Sanity-Saving Morning Routine Hack for Moms

With a preschooler, toddler and baby in our home, mornings are a bit hectic. This an understatement of course.

Mornings are simply TOTAL CHAOS. Especially back-to-school mornings.

After begging my kids to get up each day (on school days of course!), they manage to reluctantly make it down to the kitchen, after about 20-30 minutes of coaxing.

Crying baby in one arm, 2 year-old tugging at pajama pants whining for milk and cereal with ONLY the Elmo spoon and dinosaur bowl and 4 year-old pretending to be a jungle cat closing in on its prey (aka little brother). As the whining turns into wailing, I am tending to a wound and already threatening time-out at 7am. And that’s the easy part.

Because when it’s time to get dressed, it seems as if all hell breaks loose!

I’m pinning down a 2 year-old, hoping to go from the Paw Patrol pajamas to everyday shirt and pants before chasing a 4 year-old from kitchen to bathroom to living room, bribing him to get dressed immediately if he wants to watch that cartoon after school. And then with only a few minutes to go before I have to load all three kids into the car, I realize my 2 year-old’s shoe is missing! We will be late once again.

Yep, this is our typical morning routine during the school year.

It’s no surprise, I’ve been desperately seeking any and every way to make the mornings a little less crazy.

Simple Way to Get Kids Dressed in Time for School

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Of course I wasn’t looking for anything super fancy or time-consuming to put together, since as you can tell there’s no time for that in our crazy house. So fortuitously, while nursing in bed late one night I looked over to my side and the solution was clear: my plastic little side table would work perfectly to organize the kid’s clothes and outfit for the day!

I took the side table — this super convenient plastic storage bin — and set it up downstairs right where the kids watch tv before the dreaded “get-ready-for-school-routine.

I simply use a drawer for each kid and label it. Anything they need to wear for school that day is placed inside for the next day. This includes bottoms, tops, underwear, socks and sneakers.

This not only saves me hours rummaging through laundry baskets and kid’s rooms, frantically searching for last-minute outfits, it also ensures mom won’t turn into a madwoman hunting down a lost shoe!

I just wish I would have thought of this ingenious idea sooner!!