Starting Reception - what's your morning routine?

[HundredPercentUnsure]

Just that really.

What morning routine do you have for getting everyone up, fed, dressed and out the house at the right time, say leaving 745am?

Depends on your kids as everyone is different. Dentist told my kids to brush teeth 10 mins before breakfast as better for teeth knocking bacteria off and coating fluoride before contact with sugar (used to brush after). This was a game changer! So wee, teeth, dress, breakfast, shoes go. Breakfast last gives incentive and knocked a lot of time off. If your kids are reception though you might need to dress after brekkie. Wake up time might depend on your routine. I'd get up at 6.30 and get myself ready before getting kids up at 6.45/7.

Also if reception age check what they want for breakfast whilst they're brushing teeth. Pour it in bowl, put milk next to bowl and pour on as they walk in room. Have drinks on table ready etc. Over the year/s you'll step back on all this help. Of you're making sandwiches for older kids, make at weekend and freeze. Put in lunchbox frozen and its defrosted by lunch. I used a little box with separate sections. This saves a lot of time (and washing up and means you never run out of sandwich fillings midweek and need a top-up shop).

I would set mini deadlines that broke it down into smaller bits. E.g. must be out of bed by x time, dressed by x, breakfast finished by x. Then the time didn’t run away with us. I found it much less stressful! I also made sure I was 99% ready before I even woke the kids up.

If you can afford it, breakfast club is great. No faffing about making breakfast and they get to eat with their friends!

@For me it was:

School bags ready night before; if packed lunch then all set out ready to assemble (I don’t like pre-made sandwiches but everything else was done in advance).

Dc clothes are set out the night before (dc dressed downstairs during reception until he could dress himself, then clothes were laid out ready in his room and he was trained to dress himself as soon as he woke up)

Mum and dad up at 6am, coffee, shower, dress.

Give dc breakfast whilst he watches a cartoon on TV. Meanwhile mum makes packed lunch and fills water bottle

After breakfast should have time to chill: we would either read a book, practice phonics or maths, or head out early for a short bike ride depending.

I have never found mornings stressful!

Definitely up, teeth brushed and uniform on before breakfast. I use a tea towel as a ‘bib’ to stop any breakfast spillages. This way they are downstairs without having to go back upstairs to get dressed and dilly dally.

We leave a bit earlier at 7.30am. DS8 in school and goes to breakfast club. DD3 in nursery.

Up at 6am (adults - kids can sleep to 6.30am if they are tired) Adults dress before breakfast.
Breakfast 6.30am latest
Upstairs to get kids dressed and brush teeth 7am.
Downstairs shoes on to leave 7.25am.

I usually leave anywhere from 7.25-7.35am.

I have everything prepared the night before (bags/clothes/lunches etc- even adults stuff for work). I'm only starting packed lunches this year so will see how that fits in.

Edit to add: We banned screen time in the morning as it would result in either not getting ready on time, or not eating breakfast so he could have TV time. 100% the best thing we did

I’m up at 6.30 to sort myself out first, and my two then MUST be up by 7 as we’re out the door at 7.30. For us it works to have a fairly short, hard deadline as there’s no time to faff about.
Up, toilet, breakfast (brush/tie up hair while they’re eating if needed), clothes, teeth, shoes, go! My one piece of advice would be to do as much as you can the night before: for us that means full uniforms laid out downstairs ready to jump into, bags packed, any lunches or extra bits sorted. Can’t be doing with any other life admin that time of day!

Wake up at 6:45. Brush my teeth , then put bowl of cereal out for DD and jump in the shower. While she eats and does her teeth , I finish getting ready . Then she gets dressed(I used to help when she was little) and I chill for a bit or do some chores. Packed lunches done the night before.Do her hair. Depending on how things go we’re ready by 7:30 with quite a leisurely pace. Out of the house at 7:37.

Packed lunches, water bottles filled and bags packed the night before (including my own)..
Dd up at 7:10, dressed (without Cardi in case of spills), then breakfast. I sit with a cup of tea while they eat. Upstairs at 7:40 to do teeth, back down for hair, toilet and shoes. Out the door by 8.

Alarm at 6:15. We get up, washed, teeth and dressed before we go downstairs in the morning. We give the dog a quick (15-20 min) walk in the field behind our house. Then by 7am we are back in for breakfast and a bit of time to play before we head out. Sometimes we actually do the reading book before school as we have time and they are so tired after school, especially as they each do 2x extra curricular clubs in the week. Bags packed and uniform laid out ready the night before. No screens (including TV) before school as they are just distracting and can become a battle when time to leave. Kids are 6 and 7, but we've been doing this routine since reception.

wake up, 15 min in bed colouring, reading etc
Wash, get dressed, breakfast.
Now (going into year 4), we also do homework in the morning.
Brush teeth, off to school

Kids up at 7am

• Breakfast (eggs & toast, porridge, overnight oats... Cereal sometimes on days they have toast at breakfast club)
• Quick clean up/wash faces/brush teeth
• Get dressed
• Reading whilst I do hair
• coats/shoes on

Definitely no screen time in a morning, they have the music on and sometimes we'll have a quick 'dance party'. Shoes, bags, clothes are all laid out the night before. If it's a day they've chosen packed lunch, then we'll prepare as much of it as we can the night before and finish it in the morning. We have a baby too, who is fed on demand.

We have to leave the house by 7:30am for work and breakfast club (they insist on breakfast at home too!). Up at 6am, I get in the shower and get dressed whilst DH goes downstairs and feeds/cleans up after the cat, empties the dishwasher, wakes kids up does youngest's teeth, sun cream if required, they both get dressed by themselves, their clothes are put out the night before. They eat breakfast. I do their hair and the cat's medicine whilst DH showers. Sometimes I have breakfast at work.

That’s what time we leave sometimes 7:20 but the walk is 10 mins nd they go to breakfast club. Alarm goes off at 6. Out of bed 6:15 then they have breakfast and drink and clean their teeth etc but they have to be dressed by 7. Then they can read their school book (this works better for us in the morning rather than in the evening)

DD about to enter year 1.

We'd wake up at 7, toilet and teeth upstairs.

Downstairs for breakfast. Usually eggs.

We get dressed and washed after breakfast as she's a messy eater.

Then whilst she's dressing, I sort water bottle, book bag etc

If she has time, she can watch TV for a while.

I wake up at 5:30/5:45 and go to the shower and get ready (I like doing things really slowly which is why I wake up so early).

Kids (7, 6 and 4) wake up at 6:30 and put their clothes on (always ready the weekend before). Then they go to brush their hair around 6:45. 7:00 they eat (cereal nearly every day) while I do their water bottles. They have school dinners so no packing lunches.

Around 7:30 they brush teeth and go to the toilet for the last time, 7:40 we get out. The bus comes at 7:45 - we take the bus as we used to live somewhere else and after moving here we realised the closest school had no spaces and a massive waiting list.

They do watch TV if they have time between doing anything, which they mostly do.

Thank you all, so helpful 😊

There isn't one at our school unfortunately!

No TV in the morning for us. We all have a cup of tea in bed together then get dressed and head downstairs for breakfast. Then teeth, face, and wee. However, one thing I’ve picked up from this thread is teeth pre-breakfast, will try that tomorrow.

Nah, they get given junk for breakfast. I'm wouldn't pay for them to eat crap cereal and poor quality bread with cheap jam etc

My DS won’t eat breakfast after brushing teeth unfortunately- he hates the taste.

I’m sorry your school does that, ours doesn’t.

My top tip is whatever you settle on set up a run of alarms on your phone that keep you on track.

this also means it’s not Mum nagging but the phone alarm!! I’ve chosen different tones for each thing..

Mine have a subconscious response to the sounds now as we’ve been doing it for so long!! A certain song has them reaching for coats and shoes every time!