TODDLER MORNING ROUTINE

Are mornings hectic in your house, especially school mornings? Do you feel scattered and disorganized trying to get everything pulled together for school? In this post I hope to give you a few tips that might help calm the storm.

Check out my YouTube video to see us in action!

My daughter Ellieanna is in preschool this year and with that comes set schedules and drop offs. I wanted to walk you through what a typical morning looks like for us and provide a few tips on how we have a stress free morning getting ready for school.

OK TO WAKE!

My daughter typically wakes up at 7:30 a.m., she knows when it is ok for her to wake up when her alarm turn green. I love this alarm clock, it has been such a help as before she would wake up at like 5:45 a.m. and not want to go back to sleep! Now all I have to do is put her back in bed and tell her that she has to wait for her light to turn green before she can wake up and it works like a charm.

TIME TO GET DRESSED:

Once she is up she will turn off her noise machine and her night light and we will get her dresses. Ellie will then put her dirty clothes in her laundry basket, with the basket being in an easy to access location it gives her some independence with being able to do it herself.

PRO TIP:

One huge game changer for us has been pre-planning outfits. It makes it so much easier to just be able to grab an outfit and move onto the next thing. You can read more about pre-planning outfits in my kid's closet post.

BATHROOM:

Once she is all dressed we will head to the potty and then start getting her hair and teeth brushed.

PRO TIP:

I use a tackle box to keep all of Ellieanna's hair products organized. With the movable compartments you can customize it according to your needs. It fits her mini wet brush perfectly as well as all her other hair products. I especially love how when we are traveling I can literally just toss the entire container into our bag and all of her toiletries are ready to go.

We use tackle boxes to store all different types of products in our home. Here are a few ideas:

- jewelry

- batteries

- snacks

- tools

- art supplies

DISHES/BREAKFAST:

Once we get Ellieanna all ready she normally heads to the playroom to play and I start breakfast or do the dishes first then start breakfast.

PRO TIP:

One thing that can help save time and eliminate stress on school mornings is to have some breakfast options pre-made. I like to occasionally do batch cooking during my Sunday prep, for example I will bake a huge batch of muffins to tide us over for a few days so I don't have to stress about making breakfast every single day. Doing this also allows you time to get other things done like the dishes from the night before if you couldn't get to them.

TIME TO EAT:

Once breakfast is done we will both eat together before we have to head off to school.

PRO TIP:

Use a silicone place mat to make clean up easy! I love ours, it keeps food from falling into the cracks of the table and it is so easy to wipe down with my Norwex kitchen cloth after breakfast.

DISHES RIGHT AWAY!

After breakfast I try to load our dishes right away so I don't have dirty dishes out all day. I will also wipe our counters with my kitchen Norwex cloth, it makes it so easy to keep our counters clean!

DON'T TRY TO TACKLE EVERYTHING

One thing that you have to keep in mind is that you cannot do it all. You will never be able to do all of the things all of the time. Instead just take one bite at a time! I typically will leave the rest of the kitchen to tidy after Ellie is in school. Don't beat yourself up if you have to leave something for later.

PACK IT ALL UP

After we eat we have about 15 minutes before we need to leave, during this time we will use the potty and get everything that we need to get out the door packed by the door.

SET YOUR ALARMS

This has been a huge hack for us this school year. On my phone's alarm clock I have several different alarms that will go off throughout the morning to help keep us focus and on task. The one that helps the most in getting us out the door on time is one that goes off 10 minutes before we leave. This is a great reminder that we need to be doing our final steps to get out the door.

ONE ON ONE

Once we get Ellie to school we generally have a little bit of time before she heads in. I like to use this time for some one one one activities. She loves to color or play with her dolls or we chat about what she is going to do in school that day. It just helps to have some calm time before we head into the school instead of rushing to get her out of the car once we arrive.

I hope you picked up a few tips that you can implement into your kids morning routine!! I have found that having a morning routine just helps make the rest of the day run smoother and less stressful.

PRODUCT LINKS:

- ALARM: https://amzn.to/2y8jTft

- TACKLE BOXES: https://amzn.to/2Iy1a1A

- MINI WET BRUSH: https://amzn.to/2OzTy3Y

- LARGE WET BRUSH: https://amzn.to/2zLkZ2P

- SILICONE PLACEMAT: https://amzn.to/2xUSw9o

- NORWEX KITCHEN CLOTH: https://audreyandersen.norwex.biz/en_US/customer/shop/product-detail/299789?categoryName=Kitchen