Stassi Schroeder Stands By Letting 4-Year-Old Try Coke to Beat Jet Lag
Hi, I’m Kai Montgomery, and yes, I will grumble through this so you don’t have to.
Fine. Here’s the headline: Vanderpump Rules alum Stassi Schroeder let her 4-year-old daughter Hartford sip Coca-Cola while on a family trip to the United Kingdom to keep the kid awake and avoid jet lag, and she’s not apologizing to keyboard parents. Stassi posted the moment on her Instagram Stories on August 9, explaining plainly that the soda was a strategic, one-off move to get Hartford on the new time zone’s schedule. “Letting the kids have their first soda experience because I need to keep them up to prevent the jet lag and get them on schedule,” she wrote, adding, “Come for me. I DON’T CARE.”
Look, I don’t want to play referee in the Parenting Olympics, but facts are facts: the 37-year-old mom-of-two filmed Hartford taking a sip and promptly saying “yum,” then asking if she could have it again the next day. Stassi, demonstrating surprising backbone, replied with a flat “No,” and reminded viewers that this was a single, situational treat reserved for jet-lag prevention. She also clarified in the clip that this would not become routine, which, normally, is the sentence that defuses the internet pitchforks.
Stassi and husband Beau Clark are traveling with their kids — Hartford, 4, and Messer, 23 months — and have been sharing family snapshots from the trip, including visits to Nicholson’s Pubs in London and The Story Museum in Oxford. The mom’s Instagram archive shows she’s keen on making memories, even if those memories sometimes include minor injuries; in December she shared a video where Hartford accidentally hit Stassi in the mouth during a spirited holiday sing-along, resulting in a bloody lip and a lot of sympathetic chaos at home.
Yes, social media critics will have opinions, and sure, there are valid health arguments about sugar and caffeine intake for young children. But Stassi wasn’t presenting this as a health advisory; she framed it as a parenting choice in a specific context: keep the kid awake, reset the child’s internal clock, and avoid days of miserable jet-lagged tantrums. That’s a tactic, not a manifesto.
Here’s the practical take: parents do a thousand small strategic things when traveling with young children — adjusting nap times, using melatonin with pediatric guidance, changing meal times, or, in this case, employing a one-time sugary sip to hold off sleep until local bedtime. Whether you approve is your prerogative, but the public evidence is clear: she documented the act, labeled it a one-time contingency, and publicly defended the choice.
As for the internet outrage machine, of course it churned. The difference here is the receipts: a dated Instagram Story, a quoted caption, and video evidence of Hartford’s first taste and her mother’s boundary-setting. If you want to critique the decision, cite pediatric guidance about sugar and caffeine for kids and make that argument. If you want to dunk on a mom for trying to salvage a family vacation schedule, enjoy the hot takes. Both sides will keep yelling.
Final note from your reluctant guru: parenting is messy, travel is harder, and celebrities are allowed the occasional pragmatic compromise without a coronation of moral failure. Stassi made her choice, documented it, and told critics where to go. The moment is over, Hartford liked the soda, and the internet will move on after a new distraction arrives.
And that, dear reader, is why we can’t have nice things.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and E! Online, Stassi Schroeder’s Instagram
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
