One late assignment is a bad week. Five is a reputation.

A single lapse is an event; a pattern becomes an identity. One late assignment reads as a rough week, which is how most people will take it, but by the fifth the explanation stops being events and starts being you. Nobody announces when that switch happens, and it is much harder to undo than to avoid. The early ones are cheap, and the cheapness is misleading.

If you are one or two in, break the run now rather than at the end of term. Hand the next one in on time even if it is weaker than you wanted. Then say plainly that you are back on track.