September always brings new rhythms. If you’ve got school-aged kids, it’s inevitable that someone will be at a new school, someone’s bus will come at a different time, or someone will decide to try out for an activity that meets at some ridiculous hour. So, inevitably, the household routines will shift around that new reality.
This can be frustrating…or it can be an opportunity.
We’re only a week and change into the 2024-2025 school year, so I don’t want to make sweeping statements, but so far I’m happy with our schedule changes. Today’s post talks about mornings, and then I’ll do one later this week on evenings.
The biggest change is that the high school now starts an hour later than it used to (8:30 a.m. vs. 7:30 a.m.). This move was years in the making, and is supported by a ton of research showing that adolescents are not at their best early in the morning.
The result is that my older boys don’t need to get up until 7:30 a.m. (They could probably get up a little later, but they like to get to school on the earlier side. My 17-year-old is driving, and wants to back into his parking spot so he can get out of the parking lot earlier on the other end…but since he is driving a 2011 car that does absolutely nothing to assist you on the parking front, this is hard if the neighboring spots are already taken!).
To accommodate this, the middle school start time moved earlier. This is not awesome (middle schoolers are adolescents too) but it only moved 15 minutes earlier, from 8:15 to 8:00 a.m., so not terrible. Unfortunately, the school system did not magically procure more buses, so our assigned pick up time for the middle school bus was early enough to negate all the wins of the later high school start time. SO…we decided to drive the 7th grader.
Generally, the person driving her leaves around 7:40. If necessary, this person could leave closer to 7:30 in order to be home before the high schoolers absolutely have to leave. That means the high schoolers could stay with the little boys if need be. I try to set up household schedules so that one adult can cover if necessary!
To leave at 7:40, the seventh grader can get up around 7 a.m. or even a little later. This is a pretty major lifestyle boost that no one in the house has to get up before 7 a.m. (I am almost universally up before then, but it definitely buys some margin in the morning).
Meanwhile, the elementary school does not start until 9:10 a.m. Children cannot be dropped off until — wait for it — 8:55 a.m. Whoever is doing the little kid run generally leaves at 8:50, drops the 4th grader off between 8:55 and 9:00, then heads over to the (nearby) preschool to drop the 4-year-old off late. (We could do it in the opposite order, but the elementary school pushes back more on tardies. Also, theoretically the 4th grader could take the bus, but the stop is by a busy road so someone would need to wait for him and then drive the 4-year-old in the same direction as the elementary school, so this doesn’t really help matters.)
Another change: 3 mornings a week, our FT nanny is starting at 7:30 a.m. On these mornings, if I’m not driving the 7th grader (my husband tends to do it if he’s home), I say good morning to the big boys, talk to them for a few minutes, and then I aim to be at my desk by 7:40. Mornings are really my most productive time, and I wind up doing a lot of kid shuttling later in the day, so I like starting work earlier. Honestly, I love this. The past few early start days I’ve felt giddy realizing how much I’ve gotten done by 8:30 a.m. I have definitely gotten a ton done by 9:30 a.m., which is when I would be at my desk if we didn’t have morning childcare.
There are variations. On Wednesdays and Fridays childcare hours start later. On Wednesday I can be at my desk at 9 and Friday it will be more like 9:30 (usually; my husband will do some of these mornings too). My 17-year-old has a “free” during first period one out of every four days, so the 14-year-old takes the bus on those days and the 17-year-old goes in late. I have told them I am not keeping track of this — they can work it out. If the middle school jazz band meets before school (as it did last year) that will change everything up a few days per week.
But at the moment the schedule has some big benefits over years past, so yay. Some mornings I get up at 6:30 a.m. and run on the treadmill before the 7 a.m. kid stuff. That’s what I did this morning and I’m hoping to convince myself to do that roughly 2 mornings per week. Some mornings I drift up and just enjoy a quiet cup of coffee before 7 a.m. With the light coming through the living room window, it is…nice.
This sounds great! We have our first Kindergartener this year and a significantly earlier start time than we’re used to (7:55 as opposed to 9), but so far I’m kind of liking it. Since little ones wake up early anyway there was a lot of mulling about in the mornings that was getting kind of old. I used to try to enjoy this as good family time, but as we’ve added more kids to the mix it’s become more chaotic than I prefer in the morning. I’m enjoying having more of an “up and out” routine. One downside is that our breakfasts are less healthy. We used to make eggs a lot and now we’re doing more bagels/cereal. I’ve done hard boiled eggs a few times but the kids won’t eat the yolks and it feels wasteful to me, and I tried healthy/gluten free muffins to have a make ahead option and the reception was very lukewarm.
@Amanda- yes, long mornings can be nice sometimes, but they can also just be…long. We do a lot of bagels and waffles and squeeze yogurt. Add fruit and it feels more balanced…
All right. I can see now how your household routines changed in response to this September’s circumstances, Ms. Laura Vanderkam.
I think it is great that today’s post is about mornings and then you’ll do one later this week on evenings, Ms. Laura Vanderkam. I have obviously not participated in the challenge of making use of our time in the evenings earlier this year. Now, there is no chance for me to fill out the surveys that you sent out on how we make use of our evenings for the book that you’re writing anymore, is there?
Oh a 7am wake up sounds lush. My husband is away and my mum is here to help, and she doesn’t make T go to wrap around, so we’ll all get a bit later start. I think we’ll rejig the schedule next year, at least a few days a week, as I think T will be able to walk to school himself. After Christmas, we are going to start practicing, having him meet me at the library (5 min walk) and gradually working up to home (about a mile). Our problem is that the waitlist for wraparound is so long, if we dropped a day, we’d never get it back so we need to be a bit cautious. And my teaching schedule varies from term to term, with very little notice.
@Coree- yeah, definitely don’t want to drop the care too soon…those things are hard to land! That sounds lovey that he will be able to walk. Our area doesn’t really have that, which is too bad.