Toddlers are hard enough to handle during normal times when the world isn’t a dumpster fire. Throw in a pandemic, and parenting gets just that bit harder. But thanks to one post on Reddit, things might be a little easier when it comes to the toddler tantrums.
That is where the shower popsicle comes in handy. The whole premise is when your child is in the middle of having a fit, you go run a warm bath or shower – this depends on both your child’s age and preference – and then lure them into it using a popsicle. Apparently, that is all that is needed to instantly calm them down. There are parents who are swearing by this method.
The person who posted this method online wrote, “Every time we have a popsicle shower and I feel the calm descend, I vow to post something, just in case the original poster sees it and can see what an impact their little anecdote had on my family. Thank you, random stranger, for the most random and effective parenting tip I have received to date! My kid loves it, I love it, everyone ends up happy. Popsicle showers ftw!”
The theory for why it works so well is explained by the two different temperatures that conflict with one another. According to those who have tried this method, it seems to work because it gets the kids’ senses all stimulated at the same time. It’s almost like a grounding technique that makes their kids focus on the present moment by engaging with the popsicle and the warm water. Some parents have sworn that it’s like a reset for their children’s emotions.
According to CafeMom, one of the parents who tried it and swore by it was Megan Jones. The pregnant mother tried it on her 2-year-old daughter when she had a tantrum. According to the blog, she stated that she’d been looking for ways of dealing with her child’s tantrum when she stumbled upon a story about the shower popsicle trick. As she shared with CafeMom, she decided to give it a try since she knew her daughter Maddie loved both popsicles and showers. She explained that the method “seems like a gentle way to get her out of a cycle of crying, especially when she wakes up grumpy from a nap.”
Of course, a shower or a bath isn’t always feasible at the moment that a tantrum happens. If that is the case, some people have found other ways of engages tactile senses, like the Reddit user who said that giving a toddler a drink of cold water through a straw can help. They wrote, “Like other people pointed out, cold is magical for resetting us, and the act of sucking through a straw stimulates your vagus nerve which reduces your heart rate and blood pressure. Works on adults too.”
Piggybacking on that idea, other Redditors pointed out that allowing kids to eat ice chips can also help the situation as well. So far, there have been plenty of people who were pleased with the outcome of the shower popsicle trick.
What do you think of this idea? Have you tried it with your own kid? How do you get your toddler to calm down during a tantrum? Let us know!