My morning routine is driven by the requirement to get two children to school in a ten-minute window, and myself to work asap after that. The weekend mornings are not the same, but are also constrained by child activities. Also on Wednesdays my younger child attends a before-school club so we have to be there about 45 minutes earlier.
Overall, it's very much me doing things that are necessary rather than my ideal, but they're necessary because of choices I've made e.g. to have children at all, to participate in school rather than home-educate, to do particular activities at weekends. The children have another parent resident, and another related adult resident; for reasons it is easiest for me to be The Parent Who Does Mornings, but that's another choice.
One thing I did over the recent Christmas/New Year break was formally write out a weekly schedule for each child, print them out, talk through each one with the relevant child, and put the print out in a place of their choosing for reference. This is mostly to help each child on a daily basis - and to cope with Wednesdays being different - but it has had the useful effect that if I'm too ill to be Morning Parent, the replacement adult can follow the schedule rather than me trying to dump the requirements on them verbally.
To create the child schedules, I started with the school arrival window. The children must arrive no later than 08:55. If they arrive before 08:45 they have to hang around in the (increasingly crowded) playground until the doors open. The optimum arrival time is about 8:47 when the first rush into the cloakrooms has dissipated, but there is still plenty of non-rushed time to hang up coats, bags etc and get settled into their classrooms.
We live close enough to school that if we start walking at about 0840 we arrive nearly perfectly; that in turn seems to require declaring time to put on coats, shoes etc at 08:30. Both children need to eat breakfast, get dressed, clean teeth, and get their bags ready. 11yo needs to make lunch if he wants a packed lunch that day. (I would actively prefer to pay for a school lunch than make a packed one, but said child is very particular about food, so we have reached a compromise of "you want it, you make it", although I will step in and help if time is getting tight.)
11yo's schedule is looser - we've learned from experience that he needs to start eating breakfast by 0800 at the latest, and to get out of bed by 0730 at the latest, but exactly which order he does tasks apart from that is up to him, and he will often make his own breakfast. 5yo's schedule is in 15 minute increments from 0730, and I usually make his breakfast.
I usually wake up at 0700 or shortly before, and pick up my phone to check my calendar, skim my email, and indulge in a few minutes on a silly phone game. I then get up and use the bathroom. If I'm feeling energetic I'll shower and get dressed immediately, before the first child checkpoints at 0730. If not, I will lie back down and read (fic, DW, news) on my phone until 0730, and squeeze both shower and dressing around the child checkpoints during the next hour. The other things I need to do in that hour are preparing my food & packing my bag for the day / taking my morning pills / checking the children's bags / cleaning my own teeth / brushing my hair.
I almost never eat breakfast at home, but will pack a home-made smoothie and drink it once I'm at work. This is a relatively new thing - until about 2 years ago I was a BREAKFAST BEFORE ANYTHING person but dietary changes I made for other reasons seem to have changed this.
I walk to school with the children, then either walk directly to work (about 25 minutes total) or walk home to collect my bike and cycle to work (about 15 minutes total). The choice depends on a bunch of factors including whether I have meetings to attend, my general energy levels, the weather, and what I'll be doing at lunchtime and after work that day.
It's easier to leave the bike at home because it minimises the number of transitions for the children to "leave the house" and "arrive at school". Taking the bike, whether riding it or pushing it, adds at least two transitions and also I'm then steering a bike through the morning school rush twice.
Wednesdays are different: 5yo has to be at school no later than 0810, so I moved his whole schedule 45 minutes earlier, my alarm goes at 0630 and his first checkpoint is 0645, and we leave the house at 0800. I then come back home and either read or get small tasks done around checking on 11yo's progress, and go to work when he goes to school.
On Saturday mornings, 5yo has dance classes at 10:00 for which we ideally leave the house at 09:30. I wake 5yo if necessary by 8am, and we do breakfast, teeth, getting dressed, packing bags in a similar order as to weekdays, but with a bit more leeway. 11yo has no commitments and sleeps in / plays / reads as they like. I usually have a small breakfast with 5yo, and we usually go for brunch after his classes at the cafe beneath his dance school.
On Sunday mornings, if at all possible I take both children to a family swim session at the nearby pool, from 0930 to 1130. I wake both children at 8am if necessary and we do breakfast, teeth, dress, pack swimming stuff and get out on bikes as soon after 9am as possible. 5yo has a seat on my bike; 11yo rides their own; it takes less than 10 minutes to ride to the pool and lock up the bikes there.
The morning routines depend on the previous evening's routine being followed well enough that everyone has had enough sleep. We really notice it on the days when that hasn't gone so well; again having a written schedule seems to be helping everyone (both parents as well as children) keep on track.
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Date: 2018-01-19 09:58 pm (UTC)Overall, it's very much me doing things that are necessary rather than my ideal, but they're necessary because of choices I've made e.g. to have children at all, to participate in school rather than home-educate, to do particular activities at weekends. The children have another parent resident, and another related adult resident; for reasons it is easiest for me to be The Parent Who Does Mornings, but that's another choice.
One thing I did over the recent Christmas/New Year break was formally write out a weekly schedule for each child, print them out, talk through each one with the relevant child, and put the print out in a place of their choosing for reference. This is mostly to help each child on a daily basis - and to cope with Wednesdays being different - but it has had the useful effect that if I'm too ill to be Morning Parent, the replacement adult can follow the schedule rather than me trying to dump the requirements on them verbally.
To create the child schedules, I started with the school arrival window. The children must arrive no later than 08:55. If they arrive before 08:45 they have to hang around in the (increasingly crowded) playground until the doors open. The optimum arrival time is about 8:47 when the first rush into the cloakrooms has dissipated, but there is still plenty of non-rushed time to hang up coats, bags etc and get settled into their classrooms.
We live close enough to school that if we start walking at about 0840 we arrive nearly perfectly; that in turn seems to require declaring time to put on coats, shoes etc at 08:30. Both children need to eat breakfast, get dressed, clean teeth, and get their bags ready. 11yo needs to make lunch if he wants a packed lunch that day. (I would actively prefer to pay for a school lunch than make a packed one, but said child is very particular about food, so we have reached a compromise of "you want it, you make it", although I will step in and help if time is getting tight.)
11yo's schedule is looser - we've learned from experience that he needs to start eating breakfast by 0800 at the latest, and to get out of bed by 0730 at the latest, but exactly which order he does tasks apart from that is up to him, and he will often make his own breakfast. 5yo's schedule is in 15 minute increments from 0730, and I usually make his breakfast.
I usually wake up at 0700 or shortly before, and pick up my phone to check my calendar, skim my email, and indulge in a few minutes on a silly phone game. I then get up and use the bathroom. If I'm feeling energetic I'll shower and get dressed immediately, before the first child checkpoints at 0730. If not, I will lie back down and read (fic, DW, news) on my phone until 0730, and squeeze both shower and dressing around the child checkpoints during the next hour. The other things I need to do in that hour are preparing my food & packing my bag for the day / taking my morning pills / checking the children's bags / cleaning my own teeth / brushing my hair.
I almost never eat breakfast at home, but will pack a home-made smoothie and drink it once I'm at work. This is a relatively new thing - until about 2 years ago I was a BREAKFAST BEFORE ANYTHING person but dietary changes I made for other reasons seem to have changed this.
I walk to school with the children, then either walk directly to work (about 25 minutes total) or walk home to collect my bike and cycle to work (about 15 minutes total). The choice depends on a bunch of factors including whether I have meetings to attend, my general energy levels, the weather, and what I'll be doing at lunchtime and after work that day.
It's easier to leave the bike at home because it minimises the number of transitions for the children to "leave the house" and "arrive at school". Taking the bike, whether riding it or pushing it, adds at least two transitions and also I'm then steering a bike through the morning school rush twice.
Wednesdays are different: 5yo has to be at school no later than 0810, so I moved his whole schedule 45 minutes earlier, my alarm goes at 0630 and his first checkpoint is 0645, and we leave the house at 0800. I then come back home and either read or get small tasks done around checking on 11yo's progress, and go to work when he goes to school.
On Saturday mornings, 5yo has dance classes at 10:00 for which we ideally leave the house at 09:30. I wake 5yo if necessary by 8am, and we do breakfast, teeth, getting dressed, packing bags in a similar order as to weekdays, but with a bit more leeway. 11yo has no commitments and sleeps in / plays / reads as they like. I usually have a small breakfast with 5yo, and we usually go for brunch after his classes at the cafe beneath his dance school.
On Sunday mornings, if at all possible I take both children to a family swim session at the nearby pool, from 0930 to 1130. I wake both children at 8am if necessary and we do breakfast, teeth, dress, pack swimming stuff and get out on bikes as soon after 9am as possible. 5yo has a seat on my bike; 11yo rides their own; it takes less than 10 minutes to ride to the pool and lock up the bikes there.
The morning routines depend on the previous evening's routine being followed well enough that everyone has had enough sleep. We really notice it on the days when that hasn't gone so well; again having a written schedule seems to be helping everyone (both parents as well as children) keep on track.