It is time to make mornings better!
Getting kids who have been “sleeping in” to wake up for school without a fight is one of the unique pains that parents face this time of year. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some easy things that can help kids get up without a meltdown first thing in the morning? You do that by making nighttimes better as well as tweaking your morning routine.
Here are my best strategies to get you started:
- Have (almost) everything ready for school the night before. Clothes picked out, toothbrushes and paste ready to go, backpack filled with everything but lunch. Anything can go wrong at the 11th hour. Younger kids really can help get themselves ready. They are usually more willing than the older ones, so start now while they are small. Make preparation happen earlier than bedtime for the older ones. They are tired. You are tired. This won’t end well.
- Use light exposure to your (and their) advantage. This means that more than 1 hour before bedtime, lights in the house dim. If you need to crank something out for work, use task lighting instead of overhead lighting. Their brains need to begin secreting Melatonin, and that won’t happen in bright light.
- Don’t let them fool you; they ARE tired at night! Kids want to hang out with you and their older siblings. They are too young to recognize the price they pay the next day. That is normal. They are…kids. You are the adult, and your guidance is going to teach them how to have a good night and a good day. So don’t buy their explanation. They are tired. They just aren’t sleepy.
- Being sleepy is easy to see if you know what to look for: eyelids closing, head listing, body folded, not erect, yawning. This is ammo for their argument, and they won’t be able to stop any of these for long. So keep watching.
- Make bedtime a good time. If they want time with you, provide it. You could need to alter your routines too, but you are the adult. You are capable of gaming this thing and feeling proud that you parent out of skill and smarts, not defeat and desperation.
- Make mornings the best times. This is key. I get up because I love my coffee. Nothing stands between me and that mug. Nothing. Even if it is short, make mornings better for your kids. Silly knock-knock joke time. Wacky fill-in-the-blank time on a white board. First one to find X gets a dollar time. Whatever your kids find meaningful. It could be simple: read to me, snuggled together time. But do it. Go to the gym another time. Get up early to run time. You pick: pain first thing in the morning, or pleasure.
