Chrissy Teigen's Mom Moves Are One Of Her Many (Many!) Superpowers

Perusing Chrissy Teigen’s social media is a daily for me: Coffee, get the kids set up for virtual learning, check-in with Tiegen on Twitter and Insta. Her content varies from trolling politicians to fire fashion looks. She posts potato chip crab cake tutorials one day and reveals raw family moments the next. Interspersed throughout it all are parenting tips and tricks I’ve found myself collecting like gems.

The Universe has many reasons to give Chrissy Teigen the nod: she’s the candor queen, the cookbook savant, the mom, the myth, the Mrs. Legend — did I mention she’s a supermodel, too? But lately it’s been her mom moves that have been epic game changers in my own household. To save you the leg work, I’ve done a round-up of my favorites and tested them out on my 6-year-old twin daughters.

Chrissy Teigen Mom Move #1: Lunch Menus

Everyday at lunchtime my girls get hangry. I offer chicken fried rice, grilled cheese sandwiches, black bean quesadillas, and about a million other options, but all my little California girls want is In ‘N’ Out (can’t blame them there). Crying ensues. This had been our super-fun 11 a.m. routine until I found Chrissy Teigen’s “Luna’s Lunch Menu” YouTube video in which Teigen describes similar picky eater problems happening at home. She presents viewers with the shiny laminated pages she stuck into a three-ring binder filled with Luna’s lunchtime favs. Luna gets to choose her own meal and pay for it, making an otherwise mundane activity feel like something novel. Chrissy swore by it, so I gave it a go. I used a whiteboard instead of a binder and scribbled down lunch options for the day and in a pretty cursive script wrote “Menu” across the top, then presented it to my toughest patrons. They were hoodwinked! The menu was a hit and worth the small extra effort. No fighting, no flinging rotten tomatoes, just full bellies and pure or maybe smug, parental bliss.

Chrissy Teigen Mom Move #2: Give Them The Moment They Need

“One thing I have gotten very good at is knowing every single moment they want you to pause and pay attention to them is very important to them so you just gotta make it a moment because it’s just a moment but it’s THEIR MOMENT, you know? Give them a moment because it’s just a moment but it’s important to them. Right? I dunno. You get it.”

This one hit me hard because I’m 100% that mom who’s sloppily juggling a million things. Between the work grind, college courses, cleaning, and all other minutiae of daily adult life, I catch myself getting frustrated when my girls want to snuggle and wiggle when I had been counting on that extra 20 minutes of sleep.

Sometimes a small reminder like Teigen’s is what I need to bring me back to a present place, because realistically, having a little snuggle isn’t going to rob me of rest that would otherwise change my day and taking a quick stroll isn’t going to keep me from washing my hair, which I probably wasn’t going to wash anyway. The moments matter. The moments are what we always wish we could go back and have more of.

Chrissy Teigen Mom Move #3: Cook With Your Kids

Admittedly I’ve been cooking with my kids long before I discovered Teigen did the same, but the tip is too good to exclude. I’ve always considered cooking with my kids the best parenting hack because I have to cook whether they’re filling in as sous chefs or not, so having them in tow is the perfect way to spend quality time together while still taking care of my responsibilities.

Often when my girls and I are making something they can, by now, handle on their own like guacamole or lentil dip, I’ll livestream via Facebook or Instagram so our family and friends can comment and ask them questions as they cook. In this adorable YouTube tutorial, Chrissy Teigen plops Luna on the counter and lets her help make hot fudge. I love making cooking videos with my girls, too, because I have these home videos for all of us to look back on.

Chrissy Teigen Mom Move #4: Have Your Hubby Handle Weekend Breakfast

My fiance doesn’t cook. And that’s okay, he has many other talents. But on Saturdays he challenges himself. While I sleep in, he does his best to whip up a batch of french toast with the girls. Chrissy Teigen posted on Instagram about a similar weekend ritual in her own home. On Sundays, John Legend wakes up early and makes pancakes, which apparently he now prefers over even restaurant pancakes. I don’t know that my fiance’s french toast will ever transcend the taste of a cafe patio brunch, but it doesn’t really matter. Everything tastes sweeter and means more when it’s made with love.

Chrissy Teigen Mom Move #5: Recreate Your Favorite Childhood Activities With Your Own Babies

With all the new tech and the way the world progresses so rapidly, it’s easy to forget the ways we used to have fun in our own childhoods. I’m a millennial, so my childhood was drastically different from my own children’s. While they Facetime their friends, learn PG TikTok dances with their cousins, and figure out how to make slime via YouTube, I was making mud pies in the backyard and linking together strips of paper to make my own room decor. In this YouTube video, Teigen makes ice cream with her “toons” using a ziploc bag, one of her favorite things to do when she was a kid. This inspired me to recreate some of my own childhood magic — I taught my girls to make paper chain decorations.

Right now we have one hanging in their room and cut off a link every day for the month leading up to their birthday. I also popped some popcorn and introduced my girls to my favorite childhood movies like Mrs. Doubtfire and Harriet The Spy. And because I spent much of my childhood on a scooter, during quarantine I bought an adult-sized scooter so I could join my twins for epic scooter adventures. I end up having as much fun as they do anytime we take them out for a spin.