’t (usually) floss. But, at least I know how to floss properly. I always assumed he did, too. Since he’s such a flossing pro, afterall.
Turns out his entire flossing life has been a lie. He officially has 3 cavities! Gasp with me now! gasp! Mr. Flosser has 3 cavities. Where you ask? Right where it would count if he was an actual flosser.
Did you know you’re supposed to floss around your tooth? If your gums were a mountain that comes to a peak between your teeth, the floss should slide all the way down the mountain on both sides. To almost the center of the bottom of your tooth. On every tooth.
The dentist lies to me and says it doesn’t take very long, but just getting that floss wrapped around my fingers without it unwinding or turning them blue takes me a little while. So, when I do floss, I use the pick kinds. It really helps with my crazy close together teeth. And it makes it go faster. But that’s a lot of teeth and a lot of…floss-es.
You probably shouldn’t listen to me, though. Because, even though I’m married to Mr. Flosser, I’m not a Mrs. Flosser. And apparently, he isn’t, either.
But that is) the proper way to floss, in case your entire flossing life has been a lie like Mr. Flosser’s.
Find stylish toddler bedding
If you’ve searched for the perfect toddler bedding and come up short, this post is for you today!
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
You’ve seen the gorgeous kid bedrooms on Pinterest or your favorite home furnishing website. They’re furnished with handsome functional furniture, adorned with the cutest toys you’ve ever seen, and sprinkled with the perfect style elements to make any grownup or kid excited to go to sleep. Okay, well. Maybe not that last part but, it’s exactly what you have in mind your own toddler bedroom.
And then you go to the store. It’s Paw Patrol or Disney Princess. Or, if you’re lucky, teddy bears. The best blankets that are toddler sized are actually crib quilts and they look like it, too. What’s a stylish mama to do with a toddler in their own bed? Especially a stylish mama on a budget too small to walk in the door at Restoration Hardware?!
You could scour Etsy for a baby blanket or crib quilt that looks more grown-up than the typical teddy bears. But, it won’t take long before you realize that you could easily be dropping over $50 for a blanket your toddler might (or might not) use for a season or two.
Don’t get discouraged yet! I have figured out the perfect solution for attractive toddler bedding options on a budget! Like a $20 budget. Here’s the secret: Throws.
Yep. That opens a world of gorgeous, grown-up possibilities for your toddler’s bed! You want a modern toddler bed? No problem. Thinking a fluffy cloud blanket is the perfect choice? You got it. Or are you really aiming for the skies with a farmhouse toddler bed? Me too. I found the perfect woven throw at TJ Maxx for only $19.99 made by Max Studio (similar woven throw).
Want to hear the best part? If you design your toddler’s bedroom to fit in with the rest of the decor in your home (or at least in the same color family), you can use your new versatile toddler bedding in other parts of your home when your toddler grows out of his or her toddler bed.
I know, right? Genius. This is one of my most favorite discoveries yet to keep our home looking stylish, even in my son’s toddler bedroom.
Quick Ceiling Fan Upgrade for $5
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
You can update your ceiling fan from completely disgusting to brand new with just $5 and an hour or two with something you probably already have at home!
You know when something is so gross, you don’t even want to look at it? As if not looking somehow makes you safe from the dirt and grime? This is how we cleaned the grossest ceiling fan I’ve ever seen.
My son’s ceiling fan was like that when we moved into our house. After I noticed how gross and dirty it was, I turned it off even in the heat of the summer. And I prayed the dirt wouldn’t fall off. Haha.
His fan was especially disgusting because the guy who lived here before us was a smoker. Tar covered our walls and ceilings, and this fan showed it. There was gross brown tar all over this, and that oily tar from the smoke catches all the fuzz bunnies and makes monster greasy fuzz bunnies. Gross.
(Skip over this picture if you aren’t into seeing gross stuff. Yuck.)
I’m going to tell you how we fixed that puppy up since it isn’t in our budget to get a new one at the moment. It’s pretty easy (even for a beginner DIY’er) and super cheap. Just how I like things!!
You’ll need:
- A screwdriver
- Cleaning gloves if you’re squamish like me
- Degreaser or all-purpose cleaner
- Paper towels
- A ladder (or a bed under the fan you can stand on!)
- Spray paint
- About an hour (mostly to let the paint dry)
Optional:
- Cleaning gloves
- Spray primer
- A drop cloth to catch the overspray
Now let’s get down to business!
- Gloves on!
- First, you’ll want to unscrew the fan blades from the fan.
- Then, get your cleaner and paper towels to give the fan a good wipe down. If the lights have been on and are hot, be sure to spray cleaner on your towel, not the fan.
- Clean the blades real good.
- Lay out all your fan blades on your tarp and spray them in nice even strokes. If you have smoke tar on your blades, this is when you want to use your primer to make sure the paint will stick to any oil you didn’t get off thoroughly.
- Let it dry. And follow the instructions on the back of the spray paint can to know when you can apply your paint layer.
- Let it dry.
- Screw the fan blades back onto the fan.
- Stand back and hear the angels singing.
See? You, yep, even your busy doing-it-all mama self can have a brand new looking ceiling fan in no time!
Home Tour on Main Street
What a year we had in this house
This historic house gave us a run for our money. It’s our greatest mistake. It’s also one of our greatest accomplishments. It’s that wound that you subconsciously favor.
We bought this old house and expected to spend 3-4 days deep cleaning and scrubbing it clean before moving our things out of the storage unit and into the house. Well. That lasted about 2 days. We cleaned and cleaned and the dirt still streaked. We had a 2 year old at the time, and I could just see him licking the kitchen floor in typical 2 year old boy fashion. That wasn’t going to happen if I could help it.
Tiny House: Moving In
The good news was it was a tiny house, so the crazy idea to rip out the kitchen didn’t sound too crazy at the time. Fast forward 6 months. The kitchen was ripped out (and completely validated my wants to tear out that disgusting kitchen. There’s no way we could have cleaned all the nasty places.) and replaced with something highly functional and gorgeous. We fixed plumbing, installed $2000 worth of Ikea closets, worked our butts off in the crawlspace to control humidity, entertained countless contractors and consultants to help us find the problems, and organized until we could function in the tiny house. And finally, the farmhouse sink was installed & the gorgeous historic windows were framed with dramatic white curtains, and it was a cottage perfect for a sweet little family of three.
But that summer had been a hot and humid one. We thought it was because of the lack of central A/C (a definite necessity in Georgia summers!), but it continued to be a situation.
But, we finally had a kitchen sink and curtains for privacy, so we bit the bullet and moved in with a little sawdust still on the floor. Nathan’s parents had been helping us throughout the summer and they were slated to come and help us the first weekend we were moved in.
My son woke up with a fever that morning and our lives would forever be changed.
Moving Out
To make a really long story not so long, we all got sick for a few months, thinking we were passing a bug back and forth. But, we finally gave up the fight at that house and moved out. Turns out it was mold making us sick.
While we were living there, we realized that it was just too far of a commute for Nathan, and the house was always intended to be a temporary living situation while we figured out what direction to take with our life. Well, in that year, we grew a lot and learned a ton and knew exactly what we wanted: a house to take care of us so we could make real traction towards our big goals.
Sold!
So, we sold it above market value for full list price with multiple offers on the table. By the time everything was said and done, that house was adorable and absolutely a stunner. (If you need help staging your own house, you might want to start with this post about how we sold this house for full price in a day.)
It’s the worst year of our life where everything we had was on the line, but we still remember it so fondly. It is that boyfriend that treated us badly that we still loved for some reason. It’s the furniture you hated but didn’t want to get rid of. It’s the worst kid in the class that the teacher can’t help but love.
She’s a beauty and will always have a special place in our hearts. We hope you enjoy having a look around our Main Street memory.
Welcome!
Foyer
Master Bedroom
Bathroom
Dining Room
Second Bedroom
Tiny Kitchen
Living Room
Outside Front
Back Porch
Places to Find Crazy Fabric Bargains
Sometimes a girl just needs some fabric. You can use fabric for so much stuff, even if you don’t sew. Chair covers, tablecloths, throws, blankets, ottomans, pillowcases, table runners, dog crate covers. You name it, fabric can cover it. And it can totally change the look of something. It’s like paint for your furniture, except a lot less messy.
I’m going to start with the obvious option: thrift stores. Sewing people have a tendency to take on too many projects, and their fabric selection can tend to get out of hand. Or stores might donate the leftovers to the thrift store. Or, my favorite, someone had a huge project and bought too much fabric. Then you can get a huge chunk for practically nothing. I have a nice grey piece 5 yards long yearning to be something really cool. I found it at Goodwill for about $5. A steal, I know. It’s even a nice thick denim-ish piece, too. You just never know what you find at these places. You can even look at the sheets or bedding department for cool fabrics. That’s always the first place I look for project inspiration.
The second, less-obvious option is Harbor Freight. They have amazing deals on drop cloths, if you don’t mind it smelling like China for a few days. If you sign up for their emails and newsletters (or are just really nice to the person ringing you up), you can get 40% something almost all the time. Their drop cloths are huge and come in at a cool $12 for 3 yards. And, they’re a great neutral creamy color to boot. I love this stuff. I’ve used it to cover a huge dog crate, an ottoman, and a few other small projects around the house…all on $12.
And my favorite option of all is the Ikea As-Is bin. I always go straight to the as-is bin when I get there. I go the wrong way through the registers and see what Ikea wants to give me that day. And I always take my time to look through the fabric bin. It’s strangely an exhausting arm workout, but it’s oh-so-worth-it. They practically give away odd-shaped couch covers in luxurious upholstery fabric and hand out huge, continuous pieces of fabric in the form of duvet covers for super cheap. Sometimes, you just don’t want a seam running down the middle or sides, you know? My favorite score was a white 100% (timeless) linen duvet cover and shams, two tan linen pillowcases with two matching curtain panels. I paid a little more for the duvet cover (I think $25) that I would normally have, but come on, it’s linen. It’s the timeless fabric that has outlived generations. It gets softer with time and is oh-so-luxurious. But the pillowcases (still covering my couch pillows today) were a cool $3 each. So, if I didn’t want a tan linen pillowcase for $3, I could have totally given it a snip here and a snip there and turned it into something else totally cool like a set of linen napkins. And do you know how much that would cost you at a place like Pier1? Or even Etsy? I know.
So, there you have it. My fabric hunting on-the-cheap secrets. I hope I don’t see you there (or if I do, that you’re looking for something totally different). 😉
How to get your toddler to sleep quickly
There’s a secret to get your baby and toddler to sleep that has been passed down in my family for generations.
My mom told me about it when my son was born. She said that my grandmother told my mom about it. And, I’m sure she probably learned it from her mom.
It’s so easy you won’t believe you wasted so much time on other ways to get your toddler to sleep.
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
I am going to start by saying that we have mainly been a co-sleeping family. We weren’t always, but life has a way of changing your plans, so here we are today.
I didn’t usually use this method with my son as a baby because, well, milk did all the heavy lifting in the sleep department for us. Hopefully, we can change that next time around, but that’s how it went for us for the first year.
But, after the bottle was gone and my son began to grow up some, I needed some new tricks to get my toddler to sleep. And this fun trick to get my toddler to sleep just won’t work every night.
Plus, it’s also an amazing way to calm down a toddler that’s just too excited to go to sleep. I know sometimes even I can’t go to sleep after getting excited about something.
And, there are always those times that kids just need extra help getting to sleep because of environmental situations. Traveling and sleeping in a strange location always made my son take forever to go to sleep. And noisy situations are always tricky, too.
But, the great news is that this trick works and even helped my son go to sleep on the night before our surprise beach vacation. Yes! It’s that awesome of a trick.
Here’s what you do to get your toddler to sleep quickly.
You hold your toddler and pretend to be asleep.
Yep. That’s it. No, not like hold your toddler down and fall asleep. Haha. That’s weird. There are a few extra steps, but that’s basically the gist of it.
Here are the steps to get your toddler to go to sleep. For real.
- Hold your toddler close (or snuggle up close).
- Close your eyes and pretend to start getting sleepy even if he/she is still chatting it up.
- Start breathing softly but deeply.
- Relax your grip or hold on your toddler so they can feel you relax.
- Continue for 5-10 minutes, if it even takes that long for your toddler to fall asleep.
For real. I know. It sounds too good to be true.
There is some science behind this age-old sleep remedy, but since I’m not a doctor, I’ll let you do your own research.
This trick has helped me get my toddler to go to sleep so many times I really couldn’t even guess, and the best news is that it hasn’t failed me yet! If I am willing to give him about 5 minutes, he will fall to sleep without shedding a single tear.
Want to help a mama out? Share or pin this post so your mama friends can learn this time-proven way to get her toddler to sleep in no time at all. 🙂
And, if you’re cosleeping and trying to get your toddler in his own bed, you will love this trick method I used to get my toddler to sleep on his own in one day.
Since beginning blogging, I’ve found a few things I have found to be completely indispensable. These are things I wouldn’t want to do without and I’m so glad I’ve had the thought to pick up along the way.
This post may contain affiliate links to stuff I love. It doesn't charge you any extra, but it will help support this blog and my family.
Elite Business Academy
The first, most important thing I am so so glad I have around for this blogging journey is Elite Blog Academy. Seriously. This course gives me all the structure I need to stay on track. Blogging can be frustrating, stressful, and downright discouraging at times. EBA has helped get me through the first phase of blogging where you’re kicking your butt without any compensation. I know I’m on track, no matter what the statistics say right now. It’s like the ultimate treasure map for blogging.
Bluetooth Keyboard
Second. I have a toddler and he doesn’t like me sitting at the computer (only 5 feet away), so I use my tablet and this little puppy.
It’s a Logitech Bluetooth keyboard and I absolutely love it. Love it love it. It was $50 because I needed it right away, but I’ve seen it for $30 on Amazon regularly.
I love the way the keys click and that it holds my iPad really securely. It turns my iPad into a lap-pad. Plus, it has a dial you can turn to switch between 3 devices, so I can do the same thing with my phone when I’m out in town. I often let Graham sleep in the car if he falls asleep, so I can get a ton of work with this keyboard and either my phone or iPad.
Bluetooth Headphones
You wouldn’t think you need bluetooth headphones for blogging, but my only time to watch course videos is when Graham is watching a show on tv. So, if he wants me to sit with him, I need to hear the videos. Plus they come in handy for chatting on the phone. And they were only a few bucks.
Laptop Sleeve
Since I always bring my iPad, keyboard, and earphones along for day trips to run errands, my laptop sleeve (similar laptop sleeve here) is super-handy to make sure I have everything I need to get work done on the go. I don’t have to worry about dropping everything or anything getting scratched in my purse.
Soft Lights
And then there are the times that I am working late into the night. I don’t always want to turn the lights on and I need to read my notes. So, this little guy is crazy handy. For $2 I got 2 lights. It’s light, cute, and little. And it glows the perfect little light at night. It’s my absolute favorite blogging necessity.
I can’t find it on the Ikea website, but my guess is that if you take a quick look in the lighting department, you’ll see a few sitting around, though they might not be pears since they were just clearanced out. But I did find these on Amazon.
It looks like it glows pretty similarly to the one I have.
So, if you’re new to blogging and have a stay at home lifestyle like I have (or a work after bedtime lifestyle), these are my absolute blogging essentials.