Routine/schedule for Getting Mom and Kids Ready in the Morning... Before 7:30? - Salt Lake City,UT

When I was in my 20's, I was often late to things, or at the very least, not as early as I wanted to be. It took me awhile to realize what the problem was. I was not giving myself enough time.

You have to be realistic about what time you need to be ready. You also have to be realistic about how long it will take you. Then you have to count backwards to determine what time you need to get up.

The bus comes to pick up my boys at 7:50. I wake up at 6:30 (to start getting ready and to give myself a little bit of quiet time before I have to be the motivator) and get them up at 7:00. It took me awhile to come up with my system so that we always make it to the bus on time. I just kept getting up a few minutes earlier until I found the time that worked for us.

I think a lot depends on what your idea of being "put together" is.
I prefer to shower or bathe in the evening because I like to go to bed clean. It makes the mornings easier because I only need to wash my face and brush my teeth. Most days I brush my hair into a neat ponytail, moisturize my face, and do some mineral foundation/powder, mascara, lipstick and I'm good to go. I hardly ever spend more than ten minutes on my face/hair. If I'm feeling fancy I'll spend a few extra minutes doing eyeliner & shadow but again it's very basic and only takes a few minutes.

Don't assume the women you see that are so put together really have their life more together than you do. Don't compare yourself and your children to others and use that standard on how you should dress and look. Figure out what your actual priorities in the morning are and go with it.

I'd think the first priority since you will be heading back home after dropping off the kids and picking up the daycare would be getting your kids up, dressed, brushed, fed and out the door. I'd say to do as much prep the night before so outfits picked out right down to the socks and shoes, backpacks packed and by the front door, lunches prepared and in the fridge (leave the boxes on the counter the night before and as soon as you fill them put them with the backpacks by the door). We went as far as putting the coats on top of the backpacks to everything was right there.

Second would be how much time you are willing to put into your hair and makeup. I had a wash and got cut with the kids were little so there was minimal time needed. And I had my make up routine down to 5 minutes. If I hadn't been working outside the home I probably would have just done a little mascara, blush, and lipstick and called it a day.

Work with your strengths. Since you are not a morning person, undertake the prep in the evenings. Lay out the kids clothes, bags, lunches. Ready cereal and fruit on the table. Set your coffee maker to start brewing. Lay out your jewelry and lipstick.

Those who put themselves together every day do so because it doesn’t feel acceptable for them to do otherwise. If you can embrace it as a self imposed mandate you will have better success.

Best
F. B.

I think you're probably harder on yourself than you need to be, saying that these other moms are all put together and you don't feel that you are. You have no idea what insanity they went through on the way to school, and those 5 kids might not be all theirs anyway (carpool?).

So, I'd decide what the bare minimum is for your own appearance in terms of makeup, and then add one thing. So if a ponytail and some blush is the minimum, add a quick swipe of lip gloss and call it a day.

What are your own kids responsible for? Are you trying to do everything in terms of planning and supervision? Or do they have age-appropriate assignments (and are you willing to let them feel the repercussions if they don't follow through)? For example, if a kid doesn't plan ahead to wear his lucky red shirt on Tuesday, then is he the kid who goes without it or are you the mom who throws in a load of wash at 6:45 a.m. because someone is whining? Kids learn faster if parents are happy to throw them in the car in their pajamas because they didn't get ready, you know? So if you back off from your need to be totally together and put some of this on the kids' shoulders, you'll do better after 2 weeks of them kvetching.

Set out clothes the night before - give the child 2 choices, and whatever is picked is what gets worn. No decisions. Put cereal or cut up fruit in a bowl the night before, covered. Let the kids feed themselves. Make a bunch of lunches ahead of time - my mother made 10 sandwiches on Sunday nights and froze them, wrapped. On each morning, 2 got pulled out and we 2 kids had defrosted lunch by 11 a.m. Buy snacks and fruit in large bags, then divvy up in small reusable plastic containers on Sundays (kids can help) and then put the single-serving containers where they can be grabbed and thrown into a lunch box. 1 sandwich/wrap, 1 snack, 1 fruit, done. Use reusable water bottles that can be filled at the tap - not bottled water and no juices. Cheaper, and easier for a kid to refill at the school water fountain.

Backpacks at the door, with shoes and coats, all set the night before. If you have an individual hook for each kid, great. If you have a little basket for hats/gloves for each kid, great. All their stuff goes in that the day before, long before there's any screen time. When they get home, they can each put their lunch boxes in the kitchen and empty them, putting containers in the sink to be washed, and they can refill their water bottles for the next day.
Have a file divider thing on the wall with a folder or large envelope for each kid that holds permission slips, school physical forms, notes for the teacher, anything else that has to go in.

Have a small basket in the downstairs bathroom (if you have a 2 story house) with the hair essentials (scrunchies, barrettes, brushes) and toothbrushes for a quick touch-up without someone going back upstairs.

Set the clock 5 minutes ahead and do not tell the kids that you've done that.

And the night before, when you decide to do one more thing before bed...don't. Go to bed, and get up 15 minutes before you usually do, just to get your head together.

I do a lot of prep the night before. I make sure that all of our clothes are laid out, my son's backpack is out, and that I prep as much of breakfast as possible. Son showers in the evening.

I get up 30 minutes before my son so that I can shower, dress, and do my hair/makeup. I have a low maintenance haircut and just blow-dry it. A little mascara, foundation, and lip gloss and I'm ready to go. I then wake my son up, and while he's getting dressed I get his breakfast ready. We brush our teeth, and we're out the door by 7:15. Sometimes I have to wet his hair down to get rid of his bedhead, but that only takes another 2 minutes. (We have extra toothbrushes in our downstairs bathroom so we don't have to go back up stairs.)

The thing is, some of the stuff doesn't take any more time than you're already spending. You and your kids already shower or bathe and get dressed, right? It doesn't take any more time to put on an a nice outfit than it does to put on sloppy clothing. It's all in the preparation.

I'm not sure I follow (sorry, this just reminds me of the question yesterday from the other child care provider asking for a routine). Surely you are organized if you look after children during the day on top of being a mom (not to mention going around and picking up children). You could probably give the rest of us pointers.

Lip gloss and pony tail sounds 'fabulous' for someone looking after kiddos all day to me. I suppose my only tip would be it takes just as long to put on something 'nice' as it does something else. If it's a real problem to get yourself ready or your kids, just get up 1/2 hour earlier.

How I did it?
Our son got to/from school riding the bus.
I rarely had to drop him off or pick him up unless there was a special project that was too fragile for the bus.
Everything that could be done the night before was done the night before.
Lunch made, clothes laid out - everything was ready to go.
Breakfast, brush teeth, get dressed - out the door.

I've never heard of a daycare that picked up.
I've only heard of people dropping off at the daycare providers home/place of business and people picking their kids up at the end of the day.

Lipstick for me was the most I ever did for makeup.
I never had patience for more than that for my whole life.
I guess you just need to get up early enough to get through your routine and not be rushed.

When I was breast feeding and going back to work I'd be up at 4:30am to get our son fed, get myself showered up, get to daycare at 6:30am and be at work at 7am.
You just have to be organized and commit to your schedule.
You also have to get to bed as early as you can so you can wake up early enough.
Good luck in finding your balance.
It's doable but it can take some time to find it.

i've never been a morning person and i too am amazed at how effortless some women make it look.

but even in my busiest times of parenting and working my kids at least would be neat and clean. i was another matter.

if it's important to you, though, you just do it. figure out how long it takes to do your morning routine tasks and work backwards from your departure time.

i know it takes me 35 minutes to take a shower, get dressed and put my makeup on. when the boys were home and in school i knew it took them about an hour to get up, have breakfast, brush their teeth and get dressed. i had their lunches ready the night before. i knew i needed another half hour to make my bed and supervise theirs, and feed the animals. fortunately there was no email or MP or FB to distract me back then. so i knew that if i had to be out the door at 7:30 i'd have to get up at 5:30 at the latest to make it happen.

khairete
S.

There are so many ways to answer this question. In general, it sounds to me like the concept of "being pulled together" is something that has become larger than life in your imagination! But, it can be tackled without stress when you look at small pieces and assemble them together.

I will address one very small piece: makeup, since you mention makeup.

Makeup does not necessarily take a long time to apply. Take, for example, blush and mascara and lipstick - three good basic makeup items. Those items can be applied in (for example) the amount of time it takes to toast a muffin!! You could even stand in the kitchen holding a small mirror and just put that stuff on while keeping one eye on breakfast. As long as you are not experimenting with any wild colors (which you should never do when rushing), you can apply those items quickly and easily.

Also, consider doing your bath/shower/facewash at night. That way, in the morning you can just style your hair and apply makeup if you want to (with no morning time spent on washing/drying your hair and your skin, since that will have been done the night before).

If I was trying to get out of my house and be professionally dressed while operating a home business I would get up early and get myself ready then get my kids up at some point in the middle of this. Sit them down to eat breakfast if they don't eat at school, if the school has that option I would be paying for them to eat there so that would make my own morning easier.

Then when they're off to school go about your business.

I took Love and Logic classes and loved the whole concept.

I had a hard to get up and get ready girl. So one morning I decided I'd start love and logic stuff with her.

I told her that she had 10 minutes to put on the clothes she had picked out for the day, then we'd be going out the door. If she wasn't dressed she'd go to school in whatever she had one, jammies, part jammies and part clothes, etc....I laid it out for her.

I set the microwave on 10 minutes timer.

When the bell rang I picked her up and put her out on the porch. She wasn't dressed all the way. She freaked out. I told her to get in the car, that she had plenty of time to get dressed and it was time to go.

In a few minutes I allowed her to go change. She was given 3 minutes and she was back out and ready to go in less than 2 minutes.

I have never had to remind her she needed to get dressed and ready to go again, she's 14 now.

Logical consequences, natural consequences of their decisions teach them.

Get up earlier. Really. That was my "system". I hated getting up early, but loved leaving the household organized and kids all set. I even had time to eat breakfast with my children or be in the kitchen when they ate, which was a priority. The best part was that I knew when we all came home, things were in good shape and we all could take a small breather from our busy days. Now, I do wish I had learned to go to bed earlier and not live on caffeine!

I think it is important to many people to feel good about themselves and how they look when they walk out the door in the morning is a big part of it. I work from home, and rarely does my husband walk in and I don't have my hair done and full makeup on and dressed nicely (no yoga pants or sweatpants). Even though I don't leave the house many days, I just feel it is important to myself to put effort into how I look and I don't consider it vain or obsessive.

Having raised 6 kids and worked full time, it really can be a challenge to get it all done. For awhile, I did shower at night (hated it, but it was a necessary evil with some kids showering in the morning, I'd never get one it unless it was a 4 a.m.), to get that out of the way. I also did get up 30 minutes before the kids to get a head start on getting myself ready. Another "trick" was I did it in stages - I'd get up first and shower and on the way to get dressed, I'd wake kids up, then on my way back to the bathroom after getting dressed, I'd make sure they were up, I'd dry my hair while they were dressing/potty, then make breakfast. While they were eating, I'd do my makeup. The idea that I would get 45 - 60 straight minutes to get ready was never going to happen in my house, so cutting it into pieces made sense for me.

As an aside, my kids always left in neatly pressed clothing, combed hair, and when the girls were little, I always did bows or braids. As teens, they never wore sweatpants to school or college, and always did hair and at least some makeup before leaving the house. As adults - they are the same way except my 2nd oldest, who rarely wears makeup, but that is a personal choice. She always looks nice and put together, but she just isn't a makeup person anymore.

i am simple. i do not wear makeup, my hair is long, fine and straight it just hangs, a hairdoo for me is a fresh ponytail or simply letting it hang. this takes roughly 2 minutes to achieve. then brush teeth add clothing and head down to get kids ready. their routine is eat, brush teeth and hair, get uniforms for school on, pack lunch and get in car. from the alarm that wakes me up to all 3 of us being presentable and out the door is 30 minutes. (somedays we even have time for more complex hairdoos for my kindergartner... like a braid or something)