Motherhood Monday: 3 Tips for a smoother winter wake up routine

We’ve all experienced it – the coziness, the warmth, the darkness – the perfect sleeping conditions that can make it hard to wake up and leave our bed during the winter months!

If you have a child who is a freeze baby (*raises hand*) and not a morning person (*raises hand again*), you know what a challenge waking up for school can be. Today I’m sharing some of my tips and tricks on how I help wake the kiddos up for school during the winter months – which can be the toughest months of all!

It’s halfway through the school year and school fatigue starts to set in with the kiddos. During the winter months it is so dark that my kids will even ask me, ”is it the middle of the night”, when I wake them. It is a pain to get them out of bed. After many arguments and constant harping to get up and get out bed, I realized something had to give!

These 3 things have made our winter mornings run smoother:

Schedule your thermostat

This has been a GAME CHANGER for us! Most thermostats will allow you to set a schedule for when you want the heat/ac to run and at what temp.

I have adjusted our upstairs thermostat to heat up to 74 degrees (we normally keep at 70-71 degrees in the winter) starting at 6am. I programmed it to go back to our normal temp right around 8am, so it is a brief period of time.

This has helped the kids feel a lot more comfortable when waking and does not feel as shocking to get out of bed.

Alarm set 10 minutes earlier than wake up time and lights on

My daughter can sleep right through her alarm and is definitely not a morning person. To assist with her crabbiness, I set her alarm 10 minutes earlier than her normal wake up time (I generally will go shut it off), then start to wake her and turn on her lights. It’s more of an ease your way into waking rather than hit the ground running approach that seems to help her morning mood.

Heat the school clothes

Depending on the cleanliness of her uniform and such, I will generally place her clean uniform in bed with her when I shut off her alarm in order to heat it up a bit. If I’m headed downstairs, I will toss their clothes in the dryer to heat them. The smile on their faces after receiving the warm clothes is always the sweetest and you can tell they appreciate the little gesture!

Hoping these tips are helpful for you and make those chilly, dark, winter mornings move a little more smoothly!

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