Try this clever glow-stick trick the next time your kids get the stomach flu

If you’ve ever had to clean up after your kid has thrown up, you know what an unpleasant chore it can be. It’s one thing if they actually made it to the bathroom, but if the mess is all over their bedroom and/or themselves, it’s even more of a hassle.

When a kid is suffering from the stomach flu, the illness doesn’t care if it’s the middle of the day or 3 a.m. When they’re going to get sick, it’s gotta happen. The solution is often to put a “barf bag” next to the bed for when middle-of-the-night nausea hits. However, because it’s the middle of the night, your kid might not always hit their target in the darkness.

One parent on Reddit came up with a genius trick for this problem when his three kids were all sick at once. He simply placed a glow stick in the bucket to help them better locate it.

“As they are all under five, the use of the barf bucket was hit-or-miss… mostly miss. My kids don’t like night lights—they complain they are too bright. I wanted them to be able to have the barf bucket just in case. So I thought to put a glow stick in their bucket so it would give them something to help find the bucket—plus they really liked the idea and felt it was special/cool,” he explained in his post.

Other parents chimed in with their tips to make the “barf bucket night light” even more effective:

• Add a little bit of water to the bucket to cut down on the smell and make it easier to pour out later.
• Line the bucket with two bags—a paper bag (which structurally stays open) inside of a plastic bag.
• Tie a string to the glow stick and let it hang outside the bucket.

Pretty clever!