Parents Use Genius Cardboard Cut-Out Trick To Stop Son From Crying

A mum has concocted a genius way of stopping her child crying when she leaves the room - she tricks him into thinking she's still there by leaving a cardboard cut-out of herself behind.

As anyone who has kids will tell you, anything that gives you a bit of peace and quiet is worth having a go at.

In both photos, their young son is playing in his playpen, however in one of them, a carboard cut-out stands in the kitchen as if watching over her son, whereas the other shows her crouching down as if she's about to play with him.

In both situations, the two cardboard replicas are slightly out of the baby's reach, so as not to expose the ruse.

To be fair, that would be a baffling and - more likely than not - terrifying thing to happen to a child.

In case you're worried, the dad also pointed out that at no point was the child left completely on his own.

He was always not too far away, and the youngster's mum was able to come in and out every 20 minutes or so to check on him, too.

Well, as long as he wasn't looking, anyway. That would also be a confusing and scary experience.

In a video that they filmed, the whole ploy seems to be going off basically without a hitch. In fact, the kid seems to be enjoying himself playing away with his toys, content in the - admittedly false - knowledge that his mam is never more than a few steps away.

Genius, you have to admit.

That means that the parents can get on with housework, or whatever else it is that they need to do.

When he shared the clip, the young boy's dad included the caption: "It's hard because my one-year-old child cries as soon as mum disappears.

"As a countermeasure, I experimented with what would happen if I set up a 'life-sized panel mother'."

Well, it's obviously working. Whilst it is a pretty bizarre way of working around that, you can't say that it's not really clever.

Admit it, parents. You're all going to give this a go, aren't you?