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Slow Living with Kids: How to Create a Peaceful Morning Routine

Hands holding coffee with flowers and to-do list

Do you dream of starting your day with a peaceful morning routine? This post can help you figure out how to do just that!

Mornings are not always a peaceful time in a household with little kids! In our home, with four small children, we have had to tweak our morning routine multiple times to get to something peaceful.

Different seasons of the year, different stages of development, and different circumstances of life cause families to reevaluate how they are doing things.

Add to that the rush of getting out of the house for school, appointments, or work, and things can get dicey!

Since my husband and I are committed to trying to make our time with our kids intentional and relationally rich, we’ve recently refined our morning routine. We want mornings to be a productive time, and also an opportunity for our family to connect before we take on the day.

This post is the 10 steps that Gabe and I have worked through to build a peaceful morning routine with our kids. We’ve also worked on developing a peaceful evening routine, which I’ve detailed in another post.

And both our morning and evening routines originate from our desire to practice slow living as a family with young kids and embrace simplicity in our home.

The beautiful thing about household routines is that they are unique to each family! So your routine will likely look different from ours. But I believe these steps will help you construct a routine that cultivates peaceful intentionality in your mornings.

Delicious breakfast casserole ready to eat

1. Identify your goals for a peaceful morning routine

Likely, if you have clicked over to this post, if I was to ask you to grab a piece of paper and write down your goal for the morning, the word “peaceful” might show up!

Let’s assume we’re on the same page with that and we’re going for a peaceful morning. That’s good! But now, let’s think about what makes a morning peaceful. Some ideas might be:

  • being outside alone to sip a cup of coffee and listen to the birds sing while the sun comes up
  • time with your partner/spouse to have an uninterrupted conversation before the day starts
  • calmly cooking a delicious breakfast spread
  • lounging in bed with a captivating book
  • lighting a candle and journaling and reading something inspirational
  • sleeping in until your body wakes up on its own

There are a lot of different options that might make your morning peaceful! So we need to get a bit more specific.

In our home, I’m more the natural “morning person,” so I can roll out of bed to child demands and feel OK about life. My husband, on the other hand, is not a morning person. So he’s realized he needs some time to wake up in the morning before facing the barrage of morning requests from our kids.

But for both of us, time in the quiet of the morning when we are awake and doing something intentional is part of our goal for the morning. Ideally, this happens before our kids get up.

So think for a moment: what do you want your mornings to do? Not what do you think you SHOULD do, that’s important but not the most important thing. But what do YOU want to have happen in the morning? Start there.

little girl with hair styled ready for the day

2. Work backwards from your required time commitments

For us, this is fairly straightforward: my husband has to be at work at 9am, so that is our transition-into-school-and-work time.

I homeschool our kids, so technically our schedule is fairly open. But since I juggle nap times for the little guys and working part time from home, I like to stick to an established routine for the day.

So, by 9am all the things we want to get done in our get-up-and-get-going-on-the-day morning routine need to be wrapped up.

Some of the things that happen almost every day in our home before 9am include (in no particular order):

  • everyone is clothed for the day
  • hair is (usually) made presentable for the day (we’ve got two little girls!)
  • breakfast gets made
  • breakfast gets consumed
  • clean up from the making and consumption of breakfast
  • beds get made
  • Gabe and I drink a cup of coffee
  • I workout
  • Gabe goes for a walk outside
  • I do some work on this blog
  • Gabe does some work for his knife sharpening youtube channel
  • we both read a chapter of the Bible
  • Thad gets nursed
  • Lazlo gets ushered through the bathroom and/or his night time diaper gets changed

In order to make all that happen, we’ve had to allocate tasks strategically, prioritize our time well, and work together as a team. But we’ve done it! Most mornings, we progress smoothly through those different events and it’s predominantly a peaceful and un-rushed process.

(Note, I didn’t say it is always a quiet process! We have kids – there is screeching and noise and sometimes fights and crying. But Gabe and I can usually keep our peace!)

clothing set out to put on in the morning as part of peaceful morning routine

3. Prepare what you can the night before to make your morning routine more peaceful

Gabe is a big advocate of this, as he doesn’t feel like his brain is fully awake for at least an hour or two after his body gets up.

So before he goes to bed at night, he sets out his clothes to wear the next day. He also puts out his knife sharpening equipment, with his bible on top, so he can read his bible before he jumps into sharpening.

And if he has to get out the door earlier than usual, he sets out the aeropress with coffee in it, ready to add boiling water in the morning.

Although I wake up more quickly and easily, I also lay out clothes the night before. It just helps!

Before I go to bed at night, I also check my weekly household external brain sheet for the breakfast plan. I do anything I need to do to make the breakfast preparation go as smoothly as possible in the morning.

If we are going to be out and about for some reason, I’ll make sure I know what I’ll take as snacks or what is the plan for a quick packed lunch. (In my post on minimizing time in the kitchen, I share some of my strategies for having easy snacks on hand.)

Basically, if a task will need to be done in the morning but it COULD be done the night before, we try to do it to streamline the morning routine to be more peaceful!

So what can you prepare the night before? What could you prepare earlier in the week to make the mornings go more smoothly?

Boy Slow Living eating Outside

4. Embrace simplifying for a peaceful morning routine

Last year, my older kids asked if they could wear their clothes for the next day to sleep in as their pajamas. I said sure. We’ve never gone back!

Now everyone puts on clean clothes before bed, and they wear those clothes the next day. We’ve cut out 3 steps in the morning routine for our three bigger kids (taking off pajamas, putting them away, putting on clean clothes) and it’s pretty nice!

Along the same mindset of simplifying, I’ve gotten rid of top sheets on our beds, and every bed is made with a duvet. This makes it really simple to make the bed, even for the children.

Unless I’ve made something in advance to reheat, most days the kids have cold breakfasts. And if it isn’t raining, the kids eat outside on their little picnic table on the deck (often while I drink my coffee).

My husband and I have been doing intermittent fasting most week days, which means we’ve been skipping breakfast. So Gabe packs pretty much the same early-lunch meal every day (greek yogurt and granola – I talk about how much he loves that granola recipe in my granola post), and I have a reheated slice of high protein egg bake which I make in big batches and freeze about 11am.

And as far as my own clothes, I’ve decided to wear a simple, basic rotation of styles of clothes during the week:

  • Monday: dress
  • Tuesday: athletic wear (leggings or shorts and a t-shirt)
  • Wednesday: pants or shorts that zip and a cute shirt to go with it
  • Thursday: skirt and shirt
  • Friday: athletic wear

What could you simplify to help your morning routine be more peaceful? Steps to getting dressed? Actions to make your bedroom space tidy and peaceful looking? Breakfast options or processes?

mom working out during her morning routine with baby self entertaining nearby

5. Plan for the unexpected “inconveniences”

Of course, something unexpected is likely to come up! If not every day, at least often enough that I’ve found I need to plan a bit of buffer space and have a mindset of flexibility!

Sometimes Lazlo’s nighttime diaper doesn’t hold all his pee, and an unexpected bed change and shower need to happen.

So I have a standby plan if this happens: I keep the kids’ beds made with a waterproof mattress protector, then a bottom sheet, then a SECOND waterproof mattress protector, then a SECOND bottom sheet on them.

It makes the bed stripping process very easy!

Sometimes Thad wakes up earlier than normal and I didn’t get my morning workout in. It can feel frustrating in the moment, but I usually have flexibility of mind enough to pivot to nurse him first and then do the workout while he watches me and sits and chews on toys.

Or I can keep him entertained enough to wait to feed him until the workout is done.

OR, it all goes to custard and I have to scratch something from my morning routine for that day with my peace hanging on by a thread. That’s OK too. I know that’s going to happen sometimes, and perfection is not my goal!

Peace is the goal. I can still find peace even in the midst of plans going haywire if I’ve planned that that might happen!

So what are the unexpected things that pop up sometimes in your morning routine? Maybe it’s only once a week, or maybe it’s only a few times a month? Plan in a little buffer time for those common, unexpected hurdles to make your morning routine more peaceful.

6. Plan for the expected hurdles to a peaceful morning routine

I’ve found there are the things that happen rarely enough that they are unexpected, and then there are things that I’d rather not happen so I don’t consider them part of the morning routine, but somehow they seem to every day anyhow… I’ve found I need to plan for those unwanted things too!

So much of a peaceful, slow-feeling morning routine is about the expectations I set for myself!

Some examples: my verbally communicative kids have preferences about what color of bowls they eat their breakfast out of. They also have preferences about the food they eat for breakfast.

And the spoon they use to eat their breakfast. And where they sit for breakfast. Those preferences change moment by moment, often inspired by another child’s choices and actions.

If someone doesn’t get what they want (which is inevitable, because there are three of them!), that person is going to express their displeasure. Usually, the displeasure is in the form of whining negotiation, picking an argument with a sibling, or having a bit of a crying fit.

I won’t go too deeply into my parenting philosophies here, but regardless of how they express displeasure, it’s going to involve Gabe or I needing to show up in that moment with some attentive, kind, and probably firm decisions-making parental authority.

When I remember that such events are going to be a part of the morning routine and I expect it, it helps me maintain the peaceful part of the morning routine that I’m striving for!

So what are the interruptions you can guess are going to come in the morning? What are the “inconveniences” that are probably going to show up? Plan them into your morning routine! It’ll help you keep your peace in order to make a peaceful morning routine!

7. Consider your kids personalities and needs

Two of my kids are light sleepers in the morning. They wake up as soon as there is noise in the house. And they are immediately hungry to the point of being almost hangry, and they pick fights with each other.

One of my kids is a heavy sleeper and would prefer to stay in bed and sleep until 8 or 9am. That child doesn’t usually get super excited about breakfast.

All three of the older kids are sensitive to any criticism, correction, or perceived communication that they are doing something displeasing.

So we’ve tried to include those considerations in constructing our peaceful morning routine. Specifically:

  • It helps us to have a pre-breakfast “snack” ready for the hungry kids if breakfast is going to be delayed. A banana or sliced apples are our easy go-to options. Nuts and dried fruit is also handy.
  • We’ve rearranged the kids’ room so that the two that wake up easily and are hungry and likely to pick fights can’t see each other from their beds. This seems to help delay (and sometimes even avoid!) the hangry sensitivities to each other.
  • Gabe and I have established a routine of greeting each child in the morning, making eye contact, giving them a hug, and telling them, “It’s so good to see your beautiful face this morning!” A little bit of positive connection seems to help a bit with off setting arguments and whining.

Do you notice anything specific about your child(ren) that might benefit from being attended to during your development of a peaceful morning routine? Maybe someone needs to read one book every morning. Or maybe someone needs a get-up snack to stabilize blood sugar right away. Maybe someone needs a few minutes of peace and quiet playing with cars by themself on your bed.

peaceful morning routine fire lighting for man

8. Consider your own personality and needs

As I mentioned, Gabe is not a morning person. He thrives on having some quiet time to slowly wake up in the morning.

So part of his morning routine is either going outside to light a fire in our fire dish, or putting on his boots and going for a short, slow stroll through our neighbor’s kiwi fruit orchard. (Yes, our neighbor gave us permission!)

Gabe used to try to sleep in until the kids got up, but then he was usually having to get out of bed to help referee an argument or respond to requests for breakfast. This did not put him in an overly optimistic mood!

So we’ve switched things up. It isn’t always easy for him to roll out of bed, but he’s found feels better about life if he can have some time to wake up more slowly.

I tend to wake up with energy, but I find I really drag in the afternoon. So if I’m going to get a workout in during the day, the best time for me to do that is early in the morning.

I used to get up with the kids and then try to just fit my workout in whenever, but it never felt very consistent.

Then I was tired because my energy naturally kind of slumps in the afternoon, AND I’d spend the morning in a “not quite dressed and ready for the day” mode. Which didn’t make my feel all that productive.

When I workout first thing in the morning, I can check something off my daily to-do list right away, get dressed, and move on with my day

What’s your natural circadian rhythm? When do you have the most energy? How can you capitalize on your morning routine to help support your energy and mood?

three children coming out of their shared bedroom in the morning

9. Intentionally train your kids to develop a peaceful morning routine

Since Gabe and I have become more diligent about structuring our morning routine to try to make it peaceful, we have trained our kids to stay in their bedroom until a certain time of the morning.

Our mornings used to be a bit of a free-for-all, which I think naturally happens when you have especially young kids. But now that we’ve got some older kids, I am focused on having a more dependable structure in the mornings.

Gabe and I both have things we feel like are priorities for us in the morning that are not necessarily conducive to having kids around. So we’ve established the stay-in-your-bedroom expectation until the kids’ sound machine goes off at 7:30am.

It’s taken a few weeks of intentionally redirecting kids that come out of their room prior to 7:30am. But with reminders and redirection, we’ve managed to make it more or less a habit in our house.

Our kids can set out books or small toys on a stool in their room that they want to play with in the morning. They are welcome to get out of bed and grab those things when they wake up. But then I expect them to crawl back into their beds and play quietly (ideally without waking their siblings!) until the sound machine goes off.

We emphasize that if someone needs to use the toilet, they’re welcome to come out quietly and do so, and then return to their room.

I also emphasize that breakfast will not be prepared and served until 8am or later. So there is nothing really exciting happening outside of the bedroom.

Are there any expectations you need to communicate and then support your kids in being able to do to help you have a peaceful morning routine?

Task list and computer for morning work time during peaceful morning routine

10. Intentionally train yourself as well

Of course, we have to train ourselves as well. My morning routine gets sidelined quickly if I pick up my phone first thing in the morning!

So I’ve set up hurdles to doing so, such as turning off my phone overnight, and charging it in an obscure spot away from my bed and outside of my bedroom.

I’ve tried to set up my own habits to include workout first and a short, personal growth and reflection time next, before I jump into my early morning focused work time. I think of the focused work time as my reward for doing the other two things.

And when it comes to work, I have a small list of things I’ll do for work early in the morning: specifically things that require deeper focus. It isn’t hard for me to clear out my inbox or add photos to a post later in the day when I have more distractions around.

The morning work time is for the tasks that need more of my focused attention.

It does take intentionality and self control. But once I started doing it and I started feeling the good feeling of doing what I set out to accomplish, it’s become a lot easier to stick with my priorities and time blocks to make our morning routine more peaceful.

I can work with focus, and then when 7:30 hits and the kids come out of their room, I know it’s time to close my laptop for the next few hours and be fully present with my kids for breakfast, homeschooling, and keeping the household running smoothly.

Are there clarifications you need to make with yourself regarding what you will try to tackle and what things are outside of the scope of your peaceful morning routine practice?

Peaceful Morning Routine Pinterest Graphic

What do you include in your peaceful morning routine?

Is there anything else you think should be considered as you build a peaceful morning routine? What tip struck you as the most helpful? Do you have any questions? Let me know in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you.

4 Comments

  1. Dani, I enjoyed this post and took away some questions for reflection as I consider my family’s morning rhythm. My kids, at freshly 3 and 22 mos, share a room in our 2-bedroom house. Routines are constantly evolving now that they are both out of cribs (aka unconfined) but not yet very independent. Your point about considering your kids’ morning personalities and needs really resonated with me. I look forward to an update on your kids’ shared room experience now that you have four and everyone is a bit older! Thanks for your work here.

    1. Thanks so much for your encouragement and response, Erin! Yes, the “free roaming” stage prior to the independence can definitely come with some hurdles! 🙂 In real life right now, we still have the older three in their shared bedroom, and baby Thad is in our room at night and usually napping in the sleepout during the day. I’m starting to feel the itch to get all the kids in the same room and have Thad out of our room, but I’m not sure I’m ready for Lazlo to have that much unsupervised access to Thad, and Thad is still waking up to nurse once or twice a night. I’m waffling on doing the work of sleep training and night weaning yet, so it’s all still pending… But once we finally make some decisions and take action on them, I’ll put up an updated post! 🙂

  2. Godspeed in whatever course of action you decide on! What a blessing to everyone to have that fabulous detached space for daytime napping!

    1. Thank you! Update is that we’ve switched our bedroom with the kids’ bedroom, so now Gabe and I are in the small room and the kids are in the big room. We’ve done about 10 days of all the kids in the same room. Thad has been sleeping through the night on his own, Lazlo has been great with it, and no sleep training was required! I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that it’ll last because it seems a little too easy, but so far so good!

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