How do you avoid the morning meltdowns?

[Halfasianmomma]

Mamas, I need advice from those of you who WOH and who have to drag their LOs to daycare.

Right now, I'm living at my parents' house, until I can afford to live on my own. Their place is a bit farther away from downtown where I work and rather far away from DD's daycare. Every morning, DD (17 months) has multiple meltdowns and it makes the morning travel to daycare very stressful.

Here's my routine...maybe it can give you some clues:

Nurse DD at 5:00 a.m....sometimes DD falls back asleep.
Get up at 6:15 a.m.
Dress + make-up from 6:15 to 6:30ish.
If DD is awake, change and dress DD.
Meltdowns begin almost as soon as she wakes, for various reasons.

Go downstairs for 6:40 and prepare my lunch
Eat breakfast and brush teeth for 7:00 at the latest (DD plays around in the living room while munching on various items) ** Meltdowns occur here**
Brush DD's teeth, get her dressed for 7:15 a.m.
Get lift to the subway for 7:30
Travel by subway from 7:35 to 7:55 with DD in the ergo. ***Meltdown occur here***

I really don't know how I can manage to change our morning routines so that it's easier on DD. I'm thinking that perhaps she needs to sleep later, or she wants to take things slower in the mornings.

[~pi]

That sounds very stressful on top of an already stressful situation.

Does she like reading books with you? Someone else here mentioned starting the day snuggling together in bed and reading a book is a quick and effective way to start the day much better. I tried it and totally agree! It's a much gentler, happier way to start the day. That might be more effective for older kids, though (mine is 3.)

Other ideas: Can you streamline certain aspects of the morning, e.g., pack your lunch the night before, dress DD in her clothes the night before so that you don't have to change her clothes.

Also, is it possible that she wants to nurse more/again? My DS always wants (and wanted, at that age) to nurse first thing when he wakes, even if he nursed during the night as well.

It looks to me like she is having issues with transitions. Again, she might not be quite old enough for this, but we've always had good success with timers. We give a warning, and then set the timer, and then when it beeps, it's time to go.

[MoonJelly]

I don't have any advice but I can sympathize. This is still an issue with DD1 who is 5. It seems that she needs slower mornings but that's not easy either unless we get up at an ungodly hour.

[StarMom2]

My son has a similar issue in the morning. I've found giving him lots of time and not pushing him helps. I usually put on something calming for him to watch to slowly wake up. (Baby Einstein was great when he was younger.) I know it is tough. Good luck!

[Teenytoona]

Yeah, we have the meltdowns too. I have no idea the rhyme or reason. Sometimes I give her loadsof time (wake her up early) and she melts down (maybe because she's tired) other times I wake her up later (to give her a little more sleep) and she either will or will not meltdown. It's wierd. Sometimes with any or some of these factors, she wakes up sunny as Las Vegas. For us, it seems the best diffuser is one of the big kids making silly jokes with her, but that's not a universal fix.


I've been told the meltdown thing might be due to a need for more sleep, but if you can't get her to bed any earlier, or sleep in any later, what can you do? I reckon from how your schedule looks (similar in wake-up time to ours) that you're doing the best you can within your scheduling limits to maximize her sleep.

What about waking her up later. You get dressed, get lunch and eat breakfast, and then waking her, nursing her, dressing her and then she can eat breakfast on the commute?

[Halfasianmomma]

pi...that's a great suggestion! I think I'll try to book thing tomorrow morning to see if DD likes it. She definitely loves bringing us books and sitting with us to point at pictures, so perhaps it would smoothe things over a bit more.

I have been a bit lazy with the lunch packing issue lately, and I agree, that could be done the night before. As for dressing the night before, it might not be practical.

DD *definitely* wants to nurse more. In fact, in the morning, she's rather be nursing every 15 minutes, but I just can't manage that what with getting ready. I nurse her right before getting up, on both sides, sometimes again at the breakfast table and then again right before leaving daycare. I don't see how I can do more...

I'll also try the timer thing. She may be a bit young but it's worth a shot.

Starmom...watching Baby Einstein is a good suggestion. I have a ton of used DVDs my cousin gave me. I just need to set up the TV upstairs, so DD can watch while I get ready.

Teenytoona...I've tried sneaking out of the bedroom to let DD sleep in more. It works 1 out of 3 times. She's so attuned to me that she notices right away if I'm not there, especially in her half-wakeful morning nursing state. If we manage to wake up early enough, say around 5 instead of 5:45, she'll nurse and fall back asleep. Those morning were WAY easier because I did all my morning prep without DD, and then I woke her up right before we had to leave. The communute went swimmingly, and I just fed her fruit on the way. I just don't know how to make that happen *every* morning!

[LilMomma83]

I just wake DS1 (2.5) about 5mins before walking out the door (sometimes he wakes on his own and watches educational tv, but, he never gets out of bed). I have him dressed the night before and I prepare him a bottle or cup of milk and a snack (quick, like a cheese stick or a cup full of animal crackers). I pick him up put him on the potty (or changed him when he was younger), brush his teeth, put his shoes coat and hat on, hand him his "breakfast" and head out....I have tried so many things and he is just not an early morning person so I have found that just letting him get as much sleep as possible and bothering him as little as possible once I wake him seems to help.

[Surfacing]

subbing to come back and read

[nnaemeka]

hi there mamas---i can so relate. my dd is 17 months and its meltdown season over here too. sigh. the morning is bad but the evening can be hard too. dd wakes me up. i'd love to sleep a bit later but she nurses half asleep from 5-7am then usually wakes up fully around 7:00am and jumps on my head, plays/fusses until i open my eyes and join the fun. we often do the book in bed routine just so i have a moment to have a few more minutes of rest. we take our time making breakfast, hanging out w/dh who comes in from the night shift. so i'm not sure if meltdowns are an entirely a sleepy/too hectic thing. but i do notice that dd tends to have a super-melt down around the time she used to nap around 10-11am. but most times she won't go to sleep either. i try to get her to daycare by 10am but dd now resists just about everything in the morning routine esp getting dressed. she goes outside everyday with her class so dressing her the night before won't work as her sleep clothes are not her daycare clothes.

i think for us getting out the door a bit earlier would be better even though i usually don't have to be to work before 11am. i can't believe it takes us so long to get ready but i feel most mornings just i'm chasing dd with a diaper in between tantrums! and, for sure, i'm the one who's tired!!!

[Lil'M]

Originally Posted by Halfasianmomma

If we manage to wake up early enough, say around 5 instead of 5:45, she'll nurse and fall back asleep. Those morning were WAY easier because I did all my morning prep without DD, and then I woke her up right before we had to leave. The communute went swimmingly, and I just fed her fruit on the way. I just don't know how to make that happen *every* morning!

Maybe set an alarm clock for 5 am if that really makes everything go better in the morning.

[Momily]

Your child is younger than mine was when I did this, but the thing that made the biggest difference was going from the attitude of "We have to go to daycare, now hurry up" to the attitude of "Me neither". Although I love my job, the truth is on any given day I'd rather have stayed home under the covers snuggling my child. Once I admitted that to my child it felt more like us against the world, rather than him against me in a battle

So, we'd spend the morning fantasizing about what we'd rather be doing instead, which worked for us.

I also agree about getting as much done as possible before hand -- bring her to school in her PJ's and change her there, or let her sleep in a soft sweatsuit she can wear to school. Have your lunch in the fridge, or buy stuff to keep in the fridge at work and make lunch there.

Also, I found that the stroller worked well for us on the train -- we could look at books together or talk face to face. I know it seems weird but eye contact was an important part of closeness, and something like an Ergo (not invented when DS was little, or at least I didn't know about it) didn't feel as close as looking into each other's faces an talking.