by Melissa Willets posted in Parenting

There's nothing more stressful than running late on school mornings. But with three kids, racing against the clock is virtually unavoidable, as I scramble to dress and feed little bodies, all before I've had even close-to-enough coffee. This is why I do almost everything I need to do for the next day, the night before.
From the time the kids get off the bus, until bedtime, as one of my fellow bloggers Molly Balint joked, I am in full-on butler mode, doing my Jeeves thang to get my girls ready for tomorrow.
Here are 7 tasks I never save for the morning, but instead, always do ahead of time.
Lay out outfits. I pick out my kids' clothes the night before, and lay the outfits out on their dressers, so they know what to put on after they've finished sufficiently complaining about having to get up. But another fellow blogger, Deidra Romero takes outfit-prep a step further. She organizes outfits for the entire week, by putting them into labeled drawers in a plastic bin.
Make lunches. As soon as my kids come home from school, I unpack their backpacks, and take out their lunch bags. Then I clean their lunch containers, and pack the next day's lunches. By dinnertime, tomorrow's lunches are in the fridge, ready to go!
Fill water bottles. I also clean out my children's water bottles from that day, and fill them up for tomorrow. Sure, this step only takes a minute, but as every busy mom knows, every minute counts on crazy school mornings.
...