Our kids are still young (1 & 2 years old) and while that’s great, it makes mornings a bit chaotic at times. My daughter enjoys and regularly wakes up before 6:30am basically everyday and when my son wakes up, he wakes up with all the energy in the world lol. My husband and I were finding that we needed to change something because we both wanted to have time in the Bible, and also to workout, and also to be awake before the kids, and also to cook a yummy breakfast to eat as a family, and also to get everyone ready all before he left for work, and it wasn’t happening. There wasn’t any structure in our mornings allowing things like this to take place effectively each day.
I feel like routines with kids are always evolving, but here is a simple change we’ve made to our mornings recently that has been super helpful and great (so far).
We switch off mornings to do what we want.
One of us is on set kid duty while the other kind of has free play. For my husband, this usually means waking up early and going to the gym or on a run for his mornings. For me, I have a handful of things I will do depending on I’m feeling or how much sleep the kids have been letting me get. I will either workout/go for a walk/run, work on my blog (what I’m doing right now for my morning), or choose to sleep a little later. Then we come together as a family around 7:30am or so and get on with the rest of our morning.
Kid duty.
The parent that is on “kid duty” gets my daughter when she wakes up, gets her diaper changed, and some milk. My son sometimes wakes up prior to the other parent being home, but that’s a bit more rare. Then, it’s basically playing with her, watching her so she doesn’t get into anything she shouldn’t (this is her new thing), and then do their Bible Time and get ready. Also, the parent on kid duty for the first hour or so in the morning is typically the one to cook breakfast that morning.
I like this current routine we have because my husband and I both need the time & space to get away and do something for ourselves. Switching off mornings is helpful to make sure we’re both getting a couple mornings each week. And as a stay at home mom, I need some space from my kids at times, and I want my kids to have that 1:1 time with their father that they don’t get when he’s at work. It’s a win win!
What morning routines help you?
Tia Marie
tia marie 