day ninety: first thing in the morning with toddlers and preschoolers

“I woke my little brother up GENTLY, and we wrestled a little before Mom came and took us into her bed to snuggle. Mommy and Daddy’s bed is so warm, it must have some kind of special heater in it. Mommy says it’s warm because they’re so in love. Does love really make things warm?


Mommy read us our LITTLE EYES BIBLE, and I knew all of the answers when she asked the questions at the end. I let Josiah answer the really easy ones, so he would be happy. Mother read us our blessings, then held us close and sang Josiah’s favorite song that Mommy made up: ‘Precious Baby.’ Josiah said that song is Jakie’s now, but Mama said it is still ours, too.”*




If you have four children or more, you are probably very aware of how helpful older children can be with the younger ones. We trained our older children thoroughly in child care (parenting classes with us; babysitting training through the Red Cross; reading aloud family living books; listening to teaching tapes about relationships; etc.)—and they enjoyed helping with the littles. However, it didn’t take me long to realize that when my small ones first got up in the morning, they did not want Brother or Sister. They wanted Mom!

So my plan to have an older child each take a little and help him or her with morning routines, chores, grooming, etc. soon backfired on me. It worked out okay at that moment most of the time, but my putting the littles off until I was done with some critical subject in school (which I tried tackling right off the bat) came back to haunt me about nine or ten o’clock when I had demanding toddlers and preschoolers who did not appreciate being “scheduled” later in the morning!


Thus, I revamped the schedule (I did that a lot in the past twenty-five years!) so that the babies, toddlers, and preschoolers had me first thing in the morning.** As the excerpt today shows, once the littles got up, I usually did something with them right away. We would often do our own little Bible/character lessons or reading before they even did their morning routines. I found that by nursing, rocking, reading, talking, singing, etc. to the six and under crowd right off the bat, they were more cooperative in their morning routines when the older kids helped them or dressed them, etc. –and they played more contentedly longer in the morning while I did other things (i.e. schooled the older kids).


Preschoolers and toddlers do not require large amounts of time as much as they require well-placed periods of time. “Mommy time” first thing in the morning for just a few minutes gave me a better morning with the other kids—and a more productive morning as well.


We have done our first thing in the morning time different ways through the years—sometimes I had the youngers wake up to morning reading times. This gave them a chance to wake up gradually, snuggle longer, and not have to rush into the day.


I also placed morning reading time directly after the morning routine time. This gave the kids incentive to get their morning routines done as diligence and promptness on their morning chart yielded more reading time with Mom.


Experiment with your preschooler’s and toddler’s schedules to see what works best in your scenario. (I found that what worked best often changed with the number of children, the personalities of them, the season, etc.) But see if more “Mommy time” first thing in the morning doesn’t make your entire day go more smoothly.








*For the complete story of “Jonathan’s Journal, follow this link: http://positiveparenting3-6-5.blogspot.com/2010/03/day-seventy-eight-introducing-jonathans.html



**Keep in mind an earlier post in which I suggest that parents, not children, determine when little ones go to bed and get out of bed.