Monday to Friday, from 6:00am to 7:00am is the most hellish five hours of my week.
I’m a morning person. I don’t really have issues getting up. Alarm goes off, I snooze a couple times, I stretch and then I’m up.
Will is a morning person as well – on the weekend. But Monday to Friday? It’s so PAINFUL and it’s not getting better!
We don’t have much to do. Get up, get dressed, eat something and get out the door. That’s it. In my opinion, this shouldn’t take an hour. And on the days that he’s being a team player, we can pull it off in a solid twenty minutes. But that is maybe 5% of the time.
The rest?
I’m too tired to get dressed.
I don’t feel well, I can’t go to school today.
I’m so cold. I can’t get out of bed.
I take deep meditative breaths and go about getting myself ready, all the while hearing that little whine in my head. But I cannnnnn’t dress myself. You have to put on my undies.
At five? If I said, Scooby Doo is waiting for you downstairs and you need to be dressed to see him, that kid could put on a corset himself.
Then it’s the slow decision of what of his four standard breakfast meals he wants. Followed by the ‘eating’ of said meal while he tries to play with every marker, action figure, book and puzzle piece he can get his hands on in the radius of his table.
I try. I try you guys. Every morning I lie in bed before waking him and think ‘you will be so patient today. You’ll give positive encouragement. You’ll let him go at his own speed.’
AS IF. By 6:25 I’m in a sweaty froth trying to contain my rage as I watch him literally pull himself along the floor to his clothes, faking the cough. (Kid – FYI – I thought I ‘perfected’ that fake cough to get out of school…now I know I just wore my mom down with my annoying requests to stay home.)
I’m at my wits end. HELP! But don’t suggest getting up earlier. Honestly, even if had three hours, it would just prolong the torture. But other than that? Do I resort to the #1 parenting tip and bribe him with crap to get him to do stuff? What? Seriously though, it needs to stop because I feel like a failure every single morning.
so this am – I decided to just lay out his clothes adn leave to him to decide what to do – 45 mins of screaming later he was dressed…ugh….Aileen – we tried the sticker route for other things and its seems to work for like a week or so but…now that I type that…I’ll take a week…:)
I know it sounds like bribery, but rewards chart? He gets a sticker every morning he is cooperative and gets ready in good time and after 5 stickers (or 10 or whatever) he gets a small treat?
Ugh. I feel your pain. I used to just die at the irony that there would be a little voice in my ear every Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m. saying, “Mommy…wake up! What are we going to do today?” But at 7:00 a.m. on a weekday? Nothing but comatose snoring.
Now I pretty much get nothing but comatose snoring from Charlotte any day of the week until noon (if she could, she would!) but truly Sara, this too shall pass.
I’m with Christine…give him control; but within tight parameters. And don’t blame yourself or feel like a failure. All moms go through this and if someone tries to tell you she doesn’t, she’s lying.
Limited choices?
Leave out 2 outfits – he pics one.
Two choices for breakfast – he pics one.
Or plan the night before during bedtime routine?
He can pick out what he wants to wear for the next day and leave it at the bottom of his bed (Eva does this).
Decide what he’ll have for breaky and leave it out (cereal beside a bowl)
That gives him some control of the morning and maybe less time to ponder over choices,
Oh…and clear his table off before you go to bed so there’s nothing on it but breakfast in the morning 🙂
well, maybe scooby-doo should come….if there’s something that he really wants to go to drag your butt. i don’t know if 5 years old is too young to teach that lesson or not but i had it with the girls once…told them ONCE to get ready (i think we were going to the ex or something) then just sit back and read my book, drank my coffee, etc. and then listened to them complain that they missed whatever it was we were trying to get to. i told them that i was ready and i told them the time to be ready…they chose to not get ready in time. i pull that one out every once in a while.