A morning routine that gets you out of the door
Mornings do not fail gradually. They fail at two specific points, and they are the same two points in almost every house.
Five-step morning routine strip
A printable morning strip to colour, with a blank version for your own order.
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Point one: the shoes
Shoes are last, which means they collide with the moment you are most under time pressure. Move them earlier — shoes before breakfast, on the child, done. It looks absurd and it removes the worst two minutes of the day.
Point two: the thing that changed
Anything unusual — a different coat, a swimming bag, a different parent doing the run — costs far more than it should. Name it the night before, not in the morning.
Five steps, in the same order, every day
Same rule as bedtime. Get up, dressed, breakfast, teeth, shoes and coat. Do not reorder it because today is different; today being different is exactly when the order is doing its work.
Questions people ask
My child goes slowly the moment we are late. Why?
Because urgency reads as pressure, and pressure makes a young child slower, not faster. The routine strip lets them pace themselves against a picture rather than against your voice.
Is a timer a good idea?
For some children it turns the morning into a game; for others it adds the pressure you were trying to remove. Try it for a week and be willing to drop it.
More like this
A bedtime routine chart for a toddler who cannot read yetHow to make daycare drop-off easierPart of our guide to Bedtime & mornings.