A morning routine is your insurance that you will get out the door on time with all the necessary supplies for the day ahead. The key to avoiding morning madness is ORGANIZATION. Here are some tips to help your mornings become more organized:

• Prepare as much of the school, work or day care supplies as possible the night before. Make lunches, pack bags with supplies and organize clothes.
• Have your child choose their clothes the night before. This includes socks and shoes.
• Encourage your children to get dressed before they have breakfast (unless they are very messy eaters).
• Allow for about an hour in the morning to get everything done. An hour allows for the inevitable mishaps and hiccups that occur when getting young children ready. It also allows you enough time to see if your child is healthy and well enough to go about their daily activities. If you rush too much in the morning, then a child who isn’t feeling well can get caught up in the momentum and may be overlooked.
• One family I know plays a CD in the morning—for each song they need to complete a task: get dressed, brush teeth, make bed etc.
• To get your children mentally and emotionally ready for the day, chat with them throughout the morning about the activities they might be doing at school or day care.
• If you have enough time left, sit down quietly together on the couch and read a short story or talk together—it’s a nice way to connect before you all go your separate ways for the day.
• Encourage independence in your children by having them make their own bed, get themselves dressed and brush their own hair. (Children under three years will still need to be ‘coached’ on doing these tasks to help them out until they get the hang of it.)
• Factor in the time it takes your children to gather their bags, get to the car and buckle up. We all make the mistake of waiting until the last minute and then make a mad dash for the car and leave in an unnecessary frenzied rush!
• Remember: stay organized, stay calm, and leave your house happy (if you can!) and you will have a positive start to the day.

Morning Routine – Parent Stories

Monique and Chris – two children aged six and three
Getting ready in the mornings has been a constant battle with my oldest child. During the last three years, I have been a full-time university student. My husband either goes to work very early or works away, which means I am the one that needs to get them ready. Getting the two children and myself ready in the morning and out the door on time was achieved by making a game of it. I found myself taking on the role of playing the ‘hairdresser’ to get hair done, the ‘shop assistant’ to get her dressed and the ‘food store owner’ to get the lunches made. This made it fun for my daughter and I found it a more stress-free way to get her ready in the morning. My son was the opposite—he would just get up, get dressed and be ready on time without a fuss.
Other strategies I use to be on time include: 

• Packing their backpacks the night before—this included reading any preschool notices and making sure they had everything they needed.
• Lunches made the night before—I would put together their lunch boxes with everything in it except the sandwich, which I would make in the morning.
• Ironing clothes the night before.
• Making sure I had all of my books, papers etc. I needed for university, organized the night before.

Source: www.sixtysecondparent.com