WeiMeiJiao Warm, firm discipline from birth to age 12

Morning and evening routine chart

Put the steps of your mornings and evenings in order with your child, then check each one off as it gets done.

Morning

MTWTFSS
Wake up
Use the toilet
Get dressed
Eat breakfast
Brush teeth, wash face
Pack your bag
Shoes on, ready to go
Your own step

Evening

MTWTFSS
Clean up toys
Bath or shower
Pajamas on
Brush teeth
Use the toilet
Read a book together
Lights out
Your own step

Hang it at your child’s eye level. Let your child check each box or add a sticker, and say what you saw: “You put your pajamas on all by yourself!”

WeiMeiJiao · weimeijiao.com/en/printables/routine-chart/ · Sources: weimeijiao.com/en/research/

How to use the routine chart

Make it together. At a calm time, go through the steps with your child. Cross out any that don’t fit and write your family’s own steps in the blank rows. Let your child help choose the order and add one step of their own.

Pictures for children who can’t read yet. Point to each picture as you go. Older children can check their own boxes.

Notice progress and say it out loud. When your child does a step without being asked, tell them what you saw: “You got dressed all by yourself!” A check mark or a sticker lets them see how far they have come.

For babies and toddlers, a steady bedtime routine has research behind it. In a 3-week randomized study of 405 mothers and their children aged 7 to 36 months, starting a consistent nightly bedtime routine helped children fall asleep faster and wake less often and for shorter periods at night, and it improved mothers’ mood.121

More ideas: Routines and visual schedules.

Sources

The small numbers in the text point to these sources. Each one has a full entry on the Research page.

  1. Mindell, J. A., Telofski, L. S., Wiegand, B., & Kurtz, E. S. (2009). A Nightly Bedtime Routine: Impact on Sleep in Young Children and Maternal Mood. Sleep, 32(5), 599-606. See it on the Research page doi:10.1093/sleep/32.5.599 Back to the text