Getting Child Ready in the Morning

I am a single mom of one son who is 8 and what I've done from the time he was 2 and had to be at daycare for me to get to work by 8 was I would give him a first wake up call at 6:30, little tickles and hugs and would go get his breakfast started. I'd get myself started getting dressed and then wake him up for his final wake up call by getting him to get up and go to the table to eat. I'd finish up with my clothes, hair, and what not and sit down with him to eat a bite, then I'd get him dressed and hair combed and brush his teeth so he could sit on the couch and watch a few minutes of sesame street before heading out at 7:40. It helped because he's always been a cranky morning person, but to give him a chance to wake up for a few minutes really made a difference.
Now, I know this is wierd, but my son asks me to wake him up when it is still dark outside so he can go get on the couch and watch some tv. I set the clock for 5:30 and wake him up and he grabs his blanket and pillow and watches tv until 7 when I get up and make breakfast.

I was a working mom at one time. The way I got all three of my kids ready was they raced mommy getting dressed. Now that they are in school they race each other in the morning. My kids are 7,6,and 4.

Don't know if this would help, but I made up "charts" of my daughter's morning and evening routines (pictures of what she has to do and then the action written below it). I did graphics from the computer, but you could clip pictures from magazines or something like that. Then, we go along whichever sheet applies and see what we have done and what we need to do next. Don't get me wrong, we don't have flawless mornings, but she does get into the pictures and talking about what comes next. It also helps them to get routines going at an early age, and in a fun way.

Hope this helps!

I agree with JCs advice. Try waking your daughter up in stages. I do the exact same thing with my 3 1/2 yr old anti-morning daughter. I go in and wake her up with some tickling and back rubbing and then a few minutes later, I do it again. Then I have her sit up in bed for a little bit. Next she goes potty, gets her blankie and stuffed bunny and sits on the couch to watch a few minutes of cartoons while I put breakfast on the table. Then we get moving. This gives her an opportunity to wake up slowly instead of jumping right up out of bed and rushing around. Most adults don't fly out of bed at the first ring of the alarm either. That's why snooze buttons are so popular. :o) Make sure she's getting to bed early enough at night too.

Sounds like you have the two main areas covered, advanced preparation. Of course, eariler bedtime is a consideration since she has so much trouble waking up.
Finally, have a sticker chart for waking up (no fussies) eating breakfast (no fussies) brushing teeth, geting dressed, and "beating the timer" Set the timer and if she's ready at 6:55 she beat the timer! First two weeks of chart, when she earns 5 stickers, she will receive a prize...keep the prize kind of small...gradually increase the number of stickers required to earn a prize..then it may be a trip to the Dollar Store...be creative with the prizes..It can be a trip to McDonalds to play on the playground and buy a tiny icecream cone on the way home.

I would try waking her up a little earlier and see if that helps first. But, I am the Mom of three. I'm a night owl and none of us are morning people. Daddy is also gone to work before we even wake up so we have learned a few tricks over the years. For a 'breakfast in the car' you can assemble (the night before) a bag of dry ceral and a spill proof bottle of milk, juice, water..whatever. That was a lifesaver for me when they were little. You can also try- now that it's getting colder- putting her to bed in some cute jog sets so then you can just wake her up, do her hair, brush teeth, grab cereal and drink- out the door! This is harder to do when the weather changes (who wants to dress their kid for bed in shorts? :) but works nice with comfy jog sets.
-If she has any favorite shows you can always wake her 15-30 minutes early and tempt her with watching a show while she wakes up.

I have a 10, 9 and 2 year old... and what works for the older two is I 'start' to wake them up about 15 minutes before they HAVE to get up. Then when they HAVE to get up... for every 5 minutes that they lay in the bed (hide under the covers and REFUSE to get up) I charge them 15 minutes. Which means that instead of going to bed that night at 9... it becomes 8:45, then 8:30... heck... we've gotten all the way to 6:30 before!!! Those are the mornings from H*LL! But with the 2 year old... I wake her up in phases like the others have mentioned. But as you can see... almost all of the solutions have YOU getting up even earlier... I know... it stinks, but sometimes it is the only way to get out of the house on time!

We have to be out of the house by 7:30am too. My 5 year old catches the school bus at 7:40am. I wake everyone up at 6:30 and get them dressed, fed, etc. The only one I wait to get dressed until we get back home is my 4 month old.

So my vote is putting her to bed a little earlier and wake her up between 15-20 mins earlier.

My 5 year old is so not a morning person either lol It takes him 15 mins to get out of bed.

Hi Jana,

as you can see everyone has the morning wake-up and get ready problem. My daughter is 8 and like all children loves to sleep more monday-friday, but on saturday she is up like at 6:15. she woke me up very early today...what is up with that?? :) anyways,I saw an episode of that Nanny show, and she told the mother to start telling the child that if she didn't get up in time to get ready and eat that she would just go to school all messy and without eating. I started telling my daughter "if you don't get up you are not going to have time to eat breakfast and wash your self up and comb your hair, do you want to go to school looking like that? Of course she does not so she gets up, she really hates to miss her breakfast. She is only 3 yrs old though, I think you just need to get her up earlier, good rule of thumb; always leave time for those little things that just pop up in the morning, you know the accidental spill of milk on clothes, the untimely nosebleed on her clothes (my daughter sometimes has a nosebleed right as we are getting ready to leave) or anything else that can happen. Oh I also tell her if you get already and eat, if there is extra time, you can watch Nick TV while I finish getting ready. She loves that. Good luck to you!! Best wishes, A.

Your daughter may be too young for this, but it might not hurt to try. My daughter does not wake up well - NEVER has. We would have major battles in the morning and I was always after her to hurry hup. This past Christmas Santa Clause brought her a Dora the Explorer alarm clock. On top of being head strong, my daughter is also very indepenedent. The alarm clock has been a life saver. She wakes up when it goes off (I set it every night during bedtime routine), she gets up to turn it off, goes to the kitchen and gets her breakfast ready. This wouldn't help you with the getting dressed part, but another option might be to set a timer. We have to do this with teeth brushing and occasionally eating breakfast. I set the timer for a more than appropriate amount of time for her to brush her teeth. She can look at the timer to see how long she has left. If the timer dings and she is not finished, there is a punishment. Maybe she wouldn't be able to help you pick out the clothes for the next day? Again, she might be a little young for this. I do have an extremely independent daughter so that could be the main reason why it works so well for us. All I know is that we fight MUCH, MUCH less than we used to.

Hello J. G.,

I have a seven year old son and it was soooo hard having to wake him up early in the morning for school. I tried everything, from putting him to sleep earlier, to waking him up earlier, and nothing seemed to work. One day I just decided to go into his bedroom to wake him up by simply talking in a silly, funny voice and telling him a joke. I told him to "excuse me little Brian but you need to get your stinky little butt up so that you can get ready for school." I know that it sounds a bit unorthodox and all but much to my surprise it worked. It really worked!!! I was amazed to see that all he needed me to do was tell him a simple little joke. So now everyday he wants me to wake him up instead of his dad because according to my son, I am "cool" in the way that I get him to wake up. Dad is a little jealous. But just try it and let me know how that goes. bye...E.

My mom had the same problem with me when I was little, she also did all the things you are doing. The only different things are she got up at 5:30 and made sure I was in bed by 8-8:30 and she started working on getting me up at 6:30 so that by 7 all the fussing, whining, moaning and groaning was over and we could leave on time. Maybe it is the time your little one goes to sleep, maybe try a half hour sooner, they still need so much sleep and rest. Good Luck, Mom says it does get easier. B.

I am not a morning person either, like your 3y/o. I have 4 children,3 in school although my husband gets them up and ready each day. His method is to get up at 6:30, goes to each one and tells them time to get up. Then he goes to get dressed himself,goes back to tell them few more minutes. Then he finishes up himself, then tell them it's time. (by this time they are usually a wake complaining.) He does get our boys ready and my oldest daughter of coarse gets ready herself. They are out the door between 7:15 and 7:30 every morning. Now I myself ask him why go through the trouble waking them up so many times,He says the first 2 times prepared them for the FINAL wake up....I know pretty funny, but it works. Try the 3 step wake up call and see if that helps.
I know your wondering where I am at this time..............
yes, I am still in bed...lol I get up with our 3y/o a little later.
That is one more reason to love him! lol

Hi J.,
My son is the same way. He thinks mornings should be outlawed. You are just going to have to bite the bullet and wake her up 15 min earlier. Set a timer to give her 10 min wake up time and then it's off we go. You will find yourself so much more relaxed.
C

I don't have this problem but maybe you could offer her a reward system. I have a friend who did this. She let her daughter pick out some favorite stickers and here's how it worked. She would wake her daughter up and then set a timer. The daughter had until the timer went off to get her clothes on to get the sticker on her door. Then another timer to get teeth brushed, etc. Sticker, etc. She used as many stickers as necessary to get the girl out of the house in the am. She said the only time it backfired was when the daughter didn't make the timer deadline and didn't get a sticker - it was meltdown city that morning - but smooth sailing the next couple of days after that. Good luck!

It doesn't get better either, my daughter is 7, and its still like that, i used to be the same way.
Sometimes i ask her what she wants for breakfast the next morning, and when i wake her up, i tell her that i already made breakfast, and if it is something she really likes, she jumps out of bed.
A.

What time does she go to bed at night? Putting her to bed at night, at an earlier time, might help.

I've been having the same problem. I have three boys that I have to get to school before 8:00 and I also have to take a shower so I don't look to bad when I drop them off. I wake up at 6:30 and take a shower and I would usually wake them up at 7:00 but having three boys to dress and feed and teeth brushed and hair brushed, it didn't always work out, we would be running out the door 10 minutes till and we would barely make it to school on time. So I started to wake up 15 minutes early and wake them up 15 minutes early and we now leave the house calmly and we get to school in enough time to where the kids don't have to run to the door of the school. So I would just try to wake her up 15 minutes early and see if that will help at all. Good Luck!