March 23, 2011

The Morning Routine

Over the course of the last week or so, I had the chance to participate in a "breakfast research group." A friend of mine works for a public relations firm and her company had a client that needed to do some research on breakfast habits in families. It was nice to know I'm not alone when it comes to feeling rushed in the morning.
Most of the participants felt our biggest challenge to giving our children a proper breakfast is time. During the week I feel I'm in the middle of a finely tuned routine. One little thing can set that schedule into a tailspin. During the week, I rely on fast foods (not fast food restaurants, food I can make fast: toast, waffles, cereal).
Here's a look at what typically goes on: 6:45am everyone gets up; dressed and downstairs by 7:10am (on a good day); the girls are done with breakfast by 7:30am; I clean up and get my own breakfast, then we head back upstairs to brush teeth and clean earrings at 8am; put on shoes, coats, grab backpacks and out the door at 8:25am. This will all change next year, as kindergarten starts earlier than preschool. I can't wait to try to rouse sleepyhead Sue Sue even earlier!
Most of the participants agreed weekends are so much easier when it comes to breakfast. We all talked about having at least one "big breakfast" day on the weekend. For us, it's Sunday. Hubby typically makes pancakes. Our biggest challenge on that day is making sure no one is so stuffed that they won't eat lunch. I suppose we could make it brunch that day instead of breakfast, but I know I would be faced with choruses of "I'm hungry" by mid-afternoon.
So I'm curious, what's your biggest breakfast challenge?

3 comments:

MaryAnne said...

At our house it's a combination of time and having the kids awake enough to eat properly - which is a time issue in and of itself! Johnny has to be at preschool by 8:15 at the latest, and he's my non-morning kid - makes for a tough combination!

Meg said...

Cereal, yogurt, waffle are the staples around here. Oh, and eggs! :) The girls don't have to be at school until 9am so we usually have time to eat lunch. If we're running late, it's waffles in a cup for sure. :)

Quadmama said...

I still can't get my girls to really eat eggs. I'm actually thinking about doing a big eggs and turkey bacon breakfast this weekend, so maybe they'll change their minds!

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