TikTok Shows Dad Hack for Watching the Game While Baby Sleeps

New parents quickly learn the rules: Waking a sleeping baby is a penalty—arguably a reason for ejection from the house. But what's a football fan to do—during the playoffs, no less? One dad showed off his playbook, and it's worth practicing while fans everywhere hope their team will make it to the Super Bowl.

The dad's wife, Mackenzie Waters, who posts as @makwaters on TikTok, opened the playbook in a viral video on the platform with nearly 1.5 million likes. In the video, Waters' husband is seen watching a playoff game between the Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Bucs.

Dad is a big fan of the Cowboys, who went on to down all-time great quarterback Tom Brady and the Bucs, 31-14. Dad was pumped toward the end of the first half, which saw Dallas blank Brady and the Bucs, 18-0. But there's a sleeping baby in the video's foreground, Coop. So, Dad had to call an audible. He's wearing oven mitts to muffle his loud clapping and walks briskly into the other room as he stage-whispers, "Yes! Yes! Let's go!"

Consider it a win—not just for Dad and his fellow Cowboys fans, but Mom and Baby Coop, too. The sweet little boy doesn't move a muscle.

It's genius, and it appears from the caption that Dad learned the hard way what can happen when you get a bit too rowdy during a football game while a baby is sleeping.

"He learned his lesson," a text overlay reads.

Hey, even elite athletes have to learn from their mistakes—it's how they get better. These game-ready moves have earned him tons of new fans on TikTok. More than 6.5K people commented on the post.

"That man loved you and that baby so much! There ain't no football fans like Cowboys fans," wrote the top commenter.

"Our motto is, 'you wake her, you take her.' It's worked wonders for all sorts of things." divulged another.

"The lowercase screams and shouts," gushed someone else.

But soft screams are pretty standard. It's the oven mitts that really put this video over the age for many TikTokers.

"THE OVEN MITS TO SILENCE HIS CLAPS," upper-case screamed one commenter.

"I was gonna ask what the oven mitts were for, and then he clapped," another TikToker said.

"I'm dying thinking about the conversation you had about the oven mitts," said someone else.

What we wouldn't have given to have been a fly on that wall.