Every weekday morning at the same time I switch on my son's bedside lamp and say gently, 'Start thinking about getting up now please.'
Sandwiches are wrapped, oats are eaten, baths are taken, shirts are ironed, and within the hour we are on the road. It's the way we spend our morning, and there's something beautifully comforting about it.
I haven't always been the routine type - when my babies were little I was all about demand feeding and naps when you felt like it.
Now I find that school terms go more smoothly with a more-or-less fixed bedtime and wake-up time. Yet there's enough give to allow for staying up to watch the soccer final, and eating ice-cream before supper on a summer evening.
Does your family thrive on routine or hate it? Write in and we'll choose our favourite letter to win a Parent24 T-shirt. That's our routine...
Some rather intriguing stories to break your routine:
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Sex and the single parent