Before I started implementing back-to-school routines, our school mornings were chaotic at best and Fight Club at worst. Between getting my daughter awake, dressed, hair done, fed, a decent lunch packed, and everyone out of the house on time, there was a lot of repeating myself, some yelling, and occasionally tears — sometimes hers, sometimes mine. 😂
The crazy part was that we had plenty of time. We would wake up around 6 a.m. and didn’t need to be at school, which was only 10–15 minutes away, until 7:35. That’s an hour and a half! But trying to get young kids to do anything in the morning is like herding cats. And if the TV went on? Forget about it. Somehow breakfast alone took 30 minutes.
Eventually, I realized I didn’t want to spend the hour I had with my daughter before school constantly telling her to hurry up. I didn’t want her leaving the house stressed because we were fighting about shoes or hair or a lunchbox. School is hard enough. I wanted her to leave feeling happy, excited, fed, and loved — and I wanted to sit on the couch and actually enjoy my coffee instead of chugging it while running around the house. 😂
So I started looking for little things we could move out of our mornings entirely. Pack the lunch tonight. Pick out the outfit tonight. Find the spirit-day shirt tonight. Charge the Chromebook tonight.
And it worked.
Our mornings aren’t perfect — we all still have those days — but these simple back-to-school routines have drastically cut down on the rushing, fighting, and forgetting.
Although apparently they can’t eliminate the forgetting completely.
For the first day of school this year, I did a FULL Sunday reset. The house was clean, laundry was washed and put away, lunches were prepped, water bottles filled, backpacks packed, outfits laid out, and hair done the night before. We got Selene to school right before the gates opened, everyone was happy, and later that morning I even got Sadie to Pre-K 15 minutes early.
I was feeling pretty damn accomplished. 💁🏼♀️
I gave Sadie a big hug at the gate and watched her walk inside, completely excited and ready to play.
And literally the second she walked through that gate, it hit me:
HER LUNCHBOX.
Sitting beautifully packed… in our refrigerator. 🤦🏼♀️
The same lunchbox I’d told her had grapes inside. The one we’d practiced opening the little containers for so she’d be able to get all of her snacks herself. Yep. At home.
I watched her happily skip around the playground for a few minutes, walked back to my car, and cried. Partly because my baby was officially in school and partly because apparently you can prepare for absolutely everything and still forget the damn lunchbox. 😂
So no, these routines aren’t going to make your school mornings perfect. We’re still human. But they have made ours a whole lot smoother — and these are the ones that have made the biggest difference for our family.
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1. Pack School Lunches the Night Before
Before we started packing lunches the night before, mornings were hectic. We’d be scrambling around trying to piece together a balanced lunch, and some days were definitely better than others. Sometimes we just ran out of time and she ended up eating school lunch — which she wasn’t a huge fan of.
Packing lunch ahead of time probably only saves 10 minutes in the morning, so it’s not exactly LIFE-CHANGING time. But what it gives you is PEACE.
You know it’s packed. You know it’s relatively balanced, filled with things your child will actually eat, and it’s ALREADY IN THE FRIDGE. All you have to do is remember to take it out and put it in the backpack. Apparently that’s an important step. 😂
There’s no scrambling and no asking, “Did you pack your lunch yet?” ten times before 7 a.m. Nobody needs that kind of energy before school. I want to send my kids to school happy, excited, fed, and ready for their day — not stressed and feeling like they’ve already failed at something.
Teach Older Kids to Pack Their Own Lunch
Once your kids are old enough, you can start teaching them how to pack their own lunch. We started with Selene around second grade.
And again, teaching a kid how to pack a balanced lunch at 6:30 a.m. versus 6:30 p.m. is a VERY different vibe. 😂
At night, there’s time to actually help. We taught her to start with a main item with some protein, add fruit and maybe a veggie, grab a couple of snacks, and throw in a treat.
She’s learning how to put together a meal, taking on some responsibility, and getting to make her own choices. And typically, when kids pick and pack their own food, they’re more likely to actually eat it.
60% of the time, it works every time.
I’m usually in the kitchen while Selene packs her lunch, cleaning up dinner or doing my mini kitchen reset, so I’m there to help or gently intervene when necessary.
Like the time she packed an Uncrustable and one pack of gummies.
Girl. I like where you’re headed, but we’re going to need a little more than that.
Or the time she tried to pack an entire 16-ounce bag of Sour Patch Watermelon.
Nah. 😂 You can absolutely have some Sour Patch Watermelon. Put a few in a little snack bag.
This has been a win-win for us. She’s learning how to feed herself, and I don’t have to do all of the packing for her.
I can’t even take full credit for this one — teaching her to pack her own lunch was Corey’s idea. I’m the mom who would happily do EVERYTHING for my kids, sometimes to their own detriment, so letting them take on more responsibility is something I’ve had to work on too.
Easy School Lunches We Keep in Rotation
Uncrustables are arguably delicious, but sometimes they just stop hitting and she wants something different. A few of our favorites are:
- Egg Salad Sandwiches: Corey will make a batch of egg salad with her on Sunday. During the week, she can scoop some onto bread — or a croissant if we’re feeling fancy — and make herself an easy, protein-packed sandwich.
- Cheeseburger Bites: This is something new we tried this year. Think Starbucks egg bites, but cheeseburger. We made a batch on Sunday, froze half, and kept the rest in the fridge for the week. In the morning, we heat a couple up, put them in her thermos, and pack a little container of ketchup for dipping.
- Costco Chicken Melts: She practically survived on these during the first part of second grade. 😂 Heat one up, put it in the thermos, done.
2. Deal With School Papers the Day They Come Home
I am a procrastinator. If something isn’t due until Friday, I’ll think about how I need to do it from Sunday through Thursday… and then finally do it Thursday.
Why though? 😂
When I tell you this was my life for 30-something years, I’m serious. It wasn’t until the last couple of years that I finally started JUST DOING IT.
Why am I adding things to my to-do list like it’s my job when the actual task takes four minutes?
A permission slip comes home on the 1st and isn’t due until the 15th. I could put it somewhere “safe” and spend the next two weeks thinking, Oh yeah, I need to fill out that permission slip.
Or… I could grab a pen, sign it, put it back in the backpack, and be done in five minutes.
That’s 14 days of remembering something that never needed to take up space in my brain.
Same thing with sports fees, ordering uniforms, picture day, school forms — any little task that takes 10 minutes or less, I try to just do it when I get it.
Put It on the Calendar Right Away, Too
This rule applies to things that don’t technically require me to do anything yet.
Birthday invitation? RSVP and put it on the calendar.
Spirit day? Calendar.
School event? Calendar.
Because I have learned this lesson the hard way.
We once RSVPed yes to a birthday party for one of Selene’s friends from the gym. I knew the party was coming up, but I never actually put it on the calendar. For some reason, I had convinced myself it was the next Saturday.
It was not. 🤦🏼♀️
I realized a day too late that Selene had completely missed the party.
That one HURT. It wasn’t her fault — it was mine — and I felt like I’d made her look like a bad friend. I texted the mom and apologized profusely, but sorry doesn’t exactly fix the fact that both kids were probably disappointed.
Not to be dramatic…
But maybe a little. 😂
That’s why I don’t really consider this a paperwork routine anymore. It’s a mental-load routine.
Every little thing I handle immediately is one less thing I’m carrying around in my head and one less opportunity to forget something that matters.
My basic rule is:
If I can sign it, pay for it, schedule it, or complete it right now — I do it now.
3. Create an After-School Snack System
You can feed your kids the best breakfast, pack them a five-star lunch, and somehow they will still come home from school STARVING. 😂
Before I made our little after-school snack chart, the snacks were usually pretty random. Nine times out of ten, they weren’t substantial enough to actually hold the girls over until dinner. They’d grab a bunch of snacky carbs, be full for an hour, and then suddenly it’s 4 p.m. and they’re starving again.
Instead of making their snacks for them every day, I made a simple chart to help Selene and Sadie choose something that’s actually going to fill them up — while still leaving room for what Bluey appropriately calls “treat food.”
The chart is broken into two simple parts: Pick 1 Protein + Pick 1 Fruit or Crunch. They choose one thing from each section to build their snack. So that might be cheese + berries, yogurt + a banana, turkey + crackers, or a hard-boiled egg + fruit.
I added pictures because when I originally made this, Sadie couldn’t read yet, and I wanted her to be able to use it independently too.
Make the Good Options Easy to Reach
I’m not over here making perfectly labeled snack baskets and color-coordinated refrigerator bins. I simply do not have that kind of time. 😂
Instead, I keep most of the girls’ snacks on lower shelves in the pantry and in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator. That way, even Sadie can grab a Babybel cheese and a pouch if that’s what she’s in the mood for.
The chart has helped a ton, and I can change it depending on what we’re actually keeping in the house.
Stop Buying 47 Different Costco Snacks
We also used to constantly try new snacks from Costco, and our pantry was a mess.
Sometimes we’d find something everyone loved and demolish the whole box. Other times, we’d discover nobody actually liked it, and now we had a Costco-sized amount of a snack nobody wanted cluttering up the pantry. 😂
We’ve gotten much better about sticking with the snacks we already know and love. It makes grocery shopping easier, the girls know what their options are, and we’re not wasting a bunch of half-eaten food.
If everyone is getting tired of something or we see something new we really want to try, we’ll buy one new snack and see how it goes. Who actually eats it? Do we like it? Does it work for school lunches or after-school snacks?
If it’s a winner, it joins the rotation.
If not, we move on.
Grab My Free After-School Snack Chart
I originally made this chart for our own fridge, and you can grab a copy here. Update it with the foods your family actually keeps around, print it out, and stick it somewhere your kids can easily see it.
4. Give Everyone the Same After-School Routine
After school, we do basically the same thing every day.
- Shoes off and wash hands.
- Unload backpacks.
- Empty lunchboxes. If there’s food left that can still be eaten, they can finish it as part of their snack.
- Put containers in the sink to be washed.
- Grab an after-school snack using our snack guide.
- Take a little mental break while eating or eat while doing homework.
- While they’re snacking and doing homework, I do my mini reset before dinner.
That’s it.
Some days Selene eats her snack while doing homework and gets everything knocked out. Other days, she gets home and just needs to turn her brain off for a minute.
I get it.
If she needs a break, she can watch an episode of one of her shows while she eats. My only guardrail is ONE episode. We are not couch rotting until dinner. 😂
When the episode is over, the TV goes off and she gets her homework done.
I’m not running a boot camp over here. But having a routine and knowing what needs to happen eventually helps all of us. She gets some choice in when she does it without us suddenly realizing Thursday night that she has a week’s worth of homework to finish.
My After-School Mini Kitchen Reset
While the girls are at the kitchen table or counter eating their snacks and doing homework, I do a quick reset of the kitchen and living room.
This routine actually started years ago as my way of trying to beat the system.
When Sadie was a baby and Selene was in school, trying to keep the house clean with a toddler felt impossible. I would clean all day, get tired, finally sit down… and somehow the house looked like I’d done absolutely nothing by the time Corey got home.
So I stopped. 😂
Instead of constantly cleaning behind a toddler all day, I’d wait until Selene got home and do one reset while she sat at the table doing her homework. Then when Corey got home, the house was actually clean.
Leave it to the lazy to figure out how to work smarter, not harder. 😂
Although, to be fair to that version of me, I’m pretty sure I was dealing with PPD and generally just going through it. This little routine was one of the ways I figured out how to keep our home functioning when I didn’t always have the mental capacity for much more.
And somehow, it stuck.
Now it’s one of my favorite parts of our after-school routine because we’re all together without necessarily doing the same thing. The girls can tell me about their day, I can help with homework when they need it, and I’m getting the kitchen ready for the next part of our evening.
My mini reset is simple:
- Put away clean dishes.
- Load dirty dishes into the dishwasher.
- Start the dishwasher if it’s full enough. If not, I wait until after dinner.
- Wipe down the counters.
- Dyson the floors.
- Do a quick sweep of the living room — fix the couch, pick up anything that’s out, and put things back where they belong.
Then I’m done.
I can hang out with the girls, talk with them, or start prepping dinner depending on what we have going on that night.
And on evenings when we’re running out the door for gymnastics or cheer, this makes an even bigger difference. At least I’m leaving with a clean kitchen. If Corey is cooking that night, it’s ready for him. If I’m cooking when we get home, I’m not walking into yesterday’s dishes and crumbs before I can even start dinner.
It’s one less thing standing between us and getting dinner on the table.
If this kind of routine helps you too, you can find more of my simple mom routines here.
5. Reset Everything the Night Before
Think of this as your closing shift.
Before I go to bed, I want as many of tomorrow’s decisions already made as possible. If something can be charged, packed, filled, found, or decided tonight, we do it tonight.
Because looking for a missing pink spirit-day shirt at 7 p.m.? Annoying.
Looking for it when you’re supposed to leave the house in five minutes? Absolutely not. 😂
Charge Everything
Phones, Chromebooks, iPads — whatever we’re going to need the next day gets plugged in at night.
I have an extension cord near my printer with all of our chargers in one spot, so everything has a home. Selene is responsible for charging her own phone and Chromebook and sometimes her sister’s iPad. I usually give her one reminder at night to make sure it’s done.
She needs her phone and Chromebook for school.
And obviously the iPads need to be charged so they can play Minecraft together after school. Priorities. 😂
Pack the Backpacks
Anything that doesn’t need to be refrigerated or charged goes into the backpack the night before:
- Homework
- Forms that need to go back to school
- Cheer bags or other after-school activity bags
- Filled water bottles
- Anything special they need for the next day
We don’t need to be scrambling to pack bags in the morning.
And if something is missing, I’d much rather discover that at 7 p.m. when we have time to look for it than five minutes before we’re supposed to walk out the door.
Pack the Lunches
We’ve already talked about this one, but it’s part of our nightly closing shift too.
Anything that can go into the lunchbox the night before gets packed and put in the fridge. If something needs to be heated in the morning, we at least know exactly what we’re making.
For example, last night I completely packed Sadie’s lunch and put it in the fridge. Selene packed everything except her cheeseburger bites because we heat those up in the morning and put them in her thermos.
There’s still something to do in the morning — but there’s no decision to make.
That’s the difference.
Choose Tomorrow’s Outfit
Even if your kids wear standard student attire or uniforms, pick out their clothes the night before.
This makes sure the clothes they need are actually clean, you can check the weather, and — most importantly — you don’t get taken down by a spirit day. 😂
Pink Day tomorrow? Find the pink shirt tonight.
Cheer shirt every Wednesday? Get it out tonight.
Student Council shirt on Thursday? Find it tonight.
If it’s dirty, you have time to wash it. If it’s missing, you have time to find it. And if you discover you don’t own whatever ridiculous thing they’re supposed to wear tomorrow, at least you’re finding out while Target is still open. 😂
Anything is better than discovering it at 7 a.m.
Make Tomorrow’s Decisions Tonight
That’s really the entire routine.
Make as many of tomorrow’s decisions tonight as you can.
You don’t need to wake up and decide what everyone’s wearing, figure out what’s for lunch, hunt down a Chromebook charger, remember the permission slip, fill water bottles, and locate a cheer bag before you’ve even finished your coffee.
The fewer decisions we’re making in the morning, the calmer our mornings tend to be.
And that’s the whole point.
6. Do the Girls’ Hair Prep Before Bed
My girls have been blessed with way thicker hair than me, which — thank you, Jesus. 😂
But brushing their hair in the morning used to be a FIGHT. I don’t know what happens to kids’ hair while they sleep, but somehow they wake up with approximately 400 new tangles.
So in my ongoing mission to eliminate as many morning tears and tempers as possible, I started doing their hair prep before bed.
I already loved Sleepy Tie and Curly Ties for my own long hair and extensions, so I bought different sizes for the girls too. I’ve even tried bonnets, but those apparently want absolutely nothing to do with staying on their heads all night.
Sleepy Tie for Easy Morning Hair
Sleepy Tie is Sadie’s favorite and the one I personally use almost every night.
You wrap the hair around the bun — almost like a sock bun — and secure it with the attached scrunchie. It keeps the hair contained while they sleep, which means significantly fewer tangles in the morning. It can also help preserve a blowout, which is why I originally started using it on myself.
Sadie wakes up, we take it out, brush through her hair, and we’re basically done.
12/10. Saved my mornings.
Curly Tie for Overnight Heatless Curls
Selene’s favorite is the Curly Tie.
It’s basically a heatless curl method, similar to wrapping your hair around a sock, except we’ve found it MUCH more comfortable to sleep in.
Selene and I are both side sleepers, and most heatless curl contraptions drive us crazy. This is one of the only methods we’ve found that we can actually sleep in.
In the morning, we take it out and her hair is curly, pretty, and — most importantly — not a tangled disaster.
One minute and her hair is basically done.
Sometimes we’ll add a little half-up pony with a bow, which is Selene’s favorite way to wear the curls.
Sadie usually gets a ponytail or what she calls her “Rumi hair” — a French braid — because she’s in Pre-K and I mostly just need that hair out of her face. 😂
The goal isn’t elaborate school-morning hairstyles over here.
It’s doing as much as we can the night before so mornings require as little effort as possible.
Make School Days Easier, Not Perfect
You can prep the lunches, reset the kitchen, choose the outfits, pack the backpacks, and plan the entire week… and occasionally your preschooler will still walk into school while her lunch sits peacefully in your refrigerator. 😂
But most days, these little routines make our family’s mornings and afternoons so much easier.
And if your school mornings have been feeling chaotic, don’t try to overhaul everything at once. Pick one thing you can move out of the morning and do the night before.
For us, packing lunches was the first change that made a huge difference. Then we slowly added the other routines as we figured out what was making our mornings harder than they needed to be.
The goal isn’t a perfectly organized family that never forgets anything. Clearly. 😂
It’s fewer things to think about, fewer things to rush through, and a little more time to actually enjoy our mornings together.
And if you want to make after-school snack time one less thing to think about too, you can grab my free snack chart template here.