It takes a lot of organisational skills to get your kids dressed, fed and through the school gates on time, skills I do not possess. I’m was in desperate need of weekday hacks for school days, and these school days hacks have been life-changing!
I’ve always been a bit disorganised and used to find mornings pretty hard going (when my ‘spirited’ kids would seemingly try to sabotage every effort to get them ready).
Time-Saving School Day Parenting Hacks
The only way I get out of the house at a reasonable time is if I do a series of quick preparation hacks to help things run more smoothly. Some of them only need to be done once a week, and have you covered until school’s out on Friday, which leaves you feeling like you’ve got a fairy godmother for the school run.
I can’t promise these hacks will make dressing your children any less comparable to wrestling a chimp into a tuxedo, but they will definitely save you some time on school days.
1. Prepare breakfast the night before
This only really works for overnight oats, but it works really well. If you put a small portion of oats in a bowl, add water or milk so it just covers the oats and leave them to soak in the fridge overnight, you’re left with an instant breakfast for the morning. You can add dried fruit or chocolate chips to make it more appealing for your little ones (chocolate chips are the most popular in our house) and even heat it for a minute in the microwave on cold mornings.
They take a couple of minutes to prepare in the evening, but you’ll be so grateful that you can just grab a ready-made breakfast out of the fridge and hand it straight to your ravenous child when they get up. Being able to feed your child the minute they step off that final stair means there is no more squabbling caused by the wrath of a hungry non-morning person.
2. Record their favourite morning shows or watch them on catch up
When my eldest was little and I was still new to parenting a school child, I didn’t realise the hold morning cartoons have on kids. You have to time leaving to coincide with the end of whatever they are watching otherwise tantrums ensue.
I’ve made the mistake on a number of occasions of not being in the room at the exact moment their show finishes, meaning they get engrossed in the next programme on the schedule and have to be dragged away kicking and screaming (or face being late).
If you record what they like to watch and control the order they see it in the morning, there is no chance for them to become absorbed in something that will cause delay. It can be fiddly putting a new programme on every five minutes, but if the alternative is explaining to the teacher your child was late because there was a really good episode of Hey Duggee on, then I’ll take the former!
3. Buy loads of school shirts
By loads, I mean about six. That should cover you for every week day, plus a spare for inevitable spills. I know this sounds like I’m being massively extravagant, but the you can get shirts in multipacks pretty cheaply from most supermarkets now, and if you take into account the fact that you’ll only need to do one washing load a week for them, you’re probably saving money in water and electricity over the year.
Iron the shirt on a Sunday night so the shirts are ready for the week ahead, and if you’ve got younger children, lay the shirts out for them the night before so that they’re ready to be put on. It saves so much time to get clothes ready in batches.
And while we’re on the subject…
4. Buy loads of identical socks
If you have a daughter, you will be aware of the millions of variations of patterns, frills, bows and lengths that are available in white socks. We used to buy multipacks of pretty socks where each pair was different, they looked beautiful but it took me a while to realise that I’d actually unleashed hell on my laundry routine. Pairs would go into the washing machine, but only solitary socks would appear on my washing line, never to be reunited with their partner. This would lead me to buy more pretty multipacks, starting the cycle all over again. It took me until my eldest was in year 2 to realise I should just be buying identical socks (and lots of them) to avoid the Sunday night pairing nightmare that I’d endured for so long!
After having my son, I realised it’s not just girls’ socks that cause this problem, and there is an equivalent problem for boys where I’m left with a load of singular dinosaur socks that never match each other. Now my son gets plain black while my daughter gets plain white, and I no longer get a headache.
5. Batch cook your tea in a slow cooker
Coming home to a cooked meal that you threw together earlier in the day is always such a relief. If I’ve been out all day either working or dealing with afterschool clubs, we always arrive home starving and I never feel like making a meal. If you’ve set the slow cooker going before you leave for the morning, you’ll be greeted with a great smelling meal that’s ready to be dished up. I deliberately make extra and freeze left overs so that I’ve always got something quick and healthy to offer.
You don’t even really need a proper recipe, I often throw in a mix of meat and veg and just hope for the best, but if you want to remove the uncertainty of a mystery meal, there are thousands of free recipes on Pinterest. To save time in the morning, I chop the vegetables the night before and store them in a zip lock bag in the fridge over night so all I have to do empty the ingredients into the slow cooker. Remember to turn the slow cooker on, otherwise all you’ll be met with when you get home is some wet, room temperature meat and a side of disappointment.
6. Do your shopping online (more than just a weekday hack)
If you’re really busy and find getting out to the supermarket to be a real chore, try shopping online and using an unpopular time slot for delivery so that it doesn’t cost very much (10pm is often a cheap one). Most online grocery shopping sites will let you create a ‘favourites’ list so you don’t have to go through the motions of searching for regular items individually. If you use an app to note down any items you need that aren’t regular purchases, then combined with your favourite list, you could have your weekly shop ordered in less than 5 minutes!
7. Make a simple organisation system in your hallway
We have plastic drawers near the front door to sort out anything which wouldn’t normally go in the kids’ school bags. Last year my daughter’s timetable had indoor PE, outdoor PE and swimming in the same week, so we had to get organised. At the beginning of the week I’d pack the bags and put them in the plastic drawers (I’d write the days on a sticker and put it on the drawers to make things easier). We drive to school, so I’d go one step further and pack the car the night before to eliminate all risk of forgetting things.
Packing lunches the night before is also a great time saver. We have little boxes for sandwiches that go inside the main lunch bag, that way we can refrigerate the sandwiches but pack things like crisps in their lunch bags the night before.
8. Have a theme song for everything
This one probably sounds slightly mad, but trust me it works. My daughter told me that her teacher plays a song called the ‘Tidy Up Rumba’ when she wants the classroom tidying and everyone knows it’s time to tidy up. I quickly realised this woman is a genius and found the song myself on YouTube, now both kids will tidy up when I play the song (and sing along) and I’m not longer the bad guy. Since this revelation, we also have a teeth-brushing song performed by Elmo (another YouTube find) and I’m determined to find the perfect song that will convince them to get out of the house and into the straight car.
Hopefully these weekday hacks for busy parents will revolutionise your mornings and make it feel like you got up with hours to spare!
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