Cheerio Challenge: Viral Game For Dads With Too Much Time On Their Hands

Babies are a lot of work, no one is disputing that. But whether you’re a first time parent or a veteran with a few kids already, even the calm, quiet babies who spend most of their time sleeping require constant monitoring and a parent or two who are always on-call for when the little bundle of joy needs something.

It’s not really down time, it’s more like “wait for the moment the baby suddenly wakes up and needs something” time, and can be both mentally exhausting and even quite boring. Luckily, a couple of dads came up with the cure for that boredom and made it go viral on social media. Introducing: The Cheerio Challenge.

The Cheerio Challenge is simple: Stack as many Cheerios on your sleeping baby’s head as you possibly can before they wake up or shift, knocking them all over. Once you think you’ve pushed your luck as far as you can, take a pic and share it on social, hashtag #cheeriochallenge.

The Cheerio Challenge was invented by bored Orange County dad Patrick Quinn, who was sitting on his couch, trapped, while his 3-week old son Maxton slept on his lap. Any new dad knows this scenario well. You can’t even get up for so much as a bathroom break without risking waking up the little one, so you stay put, figuring that a sleeping baby is better than the one you have to cradle, bounce, change, feed and entertain.

But Quinn started getting bored like we talked about up top.

A bowl of Cheerios was sitting nearby, a leftover from his older son. He thought to himself that it would be interesting to see how many he could stack on Maxton’s head before his son woke up, so he started stacking Cheerios one by one.

The challenge, he found, was stifling his own amusement long enough to get a good stack.

“I’d take a picture but then I’d start laughing and it’d topple over,” he said. “So I’d start again, take a picture and it’d topple over. The highest I got to is five.”

Quinn, the founder of the social network Life of Dad, shared his accomplishment with his followers. Not long after, a fierce competition sprung up across the globe with many more dads trying to out-stack each other in the newly viral Cheerio Challenge.

So, how high can a stack of Cheerios go on a sleeping baby’s head? So far, two dads are tied for the record of 16 Cheerios.

For himself, Quinn is impressed by the feat.

“That seems to be the Everest of Cheerio stacking,” he said. “I don’t even know how it’s possible.”

Many dads have been willing to find out. Life of Dad’s Facebook page receives an overwhelming number of photos from Cheerio-stacking dads around the globe each day.

Others have adapted the challenge, using Reese’s peanut butter cups:

Multiple stacks at once:

Some dads are even trying to stack Cheerios on their babies while they’re awake:

Quinn could only ever get to five because of how amusing he found the exercise to be. “The real challenge of the Cheerio Challenge is stifling your own laughter,” he said. “It’s much harder than you’d think.”

So far, 16 Cheerios is the number to beat. How far do you think you’d get in the Cheerio Challenge?