Episode 18: The Truth About Morning Routines for Working Moms
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So many books and articles have been written about what successful people do to start their day. If we're not waking up early to workout, meditate, and get a jump start on our day, what are even doing? But as busy, working parents, with interrupted sleep and irregular wake-up times, it can be so hard to be consistent with morning routines, let alone to find time to drink a cup of coffee in peace. In this episode, I'm challenging the idea of a morning routine and offering up a new approach to mornings as a busy, working parent. An approach that takes into consideration the responsibilities and lack of sleep that parents, especially parents of young kids, are facing. You don't have to give up the idea entirely, but you I would encourage you to embrace some flexibility and reduce the pressure to do it all. You can still have a successful morning, it just might look a little different than the ones we read about.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
00:00 Welcome and Workshop Recap
01:13 Mornings with kids
02:59 Why morning routines don't work as a working mom
04:38 Rethinking the ideal morning routine
11:31 What to create instead
19:21 Taking this concept to the next level
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I am still kind of on. A high from last week's workshop, my stress less this holiday workshop. We had such a great turnout and everyone has been sharing with me since then, how they are finally feeling, ready, not just ready with their plan, but also excited, definitely shifted things for all of us, myself included, to just sort of mentally now be ready for, and looking forward to All that these next couple of months have to offer if you by chance missed it and you are wanting to join in on the fun and you can set aside some time to go through the workbook and plan your season.
You can get a replay of the ticket by still going to the mother nurtured. com forward slash holidays. You'll get the workbook. You'll get the replay. We've got the chat transcripts. So everything that people were sharing ideas, questions that they were asking, you get all of that, as a part of the replay.
So go ahead and check that out. If you want to take advantage and think about your holidays. Over the next couple of months today's topic, we're going to step away from holidays and I felt the need or the desire to address something in this episode that comes up repeatedly in coaching and in conversations in life, but has come up again a couple of times in sessions over just the last couple of weeks.
And that is the idea of a morning routine. Actually, just mornings in general. I want to talk about mornings in general. And when I say mornings, I'm picturing work week mornings, where there is stuff you got to do, people we have to get ready and out the door work that you need to, be present for or ready for.
And what that looks like when you've got kids, especially young kids, but really kids in general, right? I think back to how luxurious my mornings, I can't even remember them, but I'm sure they had to just be so luxurious when it was just me, myself, and I to get ready in the morning to do whatever I wanted to enjoy my coffee, take my time getting dressed and ready.
Even do a little bit of work, whatever it looked like. I have no clue. It looks so different today and through every season of parenting. And so I want to offer some ideas for you, maybe relieve some pressure around your mornings and just get you thinking about this time of day that can be really rushed and frantic or stressful and see if we can't take that down a couple of notches.
And be a little bit more flexible and appreciative. Yes, it's challenging, but appreciative of what we are still able to do. So I will say upfront, you know, I have, I have three kids and all three of them, I feel like I went through this stage with all three of them and they were very young babies, one, none of them were great sleepers.
I don't know. I just couldn't figure it out. None of them were great sleepers and they all had these phases of being insanely early risers. Thankfully, that's shifted now that they're 10, 7, and 5. My youngest still loves to wake up early, but my oldest, I feel like I'm already getting a glimpse of maybe what the teenage years would be like where I have to wake him up in the morning.
But I'm remembering those early days and I distinctly remember, I remember all three of them, but I distinctly remember when my daughter, my second child was still very young. I'd been back to work for a couple of months and I was a reader.
That was actually when my reading journey began, but I remember reading the book, The Miracle Morning. Are you familiar with that one? It's You know, I'm sure you can figure out what it's about without needing to read it, right? The concept of this intentional morning routine, creating an intentional morning routine in order to get the most out of your day and ultimately your life.
More recently, I think it was just last year, maybe the year before I read the 5am club. Very inspiring. I love the concept. I love the idea. Whether you've read those books or others, you've seen the articles, you know what I'm talking about, right? What do successful people do first thing in the morning?
And we hear story after story and see image after image of people starting their day with a peaceful cup of coffee on the front porch, taking a moment to watch the sunrise or to breathe or to meditate. Maybe they do a little bit of journaling. They go for a walk or move their body in some way, have a workout, eat a nutritious breakfast or have a green smoothie, whatever it is, I mean, insert your ideal morning routine, that's probably what you look for and notice when you see these photos, read these articles or books.
And I remember after reading that book when my second was very young and I would lament or. probably more accurately complain about my complete lack of a morning routine. I saw everyone else or I saw the others in these articles and books doing it right. They were starting their days with intention, putting themselves first before the busy day gets going.
And because I saw that as right, I saw what I was doing as wrong. Because by contrast, my mornings. Maybe like your mornings or like so many moms with young kids, they were chaotic, and some of them still are, if I'm completely honest, right? It's a frantic rush from start to finish, depending on what time you need to be at your desk or to the office or to work, what time, childcare starts, a nanny arrives, or you do daycare drop off or school drop off.
You're getting yourself ready, but. At the time I was then getting two kids ready, now three, in addition to that. And as we know with our kids, they have their own opinions, their own schedules and their own moods that we feel like we need to manage in order to get us where we need to go on time. And like I said before, All three of mine had wake up times that ranged from early to painfully early.
I remember in the pandemic when my youngest was not yet one. And, or maybe he was just one. I mean, he was waking up at like 4, 4. 30. I was like, we're already together all day long. Why do we have to make the day longer? And there was never much rhyme or reason to it. The season or the schedule would change and those wake up times would change as my kids cut new teeth or work their way through significant developmental milestones.
Who knows?
I would have loved that. A peaceful start to the day. I settled instead for just getting everyone out the door or, started with whatever they need started, dressed, fed, and as close to on time as possible. I remember hoping that one day as my kids got older and more self sufficient
and more consistent with their sleep and routines that I might have a morning routine like the one that I dreamed about. But that was not my reality. And it might not be yours either.
One of the worst parts about this whole experience,
it's not actually the lack of the morning routine. I think it's actually all the time that we spend frustrated with ourselves. and our situation. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just get up earlier? Why do I have to hit snooze every morning? Or everything would be better if I could just get up early and do the things that I want to do in my morning routine.
It looks like setting your alarm super early and then feeling so guilty, so much shame or anger at yourself when you hit the snooze button and end up in the same frantic rush with absolutely no time to meditate or even drink your coffee in peace. Or as was the case for me, a lot of times I would wake up early.
And then just as I was settling into, say, a meditation or a workout, the baby would wake up crying or needing to be fed. I remember taking my frustration out on them, right? Why can't you just sleep in? Being so frustrated with my situation. Morning after morning, you fall into this awful trap where you fall short of the morning routine that you want, and you feel tired and angry and frustrated that you can't make it happen.
But I want to ask or offer some perspective and have you think for a minute about Who is preaching about morning routines? I'm curious, are these people in these articles, in these books, in these pictures, are they parents? Do they have kids to get ready in the morning in addition to their beautiful routine?
Have they gotten up multiple times the night before to feed a baby or comfort a crying child? My guess is probably not, or if they are parents, maybe they have lots of extra help or they have just incredibly easygoing kids, kids who sleep well or kids who are much older. And if that is your situation, oh my gosh, I love that for you so much.
Maybe for you, it is just actually following through on the morning routine and I'd love to help you with that. But for a lot of us, there are circumstances that we have that are preventing us. From having a morning routine that looks like the ones on paper. The need for sleep is real. At least it's real for me.
So I wonder if an ideal morning routine is just another expectation that you're putting on yourself. And what if it's an unrealistic one? At least for this stage or this season of your life. Now, if you've been with me for a while, I hope you know that I am all for a routine. I love a good routine, a habit, a system, a process.
I love that. When I can help a client create a flow of activities so that you can get things done with efficiency, with less effort, with more ease. But in the case of mornings, when there is so much variability, that's beyond your control, especially with young kids. I like to instead suggest that you create a morning menu.
A menu, I love this phrase, it's so useful in so many different areas of our life, but a menu, is a list of options, things you can choose from. And on that menu, I want you to start by thinking about all of the things that you do or could enjoy doing in the morning. So maybe that's drinking a hot cup of coffee, or mushroom coffee in my case, or tea.
Maybe it's spending a couple of minutes journaling. Maybe there's some sort of workout or just moving your body in some way, a walk, doing some yoga, stretching, getting outside. I say that's so good to get some sunlight in the morning or if it's still dark when you wake up just to greet the day in some way and get some fresh air.
Maybe it's listening to a podcast or an audio book, writing a gratitude list, telling your kids that you love them, getting just a minute of one on one time to give them a hug, or play with them, or just be with them, getting dressed and ready. This is a big one. I can't tell you how many times I've coached clients on what they want in their mornings.
And this is one. We feel, not everyone, but a lot of us do feel more prepared. Even if you just shower and put back on. sweatpants, which actually, in full disclosure, I'm wearing today. I usually wear hard pants when I come up to my office to work, but not today. Not today. That's not what I needed.
But getting yourself ready in some way, whatever that looks like for you. And I might suggest checking in on your calendar, looking at your plan for the day. What are your priorities?
So for me, knowing the quality of my sleep with a small baby, how early I was already waking up, and the pace at which we all got ready or still do get ready in the morning, that doing all of the things on my list was, and is in no way possible, but doing one or two or three things, absolutely doable.
In that season of my life with my daughter, when she was very young, when I first experimented with this idea of a morning menu, I tried waking up at the same time or in the same range every day. Some mornings, my daughter would be up with me because she was up early and hungry, and other mornings she'd still be sleeping or I would need to still be sleeping.
Any of those scenarios were okay. Then, depending on whether I was alone or with her, I did my best to incorporate at least a couple of items from my list. I would sit on the back porch with her to get my outside time and use that time to be just one on one with her. Tell her that I love her, give her a hug and a snuggle.
If sleep was good the night before, she would sit and play with toys while I did a few exercises or sun salutations in the living room. I would always use my extra insulated to go thermos, so my coffee was always hot no matter when I got around to drinking it. And Then I would listen, back when I had a commute, I would listen to a podcast or audiobook on my morning commute.
Now I listen to that while I'm either working out, walking, or while I'm getting ready. Until just recently, I think just in the last probably six months we got rid of this, but until then I kept a basket of Duplos on my bathroom floor so that I could get ready while my kids played. I'll have to find and share this
picture. Come follow me on Instagram if you're not already. I'll try to find it and put it up, where all three of my kids are on the rug next to my sink playing and building with Duplos and I'm putting my makeup on, drying my hair. We were still together, but I was prioritizing what I needed and they were staying occupied.
Another way I've seen this implemented really successfully is when you decide on a range for yourself ahead of time. So for example, I have had this client who is getting back into running and she is aiming for four runs a week. That would be ideal. But she's also okay with just two, depending on how things play out.
So she's got her range, two to four runs a week. She's happy with anything in there and during seasons where her kids have had trouble sleeping and she's up multiple times a night, she decides in advance what she's going to do. So, for example, I think this is close to what she actually implements, but you get the gist even if I'm off by a run or two.
One overnight wake up. She still gets up at her normal time to run, but anything more than one, if she's up two or more times in the night with one or both of her kids, she changes her alarm. At that second wake up, she changes her alarm and allows herself to sleep in. She doesn't go on a run that morning.
Then she just moves and prioritizes her runs for the weekend, or on a morning where she does get sleep or her husband can be on duty. Just having that decision made in advance means that when the alarm goes off, you're not debating with yourself. Should I get up or should I sleep? Right? If I was up zero to one times, I'm going to get up.
If I was up more than one, nope, not doing it, changing my alarm. Then you're not deciding in the moment. That is what leads to, I think, so much frustration and anger with ourselves.
Having a flexible morning menu, Allows you to let go of the expectations that anything about your mornings has to be perfect. It reframes the whole concept, the whole exercise of a morning routine, and it allows you to start seeing all of the little things that you are doing for yourself as beneficial instead of always falling short of what you think you should be doing.
What if you release the idea? of an ideal morning routine for now. You can always create one in the future. We know that things change so quickly. Kids change so quickly. What we're interested in also, right? What's a priority for us in different seasons in terms of how we want to be spending our mornings.
You can always create one in the future if that's still what you want as your kids get older or sleep gets easier. It's always an option.
And just because your mornings look different from day to day, and therefore, so does your morning routine, it doesn't mean that they can't be enjoyable or serve you in some way.
You get to create your own rules and you also get to show your kids what it can look like to take care of yourself, to not give up on yourself because you can't do this 10 step morning routine, but to still make progress and do a couple of things for you while being flexible and still taking care of them.
Through coaching, I love to help my clients examine all of these unwritten rules that you have for yourself about how things should look and to help you find new, flexible ways of doing things, ways that actually work for working moms. And for you, your unique schedule, your kids, your job, and what type of support you have from morning and bedtime routines to career promotions and pauses and everything in between, you get to decide what works for you. My job is to share ideas to challenge you and then support you in implementing all of the changes that you want so that your life can just feel easier. There can be less pressure. If you're curious about coaching and potentially working together, the best thing to do is to fill out an application at my website, the mother nurture.
com forward slash application. I'll take a look. And if I think you could be a good fit, I'll reach out with more information and we can take it from there. All right. As always, all of the books, the notes, the resources that I mentioned here in the podcast can be found at the show notes on my website, the mother nurtured.
com forward slash podcast. And I can't wait to see what you create with your flexible morning menu. And until then, take care and I'll talk with you soon.
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