Morning Rush Hour

10/27/2014

Whether you have small children at home, or just yourself, morning routines are usually never calm and enjoyable! We hear our alarm clocks go off, and hit snooze to catch another ten minutes of sleep. When we finally drag ourselves out of bed, we are already running behind and so the rushing begins.

I do not know about you, but when I am rushing around, Murphy’s Law always seems to strike. The cup of juice gets knocked over, one of the girls cannot find their hat or mitts, I spill my much loved coffee down my shirt and the list goes on and on. Oh, and to top it all off, generally someone in our family gets frustrated and starts their morning off with tears and this haunts me all day. Does this sound like a typical morning in your house?

I am very proud to say, that these mornings are unusual in our home, but they still happen. People are always saying to me, how do you do it? How do you get three little ones off to school and be at work on time? PLANNING, it is that simple. I have developed some great tricks over the years, and I thought I would share them with you today!

1. Go to bed one night a week early! Do not go to your room and watch television or read a book in bed. Actually, turn off the lights and go to sleep. One of my old colleagues once said, “if you get one night of extra sleep, it will help you make it through the rest of your week.”
2. Make your lunch or your families lunches the night before. This eliminates a lot of stress in our house for two reasons, the first being it frees up about fifteen minutes of my morning, and the girls have time to decide what they would like in their lunches. Also, if my lunch is made, I tend not to buy my lunch and this saves me money.
3. Bags are packed the night before and are placed at the front door, along with anything else that needs to accompany us to daycare or work. This way, all we have to do is throw our lunches in our bags and go!
4. All clothes are picked out the night before, even my own! This has saved us so much frustration and tears over the years. The girls clothes are laid out, right down to our socks and underwear. When they wake up, they get dressed and head to the kitchen to eat.
5. I am always showered and ready, before the girls get up. This allows me to give them my full attention. I like to sit down with them while they eat their breakfast, so we can talk about their dreams or about the plans for our day.

Change does not happen overnight, so start off by trying one of these suggestions and slowly incorporate the rest. Before you know it, you will no longer be rushing in the morning and may actually have time to stop and smell the roses on your way to work.