A mom’s routine bedtime check on her toddler took a startling turn when she noticed unusual dark rings around his eyes—only to discover later that the marks were the result of an unexpectedly creative nighttime “skincare routine.”
Lizzie, who did not share her full name, shared a photo of her 3-year-old son, Nate, asleep in his crib with brown circles around his eyes on TikTok (@lizziebo1). She assumed he had rubbed his eyes while holding chocolate.
“I was completely shocked when I first saw him,” Lizzie, 36, told Newsweek.
Lizzie, who is also mom to Lewis, 15, and Erin, 11, with her partner Mike, had gone in to check on her son before heading to bed when something didn’t look right.
In the dim light, she could only make out what appeared to be very dark eyes. Unsure what she was seeing, she used her phone’s torch to get a better look.
Her son, still fast asleep, had chocolate smeared neatly around his eyes, giving him what she described as a full “raccoon impersonation.”
Lizzie gently cleaned his eyes that night, using warm water and a cloth, careful not to wake him.
“I was still very unclear on how he got into that state,” Lizzie said. “The next day or so, I saw him balancing chocolate in his eye sockets. Then all became clear.”
In the second slide of her TikTok, Lizzie revealed the truth. The image showed Nate balancing pieces of chocolate directly over his eyes. The text overlay read: “Turns out this is his skincare routine.”
According to Lizzie, seeing him deliberately positioning the chocolate in his eye sockets explained exactly how he had ended up in that state the night before.
Her post has gone viral on TikTok, amassing over 1 million views. In the comments, users found the whole thing hilarious.
“No acne, no big pores, no dry skin. I trust that boy’s routine,” one user commented.
“I feared it was gonna [sic] be something else on the second pic,” another posted.
“Can you ask him if chocolate is better than cucumber?” a third asked.
“Stop it, that second picture took me out,” said a fourth.
Lizzie also shared that Nate is her third child, born after a significant age gap. She and Mike had spent a long time unsure whether to have another baby before deciding to “roll the dice.” Now, Lizzie said, Nate—who recently turned 3—was the best decision they ever made.
