With us all on lockdown at the moment, it’s easy to go a little stir-crazy stuck at home entertaining small children all day! Spending hours scouring YouTube for activities you can do with them, sourcing educational videos to keep up with their learning and then finally resorting to Netflix or kids tv to occupy them while you do bits around the house, fetch them food, clean up after them and then get them bathed and ready for bed… we’re all pretty much their slaves at the moment! With April Fools finally arriving, it’s your turn to send them loopy!
Here are our top 7 pranks you can play on your kids to keep yourself entertained this lockdown.
Tell them it’s time to go back to school
We’ve seen a few people doing this over the last few days and couldn’t resist adding it in! Wake your kids up super early, get them in their uniform, breakfast eaten and shoes on ready to leave as if they were heading off to school. Throw in a few nags, shout a bit and tell them to hurry up or they’ll be late, anything to get them moaning and thinking it’s real. Just as you’re about to leave, shout ‘APRIL FOOLS’, no school, just another shitty day stuck at home. I mean, I think that’s the real April Fools right there, but it may get them re-appreciating being home all day!
[Read more: Homeschooling Your Kids When You’re at Your Wits End]
Join Louise Broadbridge, senior midwife & the face of instagram's @thehonestmidwife for a live, online class preparing you and your partner for natural labour, birth and beyond. Enjoyed by 1000's of expectant parents like you.
Tell them the Government has announced a strict lockdown and to prevent the virus from spreading wirelessly, all WIFI is being turned off.
Obviously, if you have older kids who could see right through this, it wouldn’t really work, but the premise that there’ll be no Wifi for the foreseeable future could be a hilarious prank to play on your kids. Linking it to the current global pandemic and throwing in an obviously stupidly impossible story about an illness spreading through a wifi connection makes it even more hilarious when they believe it. If you want an extra chuckle, film their reaction and embarrass them with it when they’re older and show them just how gullible they were.
The Nutella Poo Prank
A firm favourite among TikTokers at the moment... pretend to go to the toilet and call one of your kids to bring you toilet roll, saying you’ve ‘made a big mess’. Dip your fingers into some Nutella and as they pass you the loo roll, wipe the Nutella on their hand. They’ll think you’ve just wiped poo on them and will be hilariously horrified!
Food tricks
There’s so much that can be done at home with food to aid your pranking. One idea would be to remove the wrappers of any mini crème eggs – let’s face it, we’re all scoffing them already - and instead replace the chocolate inside with grapes. Eating said chocolate as you go is strongly advised, with a glass of wine of course. Another idea is to melt some chocolate and if you’ve managed to get hold of the ever-coveted hen’s eggs from the supermarket, just dip the whole egg, completely raw, shell in-tact, into the chocolate and decorate with hundreds and thousands and pop in the fridge to solidify. Offer them to your kids as a mid-morning treat Easter egg and they’ll soon be running to the bathroom to wash the raw egg out their mouth!
(note - Because of improved food safety controls in recent years, infants, children, pregnant women and elderly people can now safely eat raw or lightly cooked hen eggs, or foods containing them, that are produced under the British Lion Code of Practice – NHS.uk)
Mix M&Ms and Skittles
If the above pranks seem a little bit cruel, this could result in some funny reactions. Grab a bag of M&Ms (the chocolate kind, not the peanut ones) and a bag of Skittles and you can either mix them up in a big bowl for movie night and serve them as “M&Ms”, or replace the contents with Skittles completely (eat the chocolate, obviously), and watch their confused little faces as they think they’re tucking into chocolate but keep getting fruity Skittles.
[Read more: Scaring the S**t Out Of My Toddler For Fun]
Replace the inside of Oreos with toothpaste
This could be a little trick to get them to brush their teeth for once, or at least leave their breath minty-fresh. Carefully twist open a pack of Oreos, remove the middle layer of crème and replace it with some colourless (white) toothpaste and put them back together again and back in the pack. Wait and watch their horrified faces when they realise their favourite snack has been tampered with!
XXL clothes
Sneakily replace a drawer or two of their clothes with your OH’s or older child's and tell them to go get dressed after breakfast, for them to only find clothes that are WAY too big for them. Carry on as normal as if the size of their clothes is only in their mind and get them dressed and downstairs. Funny photo opportunities are endless with this as you can spend the whole day with this façade and making them think they’re going crazy.
Whichever prank you choose, make sure you tag us @yourbabyclubuk in any photos or videos you post online so we can re-share to celebrate April Fool’s Day.
