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How to make your morning routine a doddle.

How to make your morning routine a doddle.

We all hate mornings, especially Monday mornings. It’s the first day after that very much needed two-day rest and many of us don’t just have ourselves to get ready, we have our little ones too. I have never been very good at getting out of bed in the morning, even since I’ve had Dinky, I have to have about 50 alarms just to make sure I wake up and get myself moving. If you’re like me, you’ll want to read this guide on how to make your Monday mornings and the rest of the week go that little bit smoother.

I’ve created a checklist that you can perform every night so that when the morning comes, you can get up and do as little as possible.

Pack lunchboxes the night before.

This is something my Mum taught me to do, she was always so worried about not getting up in time that our lunchboxes wouldn’t be ready. Depending on how many you have to make, it could save you up to 20 minutes in the morning to get that all important first cup of coffee into the system.

Lay out clothing ready.

Getting your clothing ready will not only save you fumbling around half asleep for a matching pair of socks, but it means that you can ask your children (if they’re old enough of course) to help you by getting themselves dressed. I know in the real world children aren’t that obedient all of the time but maybe you could use some bribery like I do. A promise of a small chocolate bar after breakfast always gets Dinky dressing himself. I’m a good mother, I swear.

Ultimately the aim in doing this is to save you even more time to get that coffee down!

Set the table ready for breakfast .

This may seem like something that wouldn’t take that long, but in reality setting the table may be a harder job with little ones running around, unable to find their shoes or fussing over what they would like to eat. Instead get the bowls and plates ready, and the cereals out so that all you’d have to do is supply the milk or pop the bread in the toaster.

Yep, you guessed it, making more time for coffee.

Shower the night before.

That goes for all of you that need to be up for that manic rush in the mornings. I’ve always bathed Dinky at night but often I’ll shrug it off for me and promise myself that I’ll shower the next morning.

That never happens.

Showering the night before means not only will you avoid missing out on yet another shower because little one got up too early, but it means that you will probably have a better night sleep, you’ll wake up feeling less groggy and you don’t have to fight against time to get your hair dry in time for the school run. I’ve done way too many school runs with wet or half dry hair and ended up looking like a right state for the rest of the day.

Trust me, shower at night. All of this time I’m saving you, you may even be able to drag a bit of lipstick over your lips and have that coffee.

Clean up once the kids are in bed.

Again a fairly simple thing that we should all ideally be doing. I definitely don’t. I’m normally that glad to not have to watch another Paw Patrol episode that I faint with excitement and never end up doing any tidying.

I’m sure you will agree that when you get up to a tidier home, you have a better start to the day. So force yourself to just clear those toys away and wash the plates up. If you do this daily, it shouldn’t take you long.

You could even make a little routine for the kids to join in with before they go to bed. Give them a 10 minute warning that it’s nearly time to go to bed and then ask them to put the toys away themselves. Then that’s even less for you to do!

Maybe you could have a coffee whilst they’re doing that?

Create a weekday schedule.

Going on from my last point a little, I think that creating a weekday schedule that the whole family can try to stick by will take a lot of work off of your back. With Dinky’s autism, I find his behaviour is much easier when he is on a schedule and he knows what to expect. Every morning he gets up, has breakfast, gets dressed, brushes teeth and then gets a treat before we set off for school. I find that he reacts well to not just a schedule in the morning but througout the day. I’ve created a daily schedule chart that I use to write the tasks for the day on, and then 7 spaces to pop a sticker in when he has done his task. I’ll include a template of this chart at the end of this post!

 

As you can tell, I basically function on coffee alone, and very much value my coffee in the morning.

Hopefully this post may have given you some ideas on how to make your morning routine that little bit less stressful for you. If you’re interested in getting your hands on my totally free schedule that you can use with the kids, enter your email in the form below and I’ll email it to you!

Does anyone else have anything that helps make mornings easier? I’d love to have more tips because as I’ve already said. I hate mornings!

Much love xx

 




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