This
post is sponsored by the Everywhere Agency on
behalf of FAGE; however, all thoughts, opinions, experiences and motherhood skills are
my own. 

So, as it turns out, I am not
a Morning Person. 

Like, at all.

If there is a morning related
task one is supposed to accomplish in order to have a successful day, I flat
out skip it. Waking up before my kids, not snoozing my alarm, making my bed,
cooking and eating a well balanced meal – I say hard pass to all of it. I’m
honestly lucky if I put on real pants, brush my teeth and manage to hustle my kids
out of the door in time for preschool drop off. 

But here’s the thing – I’m
reaching the stage of Mom Life where I’ve got to start enforcing the behaviors
that will supposedly set my kids up for success and, despite my own morning
shortcomings, I really do think my children will benefit from a little AM
hustle. I set a goal at the beginning of the year to whip our mornings into
shape and while I’m probably never going to be the mom who wakes up before her
kids, I am now the mom who at least spends a few minutes considering the
possibility before turning off her alarm.

In all seriousness, I have
implemented a few changes over the last 8 weeks that are really working for us,
so I thought I’d share, in case, you know, you’re not a Morning Mom
either. 


1. Do as much as possible the
night before 
This advice is clearly not
Rocket Science (baby steps, people, baby steps!) but I honestly didn’t realize
how much I was leaving for both myself and my kids to accomplish in the few
short minutes before we rush out off to school. Seeing as most of it could be
either completed or prepped the night before, I was legit punishing everyone by
expecting us all to be in top form first thing in the morning. Now I make sure
the following things are checked off my list before I fall into bed at night:
the kids backpacks are packed, their lunches are made, their morning sippy cups
are filled with milk and waiting in the fridge, I take stock of our breakfast
options and load any miscellaneous stuff I might need to run errands etc into
my car. It probably only takes me 10 minutes or so to whip it all together but
it allows for our morning to be less chaotic and less, um, yell-y. 

2. Keep easy, healthy
breakfasts on hand, not just for the kids but for me, too. 



 I realized that I was always
stocking the kid’s breakfast stash with granola bars, yogurts and the
occasional Pop Tart but I never made the effort to ensure
that I had
quick, healthy breakfast options on hand for myself. I clearly had no
intentions of preparing a Hungry Man Breakfast for anyone in my family, so it
was time to get wise and stock up. My go to is a 
FAGE Total
Split Cup
 whole milk- packed with protein (11 grams!), each serving
contains all natural, strained Greek yogurt with a fruit topping. These handy treats
are available in three fat
levels, whole, 2%, and 0%.  I am an
apricot girl and, as it turns out, my big boy loves the apricot split cup, too!
I try my hardest to eat my split cup in front of my babes, no matter how short
on time I am, so that they both witness my excellent morning habits and stellar
nutritional choices – you know, despite what they’ve seen so far in their
little lives. 

3. Set a routine that includes time set aside to get yourself ready 
One of the hardest things for
a SAHM/WAHM to do is carve out a little time for herself. Add in my love of the
snooze button and I wasn’t allowing myself even a minute to slap on real-ish
clothes, run a brush through my dry shampoo laden hair or dab on a little
concealer. I would spend the day feeling super blah about myself and, frankly,
it wasn’t my best look. Now I have our morning routine locked in and it
includes a small (think like 5 minutes small) chunk of time for me to get it
together. Once I’m dressed and ready, the baby is ready for her close up and my
big boy is on deck. 

4. No devices (for me or them)
Screens slow us down in the
morning and provide one more thing for my son and I to bicker about, so I’ve
banned them – for all of us. I was wasting too much time scrolling through
social media, catching up from the night before to keep us on schedule and
clearly was not setting a good pace or tone for my babes. Once we roll out of
bed, I drop my phone straight into my bag and try crazy hard not to pick it up
again until the kids are in their respective class rooms. I will say that my
son’s tablet is his current love so I keep it on hand as a little, shall we
say, motivation. If he is a great listener, a helpful brother and our morning
goes well, he earns the right to rock out to his Amazon Fire on our 5 minute
drive to school. What can I say, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it through
that morning hustle! 


 What do you do to make sure
your mornings are less chaotic? I need all of the tips and tricks I can
get!