We’ve all lived through a stressful morning rush, and it only gets harder once kids arrive. Sometimes they’re just not moving their feet, or they have a meltdown about what outfit they’re going to wear. Maybe your alarm didn’t go off, so you couldn’t wake the kids up on time, and now they are extremely cranky. Whatever the issue is, it’s probably one that’s out of your control. But there’s one thing you can control: breakfast.

While it may feel like one of the more stressful parts of the morning, breakfast is something you can really hack. There’s a solution for each problem you may face: not having time to cook, not having time for the slowest eater to finish their meal, not enough nutrients in grab and go options. These hacks allow you to use time during slower days to prepare for the hectic mornings, and some of them don’t even require you to use the stove.

The best part is that these ideas aren’t “kid” food, just food that you can easily make for a kid — so you can make an adult-sized portion for yourself. Parents need to eat, too!

Pancake Muffins

Kids love pancakes; kids love muffins. And so behold the perfect kid breakfast: mini pancake muffins, made using the pancake batter and toppings of your choice. @majormumhacks makes hers with fruit, sprinkles, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. Best of all, you can make all of the muffins in one batch at the beginning of the week and leave them in a Tupperware in the fridge. They taste good right out of the fridge or microwave. Plus if your child tends to eat like a bird and rarely finishes a meal, they can have as much or as little as they want and no food will go to waste.

Air Fryer French Toast with Eggs

@hello_mama_ on TikTok tricks her daughter into eating eggs with this easy French toast. The eggs go into the batter with a few other ingredients, as you would expect, and you pour the batter over pre-cut, bite-sized pieces of bread so you don’t need to deal with the mess of your child trying to cut their own food. But the real “hack” of this is that you put the batter-soaked bread into the air fryer for a few minutes instead of cooking it on the stove. The video’s creator topped this with powdered sugar and strawberries, but you can add whatever you think your kids will like.

On-the-Go Yogurt Parfait

This is a simple one! @JustTheBells10 makes grab-and-go yogurt parfaits for her ten kids. If she can get this done, anyone can. She used vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, apples, Cool Whip mixed with instant cheesecake JELL-O pudding, more fruit, and then some chia seeds. But you don’t have to stick to the same ingredients, especially if your kids don’t like them. Other tasty options could be bananas, peanut butter, and granola. In the video, she also attaches a spoon to the Tupperware in case they are in a rush in the morning and need to bring it with them to school. You can prepare this as an at-home meal as well.

Quick Pancakes from Frozen Batter

You’ve probably never seen ice trays get used like this. This mini pancake hack, posted by @homemadefoodjunkie, involves making pancake batter and pouring a little bit into each cube of the tray. She then adds chopped berries or chocolate chips to the batter before putting the tray in the freezer. In the morning, all you have to do is pop the mini pancakes on the stove and they will be ready to eat in just a few minutes. This is a great hack for a little one who would just want to eat a few small pancakes in the morning. If you wanted to do this for an older and hungrier kid, you could put some premade batter in a sealed container in the fridge and do the exact same thing.

Egg Muffins

This egg muffin hack is from @brunchwithbabs, one of TikTok’s favorite moms. Babs puts a little bit of premade crescent roll dough at the bottom of each section in a greased, non-stick muffin tin and then adds a mixture of egg, salt, pepper, cheese, ground beef, scallions, and red bell peppers with a pinch of onion powder and garlic powder on top. Other add-in options could be ham, spinach, and tomatoes. She gives specific instructions on how to make these perfectly, so be sure to watch the whole video. You can freeze them until you’re ready to eat them — just take them out the night before and microwave them in the morning.

Chunky Monkey Overnight Oats

Overnight oats are a great breakfast hack for all ages, and this Chunky Monkey version is the perfect kid-friendly option. @kenziejo_clark uses oats, vanilla almond milk, chia seeds, honey, chocolate chips, peanut butter, and bananas to make a “chunky monkey” version of the meal. (But if your kids revolt at the idea of chia seeds, you can skip them.) This kind of oatmeal can be eaten cold and right out of the jar you make it in. If your kid is usually unwilling to tolerate oatmeal, this is still worth a try because the flavors of peanut butter, vanilla, and bananas really dominate.

Easy Quesadilla

This recipe by @actuallyashly doesn’t take too long during the morning and will leave your kids full until lunchtime. It’s a breakfast quesadilla, which involves cooking a few eggs, adding some cheese (if you want), layering a tortilla on top, and then flipping the whole thing over so the eggs are on top. You can fill it with toppings like more cheese, bacon, ham, and hash browns before folding it in half. You could also split this with your child if you don’t think they’ll finish it on their own.

Frozen French Toast

Did you know you can freeze French toast? @kennedychugg explains that all you have to do is make the French toast as you normally would on a less busy day, then freeze all of the bread slices in a resealable bag, and take them out when you’re ready to toast and serve them. Amazingly, it will still taste freshly made. You can add syrup, bananas, berries, and any other toppings. This is a useful hack for kids of all ages, because you can serve whole pieces to older ones but cut them into smaller strips for toddlers and little kids.

Bluey & Bingo Toast

If you have plenty of time to make breakfast in the morning but your child takes forever to actually eat it, try making their toast look like a delicious version of their favorite cartoon characters, Bluey and Bingo. @gratefulheartcreative on TikTok makes it look extremely easy. The Bingo toast has a base of peanut butter toast, with bananas and blueberries for the nose and smile and extra bread for the ears and eyes. The Bluey toast is, of course, blue, which may seem tough but it is actually just cream cheese and blue food dye. This hack is pretty simple, but your kid will be amazed at your breakfast artistry.