Share your tips for getting through the back to school period - £200 voucher to be won.

[LibbyMumsnet]

Are you feeling prepared for your children going back to school? We all know this can be an exhausting time due to many reasons, such as buying new shoes and school equipment and let’s not forget the ‘I don’t want to go back to school’ tantrums. Don’t Buy her Flowers wants to know how you deal with the stress and what you do to get some time for yourself.

• Share your tips for making back to school a bit easier below to be entered into a prize draw.
• One lucky MNer will win a £200 voucher for a store of their choice.

Here’s what Steph Douglas - Founder of Don’t Buy Her Flowers has to say: "September can leave me feeling absolutely depleted. If your kids were on summer holidays, you’ve just survived a long stint of juggling childcare, work responsibilities, trying to be ‘fun’ as well as ensure they don’t get scurvy. The start of term requires lots of admin – uniforms, labelling, finding emails with the vital information, and potentially dealing with the emotional fallout of new classes and teachers, and all while still trying to maintain all the other aspects of your life. It’s a lot.

The second biggest ‘reason’ our customers send Don’t Buy Her Flowers gifts is for TLC, so we see a lot of overwhelm but also support from one person encouraging the other to take some time for themselves.

Has anyone got any tips to make getting through September a bit easier?”

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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It's been pretty good so far for my son. Id recommend setting your alatm 10 minutes earlier, it's helping make sure we dont have the last minute panic and rushing to get out the door like we did last year.

Buy the uniform as far in advance as possible to save any last minute rushes. ALWAYS try the uniform on when it arrives to make sure everything fits so you can return and replace anything that doesn’t. Label everything! Make sure it’s all hung up and ready to go the night before including shoes, socks, bag and water bottle. Choose a breakfast the night before with DC.

Time, boundaries and self-care. That's all I have to offer!

Making the kids take responsibility for getting their lunch uniform etc sorted themselves. 9yr plus. If they are then late for school they will take the consequesnce ie detention or whatever else and make those changes themselves. I Don't understand what the big fuss about is tbh.

Aside from the expense I don't think it that much stress really. Start of summer check uniforms and order what needs replacing. Shoes mid summer. Make sure stationary box has spares in for the school requirement list. Mine do their own packed lunch if they don't want school dinner, pack own bags etc.

This year on the other hand is very stressful because our school is badly affected by RAAC so I have them all doing online learning and apparently you can't divide 2 laptops amongst 3 children when they all have different classes at the same time!

I plan a hairstyle for my daughter every day. She has a lot of very long and very thick hair so it needs to be properly stayed and put up every day to keep it out of the way. We will spend 5 minutes watching a couple of YouTube sorts a couple of times a week to get ideas and she never has the same hairstyle twice in one week. They don't have to be complicated, just different every day so one day might be plaits and another day a bun and another a pony tail etc.
It just makes the school mornings less monotonous because she looks forward fo having her hair a bit different every day and it also means less tantrums about having to have it brushed and having fo sit still

A white board on the kitchen wall showing what is expected
7:30 get up
7:45 breakfast
8:00 uniform on
8:20 - out of the door

I don't think you should have any massive problems if you have a routine and bedtime boundaries for them - just keep them in the loop as to what is happening, and talk through what will happen on the first day back - and ask f they have any worries - and discuss and settle any worries. If you make a big issue about it - you will get stressed children

Get the kids involved in prepping their lunch, school bag, uniform and shoes ready the day before.

Being organised is the key, it's the only way (lunches, uniform, acting on school requests)

I learned today that a friend of mine has 2 weeks of school clothes purchased and ready on rotation so she only needs to wash and iron school clothes once per fortnight! Genius!

Make sure bedtimes get earlier along with getting up - start a week before - and make sure you have enough uniform and school shoes fit - and reassure them - it's a stressful time x

Cozi - the free calendar app is the way forward. Put all the reminders in for all those mufti days, school book looks, recurring reminders for Pe days etc and you'll be in top of it all.
Plus having a great WhatsApp group of mums for those last minute panics is invaluable too

DD has autism and is very much a creature of routine so the start of the school year is always a challenge. I accept that the first few weeks are going to be tough and, until school becomes the routine, we are unlikely to have 100% attendance so I don't go ballistic when the difficulties surface. It doesn't solve the problem, but it definitely adjusts my attitude to it.

We try to make sure it's no bigger deal than going back after a weekend or half term otherwise it will create over-excitement that soon becomes panic.

We buy uniform whenever there are offers on, for the next size that will be needed. Same with coat.
School bags, equipment and lunchboxes replaced when needed throughout the year.
Shoes are the only items left until the end of holidays.
Bedtime routine is gradually reined in over the last week.
We try to have playdates each week over the holidays so it doesn't feel like a big deal to see friends back on the first day of term.

Be kind to yourself and your kids by being fine with imperfection - you will take reading books in on the wrong day, you will temporarily loose a water bottle etc. That stuff is not worth the calories stressing about.

And always have a chocolate biscuit or two ready waiting for them at home for when they have had a crappy day.

Put all the dates from school straight in to phone calendar with a reminder two days ahead.

Try and make friends with other school mums/dads so you have something to talk about while waiting for the kids to come out.

Plan everything the night before, lay out uniforms, ask what they want for breakfast etc, makes things a lot easier!

Double check you have everything - things get misplaced in the 6 week holiday, wash and iron the uniform the week before- that's one thing of the list - school bag, label EVERYTHING, and check school shoes still fit.

I find the encouragement of going to Pizza Hut (or macdonalds) every Friday after school works.

Do some bulk cooking / freeze leftovers so that the more hectic so you don't need to cook every night.
Get school homework done as early in the day as you can, before the kids get to tired.

Find out whether your school has a second hand uniform shop - you can often pick up logo jumpers etc for next to nothing.

Prepare everything the night before and leave by the front door.

Early bedtime- DS has just started high school and is absolutely knackered!

A treat in the packed lunch box

Saturday as a chill out and decompress day then Sunday to do homework- the more DS can do on Sunday, the less he has to do in the week when he's tired from school.

As a first time reception mum my biggest tip is to keep things low key the first term. My daughter is loving it but she is also quite emotional so we are having lots of extra downtime to counter her giddiness about starting school.

Take good rest before all starts over again 🙂