NOW CLOSED: Tell Weetabix about breakfast in your house - you could win a £100 Sainsbury's voucher

[NewGirlHelenMumsnet]

Weetabix would like you to share your top tips for making breakfast time as stress free as possible. What are your top breakfast tips? Can you share your best breakfast stories with them on this thread? For example, do you run round trying to eat and feed the baby at the same time or is it a calm, relaxed affair in your house?

The best tips and stories will feature on their new page on Mumsnet (coming soon).

Everyone who shares a story or tip on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky winner will receive a £100 Sainsbury's voucher, from Weetabix.

Thanks MNHQ

If your kids don't like milk, give them something like Weetos or Weetabix Minis with choc chips in a bowl without any milk.

Then give them a big cup of warm milk with a teaspoon of hot choc stirred in.

I spent months trying to make DD (9) eat cereal with milk only to realise that she doesn't like millk so it was a pointless task.

DS eats loads of cereal for brekkie and tea sometimes!! He's such a food phobic, I know that giving him a bowl of cereal at teatime when he refuses to eat anything else will at least fill him up and provide him with added iron and vitamins.

On a perfect morning I get up at 6.30 and after getting myself ready have a lovely relaxed breakfast while listening to the Today programme and reading the Sunday paper (takes me all week!) Then I feed my 5mo DS, get us both dressed for going out and then drop him off at the CM in a cloud of well organised-ness as I waft off to work.

Mostly I stagger out of bed at the last minute, get both of us ready while juggling the grizzling baby, scoff my cereal and slurp my tea in two seconds flat while feeding said baby before staggering out of the house without having looked in the mirror once.

DH does the evening pick-up so has the right to get himself ready and breakfasted and off to work with minimal hastle .

I make ask the DC to get dressed before breakfast. This happens about 90 pc of the time. They get dressed, we all go downstairs, then there's a mad half hour of cereal ( DD's current fave is Weetabix Bitesize ) and toast ( weekends we have eggs etc, sometimes hot cross buns or similar ) eaten at the kitchen table, make packed lunches, feed cat. Once they have brushed their teeth, brushed hair etc they are free to play. I switch on the TV if asked and if there is time.

DH never gets breakfast for the DC as he's at work by then and at the weekend he's exhausted.

I eat my breakfast once they're at school. At the weekend we all eat breakfast together.

lol at everyone slipping the word WEETABIX in their posts!
Bunch of suck ups! (;

I can't do much before a proper breakfast so even if we have to leave at 4am (to go on holiday) I have to eat something. I try to start the day as healthy as possible as it usually ends up with a bar of chocolate before bed!

DH is up and out the house pretty much before we are up and about. Nice quiet toast and coffee for him with the laptop.
Me: 2month old, 19month old ds2, nearly 3yr old ds1. Weetabix and porridge alternate days with a portion of fruit in, toast and jam and juice for the toddlers. Big bowl of meusli or porridge and juice for me. Put it all on the table with a couple of cloths and let the mess around begin. Ds2 insists on feeding himself and spreading it everywhere, Ds1 insists on me feeding him, baby insists that he is really not happy in his bouncy chair on the floor and would like a top up to his 6am feed. So me bfeeding, feeding myself and ds1, catching mess before it spreads too far from ds2. They both have streaming snotty noses at the moment so frequent nose wipes to prevent snot mixing with their food. How I manage with 2 hands I really don't know.

Clean up, make a cup of tea and put the t.v on!

Weekdays very different from weekends, weekdays don't have time so me and DH have breakfast at work (me latte and a croissant, DH tea and bacon butty) and 14mo DS gets his given at nursery.

Weekends though its my favourite part of the day, I can teke time giving DS his cereal while DH does a cracking cooked breakfast which we eat round the kitchen table while the dog and DS beg for bits of it!

Hot milk and bread and butter on waking to stave off hysterical starvation.
Limited choices mid week, porridge or weetabix. Weekends are usually eggy bread or pancakes.
It's the only meal I don't sit at the table for with the dcs - I run round sorting out the dishwasher, hanging up washing and so forth.
Then I go to work and eat my breakfast there...

On school days:- get myself totally ready (showered, dressed, hair and make-up) before getting the DC up for breakfast. Makes it less rushed and more relaxed knowing I'm sorted and can concentrate on them

• get the older DC to feed the baby his breakfast whilst I get theirs ready

• then can sit down with them and eat mine

Try and get myself up and all ready before DD wakes up and make sure all bags are packed/clothes laid out the night before. If there is too much whinging or moaning turn the music up louder. Allow time for inevitable fiddling and dawdling about (both DD and I).

send the kids to breakfast club. somebody else gets to wash the crusted weetabix out of their bowls and i can eat my toast in peace.

Although, I always give them some fresh fruit juice and a portion of fruit on a morning even if they are at BC as i know i have sent them off with 2 of their 5 a day.

i also believe making fruit part of their morning routine wuill set them into good habits in the future. I work with some teenagers who never eat fruit and never eat breakfast.

We always, always start with a piece of fruit - usually one apple or pear sliced and shared between 2 ( so not too filling) . Ds1 loves choc chip mini weetabix but they are insanely high in sugar, please cut back! Try to have eggs/ cold meat/ or something else sugar free a couple of times a week. Also are you going to make a choc chip oatibix?

not sure if I'm the best peron to add any tips. Breakfast tme in our house always reminds of that book about the elephant family.... 5 minutes peace. "the children were having breakfast - this was not a pleasant sight..."

The smell of baking bread from our bread-maker wafting up the stairs is a marvellous incentive to stagger jump merrily out of bed full of joie de vivre and joyous expectation for the coming day.

After checking to see if the hamster has escaped from her cage we sit down together a la Waltons and happily chomp on warm bread with lashings of dripping butter which we wipe off our chins .

seeing as our dc get up at ridiculous o'clock most days (usually before 6am) we allow TV before breakfast just so that we can wake up and then its TV off for actual food time. Breakfast if often accompanied by dh or I telling a story to distract ds enough so that he will actually eat more quickly (we have to do this at most meal times, a bit tiresome but it works). At the moment we are having to make up new adventures for scooby -doo.

My husband is out of the house before 7am so it is just myself and 2 sons for breakfast. We always eat breakfast at the table so I get out the glasses, dishes and cutlery the night before and then everything is ready. There is usually a choice of cereal, cornflakes, weetabix or chocolate weetabix.

Schooldays, breakfast is cereal. Quick and straightforward. Anyone who wants porridge has to be up (and down) early enough, and dh will make it for them. Dc come down to breakfast fully dressed, and don't go upstairs again. Once you've finished you can get down, unlike at other meals. Dawdlers get a couple of warnings, but if they haven't finished by a certain time, tough.

A bit stressful, sometimes more than a bit, and generally quite pressured.

Weekends, OTOH, are a completely different kettle of fish. Unless we have something to do, or somewhere to go, that morning, you can have breakfast whenever you like, dressed or in PJs. Toast is usually popular, with any toppings. We often have a weekend treat of muffins - English, of course - or croissants. Dd and I enjoy a salad for breakfast from time to time.

Niiiice.

DH gives DSs their breakfast whilst I have a shower every morning. He needs 2 espressos before he can start the day so they eat either Weetabix or Shreddies and he drinks coffee.

There is always an argument over who has the green bowl.

I can't eat breakfast first thing and have to spend next hour nagging children to get dressed and out of the door. Actually that's a lie. Although I aspire to Custardo's discipline, they watch Milkshake while I drink a cup of tea - then I nag them to get dressed.

I have porridge when I return from the school run, and a cup of coffee.

At the weekend, DCs are allowed to eat cheerios!

Alarm goes off 10 mins before kids need to be woken.
No one goes downstairs till dressed. But they decide which cereal to have whilst dressing.
Breakfast at the kitchen table, no toys allowed. I put a washload on and get bookbags ready etc whilst kids finish eating.
Then teeth and shoes on.
Then 10 mins play, if there's time.
Packed lunches are made the night before, just zapped in microwave if it's a hot 'main course'.
Out of the door at 8.05am on the dot.

Most week days:

I get back from gym, assemble smoothie ingredients in big jug, put kettle on, cereal in DD's bowl, milk in her cup.

I get into bath DH has run for me, he goes downstairs with DD (3.1), blitzes the smoothies for us and sets DD up at the table with her cereal and milk.

I have a quick bath, get downstairs as DH is leaving for work, in time to drink my tea and smoothie and get second course ready for DD. This is usually fruit but occasionally toast or something eggy. Sit down with her and have a chat about what we are going to do that day.

On the weekend we have one lie in each. Whoever is up with DD makes whatever she wants for her breakfast then cabbages on the sofa with tea while she watches Fireman Sam.

Set as much out the night before as possible.
One year old DD has Weetabix every day - she has it before she is washed and dressed. Otherwise her clothes resemble a disaster zone! We normally have a bit of a dance before she gets washed and dressed - Alexandra Burke is a current favourite of hers.

It transpires that a 2 and a bit year old can be conned into eating all her breakfast if you 'allow' her to have a garnish of cheerios/ricecracklepops on top of her weetabix and a splash of 'mummy's special red milk' to go with 'a big splodge' of blue milk. A bit of Chris Evans on the Radio and the world tastes good. Particularly if you get to be parent number 2, who gets to stay upstairs with the sleeping 4 month old instead.

How breakfast should be:

I get up and put out everything on the table (while wearing my cath kidston apron) (using delightful emma bridgewater plates). We have a nutritious breakfast encompassing all food groups and discuss the day ahead over the morning papers, all sitting down together, listening to classic fm.

How breakfast really is:

I get up, iron uniform, feed cats, feed dogs, clear up sundry dog/cat body fluids and small mammal guts, drink coffee, empty dishwasher, drop stuff, clear up dropped stuff, make packed lunches, drink more coffee, DD2 appears ranting about something, throws stuff around, argues about nutritious offerings, eats non-nutritious crap, I have more coffee, shout a bit, DD1 appears growling about something teenagerish, shouts at DD2, DD2 shouts back, I shout at both of them, Force DD1 to eat something/anything, drink more coffee, go to work/school.

Creep out of bed as soon as alarm clock goes off. Shower as quietly as possible, go downstairs grab a piece of fruit to eat before leaving the house. Making sure to slam the door as loudly as possible, thus waking DD and DS, and leaving DH to pick up the pieces...

There is one option available, you eat it or go hungry, they sit at the table with a bowl of cereal and cup of milk and I hide in the kitchen listening to radio 2. I venture in after 10 minutes armed with wetwipes and spray cleaner. Breakfast is just another hurdle in the morning routine.

Breakfast first then get dressed in school uniform - means clean uniforms

Get bags ready night before and even put in car if can - all homework, PE kits, musical instruments, letters, etc all done night before

Aim to leave house 10 minutes before need to and you will manage to get out on time

Have a good filling breakfast to start you up for the day