Mr. Type A is also, well, pretty Type A. Not in the same ways as I am, but certainly in his professional life. He frequently has early morning business meetings and/or is traveling somewhere which seems more glamorous than where we live.
This leaves Mrs. Type A alone for days at a time….with young kids and a full time job.
Now, for many kids, this is not a big deal. Take my 4 year old neighbor, for example. Last week, her mother was telling me that her daughter wakes up at 6AM everyday, and she was annoyed because she had to get up to make her breakfast. But, they have since made a deal with her that breakfast wouldn’t be until 7AM and that was working out well.
I asked, “what does she do between 6AM and 7AM?” My imagination was racing:
Does she jump off her bed incessantly yelling “pow pow?” No
Does she make pee pee in her closet and claim the toilet moved? No
Hmmm…does she go into her sister’s room and poke at her eyes until she wakes up and then encourage her to make her own pee pee in the soon-to-be-moving toilet in the closet? No
If she is so quiet, don’t you worry she is just making contributions to the “booger wall” in her room? No
Well, then, what does she do?!
According to my neighbor, her daughter gets herself up, gets dressed, and brushes her teeth.
Hmm…we live two different lives, don’t we, Sister? I don’t think you have any issues getting ready in the morning.
My kids are – how should I say this? – well, not like their neighbors. I’ll spare you the details, but I’ll just say we may have a mysteriously moving toilet from time-to-time.
Do you start to get a sense of why it may be difficult for me to leave the house in the morning when I’m on my own?
I’m proud to say that, in all my years as a mom, I have really never been late to work. Part of that is the nature of how my company operates (i.e., no clocking in, per se). But, I do have early morning meetings not too infrequently and I can honestly say I have never been late.
SO, how does Mrs Type A get her young kids ready in the morning when her husband is gone?
Well, see, this is where my 15 years of professional strategic planning and tactical experience come into play. When I was returning to work from mat leave 6 months after having my first, I was assessing my morning routine. In order to get out of the house, I had to:
- Nurse baby
- Change baby’s diaper (at least once, maybe twice if we had a blow out before I left)
- Change baby’s outfit
- Brush baby’s gums
- Gather bottles and food for the day
- Gather pumping gear
AND I had to get myself ready too.
I started to cry. How was I ever going to get to work during daylight hours at all, let alone on time?!
While this may see overwhelming, I can honestly say it just gets harder to get the kids ready in the morning as they grow older. Yes, they are more self sufficient, but they also get more defiant and they bicker with each other. A few years after that first cry about the morning routine, I have perfected our AM routine. I get all of us ready and out the door in 30 minutes.
I group our get ready in the morning “to-do list” into 4 buckets, and I’ll explain ideas for efficiency in each:
A. Eat breakfast
B. Change clothes
C. Brush teeth
D. Gather gear
Suggestion #1: Take a red marker and cross off item B.
You do not need to change your kids clothes in order to get ready in the morning. When they are very little, you certainly can just keep the little one in their jumper all day. Or at least until drop off in the morning. I’m sure the jumper will be soiled within an hour anyway and the school can then put on a different outfit. So, in the morning after you nurse, you just change the diaper and you’re pretty much ready to go!
As your kids are a bit older and more mobile, you can find some clothing that can be worn at day and night. In fact, nothing comes in our house that can’t function as both clothes and PJs!
It’s easy to get ready in the morning if the kids are wearing these examples of PJs that work as clothes and vice versa:
(Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.)
Here are some options from Hanna Andersson. I am a big fan of their clothes because they are (a) organic and (b) very reasonably priced (frequently on sale). The pants cannot always withstand the wear and tear my kids put them through; we end up with holes in the knees pretty quickly. But they do have some double padded knee pants, which have lasted quite a long time, actually!
(These are the double knee pants I referred to earlier. They really do last a long time!)
Suggestion #2: Meal Plan on Sunday
Breakfast is a huge time suck when you are trying to get ready in the morning. When my kids were very little, they had bottles of milk in the morning, followed by a few Cheerios. Every Sunday, I would pour 5 cups* of milk and 5 cups of Cheerios and put them in the fridge. Easy peasy.
As my kids got older, their dietary needs changed and I also started to value having a sit down breakfast where we could talk about the day ahead and/or reflect on a difficult bed-time issue the night before. For example:
What did we learn last night when we thought it was a good idea to take chocolate from the kitchen and try to hide it in the bed? Yes, we cannot sleep with our stuffed animals when we do that, because they have to go in the washing machine.
UGH, sigh! Please tell me I’m not the only one who has had this conversation!
So, at some point, my milks and Cheerios evolved to include more of a variety.
Now I employ a few different options in our breakfast rotation:
- Baked goods (i.e., pancakes, waffles, and/or French toast): I cook them on Sundays and freeze. I’ll also do this with sausage. In the morning, I just take them out and reheat. Breakfast is ready within 3 minutes!
- Scrambled Eggs: I mix the eggs and milk the night before (or Sunday) in a glass bowl and leave in the fridge. Right after I wake up in the morning, I drop the bowl in the Instant Pot (I might give it another stir). I start getting myself dressed, and – by the time I’m done — eggs are ready!
- Oatmeal: I use instant oatmeal, which can be ready in a matter of minutes or steel cut oatmeal the Instant Pot (which you set the night before so it’s ready when you wake up!)
- Overnight oats: so many good ideas here at SuperHealthyKids
* We are a plastic-free household. I use these shot glasses with my kids. Yes, we break 1, maybe 2, a year. Not ideal, but this is a tolerable trade-off for us in order to avoid plastic.
Suggestion #3: Any gear not in the car the night before gets left behind
Right when I went back after maternity leave, I was very diligent about putting everything in the car the night before and it helped immensely when getting ready in the morning. And, I do mean everything:
Diaper bag? In the car
My computer bag? In the car
My purse? In the car
Shoes? In the car
(The kids actually take their shoes off the shoes in the car when we get home in the evening. The shoes stay there all night so they are there the next morning. If we play outside in the evening, we put on a separate set of shoes. This may seem weird, but we have never had any last minute searches for lost shoes…not even once! I like the peace of mind knowing I can cross “lost shoes” off my worry list. Plus, it saves us time; the kids put their shoes on while I’m driving down the street…we don’t waste time in the house doing what we can do in the car!)
This “gear in the car the night before” rule worked great for us for years. And then school introduced “Show and Tell” and now – whether it’s show and tell day or not – my kids feel the need to gather a bunch of toys to bring. It’s as if there are no other toys at the school and they have to pack up their entire set of Legos!
This reminds me when my younger child was carrying a backpack on the way out to school. My child was seemingly trying to hide the backpack under a jacket. Um, yea, I’m definitely going to grab that right now and take a peek. What did I find? My passport which had come in the mail the day before. Hmm…better keep a closer eye on this klepto…
Anyway, to this day, when my children have to bring something to school the next day, we put it in the car the night before. If it’s not, in the car, I do not remind them to take it the next morning. I do feel like this is teaching them some responsibility.
Suggestion #4: Brush teeth
Honestly, I struggle with this one. I end up chasing my kids around the house with a toothbrush in my hand. When we used training toothpaste, I would just wait to do it until they were strapped in their car seats (which is how we also did sunscreen). I could use some help here, friends! It’s the one area I’m still working on when it comes to getting ready in the morning. Please send me suggestions!
So, that’s about it. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my suggestions and some ideas of your own! How do you get out of the house in the morning?
If you’re interested in more working mom topics, see these posts:
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