5 Tips to Get Your Kids Out of Bed and Ready for School
Does going back to school mean plying your child out of bed with a crowbar? Does every morning bring a fight between them, you and the covers? Funny how on Saturdays and during the summer they can get up at the crack of dawn, but once school starts it’s game over. Try these tips to make rising and shining a little easier.
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1. Wake up, Little Susie
Some kids need time to come awake while others snap to it. You may need to set the alarms early enough to accommodate some sitting-and-staring-into-space time. Another idea to get them out of bed is to set two alarms, one on the opposite side of the room. The fact of having to physically get up and turn it off means your child is that much closer to being awake. There are some fun Talking Kids Alarm Clocks that can ease your child awake with kiss noises or snap them awake with a dinosaur roar. See if setting an alarm to a radio station works better than just a buzzer. Or you can try tuning it to loud radio static to encourage them to get up and turn it off.
2. Rise and Shine
Try to wake them with their nose. Use favorite smells to lure them out of bed, such as cinnamon-raisin toast, or crispy bacon frying or coffee brewing for teens.
While I’m not this dedicated, we found one suggestion that on cold winter mornings, you can throw their clothes into the dryer for a few minutes. Pulling on warm clothes may help inspire them to leave their warm bed. (Honestly, if you do that, you are my SuperMom hero.)
3. Early to bed, early to rise
Tell your child that you will keep pushing bedtime earlier and earlier until they are able to wake up earlier. The thought of having to go to bed at 7:30 p.m. may be just the thing to motivate them to wake up in the morning. Getting a good night’s sleep, as simple as it sounds, may solve the problem, too. We all know that we do best on a routine.
4. Eliminate distractions
Your kids need to wind down and relax so they can fall asleep and feel rested. This will help with getting them up in the morning. So, give your kids the opportunity to relax and unclutter their mind before bed. When they are young, read a goodnight story together. As they get older, have them read chapter books to you or read on their own. Don’t schedule activities too late in the evening. For tweens and teens, have them plug their cell phones into the charger in the kitchen before going to bed and leave it there! No texting until all hours late at night. Sleep deprivation is dangerous for teens according to this article by the Mayo Clinic.
Same thing is true in the morning. Once they are up, no TV, no computers, no cell phones until they are dressed, have eaten breakfast, prepared their lunch, or packed up their backpack. Eliminating distractions before their chores are done can help keep the morning moving smoothly.
5. Desperate times call for desperate measures
If all else fails, march into your child’s room, bang on a pan with a wooden spoon, singing “The Wheels on the Bus” at the top of your lungs. (While this might be a little cruel, I tend to look at it as payback for all the times they woke me up in the middle of the night.)
Hopefully these tips will help get your kids up and out the door in time for the bus. Now go have a cup of coffee and a deep breath!
Grab one of our Talking Kids Alarm Clocks to make it easier to for your kids to wake up on their own and with a smile.
What tips do you have for getting your kids up and out of bed in the morning?
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