How do you make mornings less stressful?

How do I get my kids ready for morning without yelling?

Are you a yeller? Whether or not you are a yeller, you may find yourself yelling at the kids as you all try to scuffle…. These early school mornings does something to you, I tell you. So how do I get my kids ready for morning without yelling? There are solutions out there moms. There are lots of hacks and prep to help you and me do this.

What is the best morning routine for school?

Finding the best morning routine for school may come about by trial and error. I, as a mom, have never created a routine that worked on day one. Sometimes you don’t even have to create a routine, it just kinda falls into place from day to day. The reality is that you already have a routine. Whether it be a “working” routine or not is the bigger question here. Are you working for your routine or is it working for you?

What does your kids do in the morning to get ready for school? What do you do? Do your kids get up, lay around for 5 more minutes when you want them to be already dressed, get dressed, eat breakfast, look for a missing sock or belt, suddenly remembers to finish that one homework page, or gives you that note to read and sign. . .  . It already sounds so hectic, doesn’t it? Do you get up, prep breakfast, make lunches, sign notes and check work, find everyone their clothing for the day, help them get dressed, look for a missing sock or belt, etc., etc., etc., and before you know it, you have just a couple minutes to rush to the bus stop? If that is pretty much how mornings look at your house on the daily, then that is your routine. And since it sounds pretty crazy, you may be asking yourself and wanting to know, what is the best morning routine for school so you can have less stressful mornings. Take hope mam and dad, and keep on ready to find out things you can do have better school morning routines to make mornings less stressful.

How do you make school mornings run smoother?

1. Don’t wait to do everything in the morning – Seriously. I am speaking from experience here.
2. Pick out clothes for the week on the weekends – Help the kids choose clothes for the week and have them in one spot (whether that be one corner in their closet or laid out someplace else). It will make finding their cute outfits so much easier and getting ready so much faster. Nothing worse than standing there staring at that closet wondering what to wear (that goes for a scanty closet as well as a full one). For smaller children, some parents like to have outfits separated by days. You can do that. Our kids age range between 7 through 11 so we go “cut a little slack”. They can pick the weeks outfit but wear whichever one on whatever day they would like. On occasion, they may want to pick a different outfit than one that was already chosen and that’s ok. But for the most part, have paired outfits out.
3. Know exactly what is for lunch – The morning lunch preparation is a real struggle. If your kids don’t like much of the Cafeteria food, you’ll have to have meals to for their lunches. Plan what you will serve – have about 2 weeks of servings. You could always rotate these if it helps. But don’t wait until morning time to start on the lunches. You can start by packing their napkin, spoon or fork and whatever is non-perishable in their lunch box the night before. It might be helpful to take a few minutes on Sunday afternoon to prep fruits and veggies and pack them into small bowls. I also like to put several juice boxes (at least 2-3 per kid) in the fridge. The juice will be nice and cool to pack in their lunch boxes on their way to school. Some parents like to prep the lunch for the entire week (such as PB and J) and put them in Ziploc baggies in the fridge or freezer. We prefer to make these fresh.
4. Serve easy breakfasts – Easy breakfasts doesn’t have to necessarily mean cereal. Think about making-ahead some waffles or pancakes and freezing them. When you’re ready to serve, heat them up in the oven (400 degrees about 7 minutes) or microwave about 30 seconds or a little more until warm. You can also serve foods like yogurt and granola, oatmeal, bagel with a little Nutella, and such. Muffins is also a quick morning breakfast. Make muffins ahead or buy them. They freeze well. You can even consider a breakfast smoothie. Blend up some ingredients – blueberries, yogurt, milk, banana, etc. for an all in one easy breakfast. Serve with toast if needed. See, it doesn’t have to be all cereal. But for the good measure, you can through in a cereal morning in there too. Friday morning, anything goes!
5. Have kids do homework in the evenings instead of in the mornings – Nothing is more disappointing than remembering to do that homework when you’re short on time in the morning. Establish a routine that the kids can do their work sometime after school. On the weekends, don’t wait until Sunday either. I know no one wants to be doing homework on Fri-Yay evenings. But what ends up happening is that on Saturday you may be out and about and before you know it, it’s Sunday night. All of the sudden, you or the child remembers there are a few pages of homework to complete. It’s almost bedtime but that homework needs to be returned in the morning. Ah, the struggle is real with this one. I’m telling you from experience, try to get that work done sometime on Friday. It’s be done and they won’t have to think about it for the rest of the weekend.
6. Sign school papers as they come home and place back in folder/backpacks – Don’t wait until the next morning to sing teacher notes and papers folder papers. Write notes the previous night or if you can sign papers as they come home, that will eliminate you having to rush to get things singed and written on the day they are due.
7. Have a basket of socks ready by the door or near the shoe area – This will help eliminate the “looking for socks” in the mornings. You can also have a separate basket for the dirty pairs. On laundry day, wash all socks and replace them in that clean socks basket. They will be now be ready for another school week. If at all possible, have at least 6 pairs for each child for the week.
8. Set a reasonable bedtime for the kids – The later they go to sleep at night, it’s the harder they’ll find it to get out of bed in the mornings. Kids need a 10-12 hours of sleep at night. Try your best to have them do that.
9. Set a morning wake-up alarm early enough the kids – Don’t wit until 5 minutes before the kids need to start getting ready to wake them up. They may be way too sleepy to et out of bed, to move fast, and may even fall back asleep on the floor. Try at least 15-20 minutes to give them enough time to shake themselves out of sleep. If you child needs to catch the bus at 7:45 a.m, it might be best to have them get up around 6:35 a.m (ish). For our alarm, we have been using Alexa Echo Dot. She’s very good at keeping the alarm. What we love about the Alexa alarm is that you can set more than one for the same day. For example, you can set a timer for 6:45 a.m and then another for 7:00 a.m and another for 7:15 am, etc. We love doing that to give the kids a few more minutes to “fully” wake up.
10.  Prep yourself moms and dads – You too need to do some self-prepping. Get up before the kids so you can start their breakfast and lunches. Got to bed at a reasonable time. I’m speaking to myself on this one too. Un-intentionally, I have been falling asleep around 9-ish at nights. That is even before the kids fall asleep. I used to work on blog work at nights but I have started to leave my laptop downstairs. I realize it does me no good to start typing in the bed. I fall right asleep. That’s because I get up around 5 a.am to start getting ready for our 6th grader. At nights, after all that school hustle, I’m wiped. For realz.