A morning routine: do you have one? Mornings can be tough. Mornings are not my friends. But with two working parents and two toddlers, we have learned how to make mornings work for us.
There have been times where one of us is traveling for work so the other is left with single parent duty in the a.m. I have broken our morning routine down into four simple steps. I hope after almost five years of morning daycare drops offs and now onto preschool and kindergarten drop off we are finding our groove and have worked through the rough spots. I hope you may find some tips to help your morning go smoothly and less tear-filled on everyone’s part!
Prep as much as you can the night before. Use the time when everyone is awake after dinner, fed and still burning off some energy from the day. We like to use this time to reset for the next day. This includes:
- Emptying backpacks and folders
- Reading any parent notes
- Checking the school calendar for the next day specials {don’t forget to pack the gym shoes and show and tell items}
- Packing lunches {store in the fridge overnight} and emptying water bottles.
- We also will have the girls pick out their PJs for that night along with fresh clothes for the morning. They are at the age where they like to have a say in their outfit. That actually started approximately when they could talk, so I know this can be grounds for a battle.
When everyone is not sleepy-eyed or half asleep it is much easier at night to put all their clothes, including socks, in a pile to be ready for the a.m. In the winter I even have their winter gear ready, back up shoes in the backpack and boots by the door.
- Cleaning up the kitchen from dinner
- Emptying our adult lunches
- Washing travel coffee mugs and setting the coffee maker up for the morning.
We were getting to a point where everyone was ready in the morning to walk out the door except mom and dad. I would look at my husband and we would not have any coffee, breakfast or lunches for our own days. Not only does this make us late, but we buy coffee and sustenance on the road, and then end up going out at lunch, too. This is not the healthiest choice and hits the pocketbook hard! Just packing up leftovers at night for next day lunches and setting the coffee maker has been a big help to our nutrition and budget too.
- My husband and I get up before the kids and get completely ready. Then we wake my older daughter {my morning lover} and she gets dressed, brushes her teeth, and brushes her hair. Then and only then can she watch a show while she waits for sister to be ready to go. She is very motivated to have this time to get up and get to pick a morning show and wake up for the day.
- Next, we wake my second daughter who takes after me and does not do mornings. So the less she has to do the better. We do help her get dressed but she does most of it on her own, brushes her teeth. I do her hair.
- At the same time, my husband takes care of the dog, pours coffees and loads the cars.
- Once everyone is ready, the girls grab something for breakfast on the way out the door and off to school and work we go.
Does it look the same all year ’round?
