By Daniella Gray

Copyright newsweek

For new moms, the simplest daily routines—like taking a shower—can feel like an impossible luxury.

Kailey Davis (@kaileygdavis) went viral on Instagram after sharing the unusual hack she used to squeeze in a much-needed shower without waiting for her husband to get home.

“I made the mental health decision to not wait until my husband came home from work to take a shower because I simply stink so bad that it’s making my mental health plummet,” the 32-year-old explained in her reel.

From left: A mom placing her baby in his rocker in the bathroom; same mom wrapping a bath robe tie around the baby rocker.

Instead of putting it off, she turned to a tip she’d seen on TikTok: bringing her baby and a rocker into the bathroom with her.

Using the tie from her bathrobe, Davis fastened it to the rocker. While she showered, she held the tie, rocking her baby if he cried.

For Davis, the decision marked a conscious shift in her postpartum journey. “I promised myself this postpartum to make sure I took care of my mental health and self-care,” she told Newsweek.

“That means not waiting until later because usually it gets pushed to another day. But I saw a hack and thought why wait? Let’s just try it out,” she continued. “Worse comes to worst he cries, and my shower is stress induced instead of calming.”

Davis said the act of being clean mattered far more than she expected and just one shower can make a huge difference.

“Sometimes doing just the littlest act of service for yourself can switch up your day,” she said. “So getting that potentially peaceful shower with that hack was exciting to want to try and not rely on anyone else.”

Before she attempted it, she admitted she was cautiously optimistic. “I was hopeful the hack would work but wasn’t going to let it run my shower if it didn’t,” she said.

Davis’ reel has clocked up over 992,000 views and hundreds of comments from other parents on social media.

The clip was somewhat divisive, with some users commenting messages of encouragement, while others were critical of Davis bringing her baby into the bathroom.

“Lean with it. Rock with it. You did way better than me. I am so proud of you!” one wrote.

“The things mamas do for their babies. I hope he gives you a great Mother’s Day card one day!!” another wrote.

Others shared their opinions on whether it’s OK to let a baby self-soothe. “It really is ok to let your baby cry,” a third said.

When the hack worked, the payoff was immediate. In her caption, Davis wrote: “He was happy, Finn read his books, and mama smells better.”

“I felt like, well, supermom,” she added.

Davis’ felt supported by other moms online. “A lot of people [were] sharing their opinion about letting the baby cry it out for 10 minutes or get yourself a vibrating self-soothing bouncer [and] my response to that is, I know the baby could cry for 10 minutes and be fine but it’s not about the baby it’s more of me wanting to have a calming shower or I would of used a wash cloth. I was using the bouncer and resources I do have because not every baby likes a vibrating bouncer.”