My secret for getting my kids out the door on time every morning: 5 alarm clocks

• I was exhausted from arguing with my daughters, who are 9 and 5, in the mornings.
• I started setting alarms to remind them when it was time to move to the next morning task.
• Our system of five alarms has made mornings much more peaceful.

"What? I'm just dancing while I get dressed," my 5-year-old told me without breaking her rhythm.

She was indeed dancing, all over the living room, partially dressed, her discarded outfits and dirty jammies strewn in her wake. Objectively, the scene might have been adorable, but as the mother who had been asking her for 25 minutes to just get dressed, I wasn't amused.

I swallowed the scream I wanted to let loose and pointed at my phone.

"Listen, the alarm is about to go off."

I turned back to my coffee, and one minute later — before the alarm rang out — my daughter sat at the kitchen table, fully dressed, and started eating her toast. I wondered how this parenting hack I had stumbled upon worked so well.

I started setting an alarm for the time we needed to leave, and it worked like a charm

I don't think there are scientific polls about what percentage of parents find mornings incredibly stressful, but my anecdotal reporting shows it's close to 100%. Getting everyone up and out the door is a lot. Despite the fact that my girls have the same routine every morning, we were fighting the same battles over getting dressed, brushing teeth, and eating breakfast in a somewhat timely manner.

That is until we discovered alarms.

The first alarm I set was a reminder that it was time to leave for the bus. Initially, it was more for me than my daughters. But once we implemented it, I realized I wasn't yelling, "You need to go right now," anymore. Instead, when the alarm went off, my daughter would give me a kiss and head out the door — pure bliss.

I added an alarm for every problem area in our morning

With the success of the bus alarm, I added another. Then another. Then some more. Every phrase I was so tired of uttering each morning was replaced with an alarm to cue the kids. No more "brush your teeth," "it's time to put on shoes," or "you really need to get your coat on." Now, there was an alarm for that.

Today, we have five alarms set:

• 7:20 — Time to be dressed and at the breakfast table

• 7:35 — Eat your last bites of breakfast

• 7:40 — Brush teeth and hair

• 7:45 — Shoes, coats, and backpacks on

• 7:52 — Out the door to the bus stop

By the time the bus comes at 7:57, the girls are ready and waiting. Better yet, I no longer feel like I've worked a whole day just to get the kids out the door.

Even my husband got on board with the system

I'm not sure why the alarm system works so well for us, but it does. Rather than the girls fighting or talking back to me, they see the alarms as facts that can't be argued with. When they hear the alarm, they just take responsibility for what they need to do without me nagging them.

Last spring, I went on a girls' trip to Italy, leaving my husband with the kids for two weeks. Normally, I handle the morning routine, so when I called home the first day, my older daughter got on the phone: "Can you tell Dad about the alarms?"

At first, my husband rolled his eyes at just how many alarms we had set, but by the end of the week, he was a convert. "They love the alarms, hey?" he said when I checked in.

Yes, they do. And I do too.