Please tell me the bare minimum

[thecakebadge]

...of how frequently I should do these things before I should get environmental health involved.

I don’t have particularly high cleaning standards as a general rule although I like to think I’m not totally gross. I’m currently 11 weeks pregnant with DC2 and suffering really badly with all day nausea, it just never goes away. DD (nearly 2) is still a terrible sleeper and generally quite hard work and I’m having to look after her most of the time at weekends as my DH is trying to do up our house which we just moved into, before the baby comes (this all sounds like awful timing now I type it out!). I’m getting next to nothing done around the house, most stuff is being done by DH in between everything else he’s doing (cooking, washing up etc). People keep telling me to ‘just lower my standards’ but I’m pretty sure they can’t go much lower. So how often can I get away with doing these things before it just becomes disgusting?!

1. Change bedding
   
2. Change/wash towels
   
3. Basic bathroom clean ie. wipe down sinks, clean toilets (just typing that makes me want to vom)
   
4. Proper bathroom clean including shower, tiles, bath
   
5. Vacuuming
   
6. Mopping (all of downstairs is hardwood flooring)

[TheSeedsOfADream]

1. once a week
2. depends, I do mine after two uses or if they stay damp
3. Every day
4. once a week
5. more often than you think, especially if you have hard floors. (the whole allergy-hard floor thing only works if the hard floors are clean, otherwise the allergens go into the air rather than sitting on a carpet, however minging that seems)
6. depends how much use the room gets and by whom. I do my kitchen and bathroom daily because there's a lot of footfall. Bedrooms every couple of days, living room once a week,

[thecakebadge]

Just to clarify, I’m not looking for ‘ideal frequency’ but rather ‘absolute minimum that you would consider not minging’

[Grobagsforever]

@TheSeedsOfADream that's WAY too much IMHO

1. Every fortnight or 3 weeks is ok for kids that wear PJS
   
   
2. Weekly or every ten days if they dried quickly after use
   
   
3. Once a week
   
   
4. once every two weeks, just chuck bleach down the loo every few days
   
   
5. Weekly
   
   
6. Every ten days is fine
   
   Honestly you could do less than this. I certainly did when pregnant with a toddler. You'll still be perfectly hygienic. Germs are good for us.
   
   Missed if you have a partner in which case he should do obviously being doing half.

[BarbaraofSeville]

Oh, about once a fortnight in that case. Nothing will get noticeably dirty in that timescale and you can just do anything that you can manage that desperately needs doing in between.

[Frustratedmummy79]

I find you'll always get unrealistic answers to this question on here so here are my honest answers. I don't think anyone would come to my house and think we're lucky!

1. Fortnightly for adults, weekly for kids
2. Ideally weekly but sometimes (often) it's longer for bath towels - to be fair they are used when we're clean from a shower! Hand towels weekly
3. Couple of times a week
4. Weekly if I've got time
5. Couple of times a week in the lounge (just a quick run around the main areas - bedrooms and stairs once a week
6. Once a week for the kitchen floor

Your life sounds tough at the moment - as long as it's not a health hazard to you or your kids then I think you should cut yourself some slack. We seem to be obsessed these days with things being spotless and germ free (COVID aside) and it is no help to the development of immune systems

[Onekidnoclue]

Right. The gap between ideal and ‘meh, not great but we’ll live’ is pretty chunky. I’d say this is what is still, just on the side of ok....

1. Change bedding. Fortnight provided you wash before bed. Weekly if you all wash in the mornings.
   

1. Change/wash towels. Provided they are properly dried between uses I think a week (perhaps even two) is fine for bath towels. Tea towels after each use and hand towels EVery few days.
   

1. Basic bathroom clean ie. wipe down sinks, clean toilets. Weekly (excluding loos).
   

1. Proper bathroom clean including shower, tiles, bath. Fortnight to a month depending on how good top up cleans in between are.
   

1. Vacuuming - weekly for high use areas like kitchen, living room. Fortnightly for upstairs.
   

1. Mopping- you can go ages!!! It’s the floor FFS and you don’t have a crawling baby. Once a month.
   

Good luck OP.

[Frustratedmummy79]

Oh and they are my ideals! I definitely don't stick to them!

[cheeseychovolate]

Once a fortnight
Once a week
Once a week
Once a fortnight
Once every 5 days
Once a week

[OhToBeASeahorse]

OP seriously dont ask this question here. You'll just get the nut jobs that think you need to use 17 towels to dry yourself and wash them all immediately otherwise you are basically a walking health disaster.

No one died from a bit of dust. Prioritise the germy stuff but make life easy for yourself. Get some.baby friendly anti bac wipes or a spray for your change mat and highchair. Have a bottle of toilet cleaner and a toilet brush in your bathroom and do as needed. Try to wipe down the kitchen surfaces when you can see mess. A cordless hoover makes hoovering really quick but it doesnt need to be done every day.

Other thing I would say is prevention is better than cure. Dont have shoes on round the house. Only let your toddler eat in their chair. Cook stuff that requires minimal washing up.

[thecakebadge]

Thanks all, some more info (I mean who doesn’t love a good cleaning thread with a bit of drip feeding thrown in for good measure ): we all wear PJs in bed - no naked sleepers in this house! We probably don’t shower as often as we used to - these standards have also dropped, we are WFH and people can’t smell you via Teams. So the bath towels aren’t used daily, probably 3 x a week. And although DD is nearly 2 she’s not walking yet, so she is crawling all over the floor all the time...!

[thecakebadge]

@OhToBeASeahorse your first para made me laugh!

[lifestooshort123]

Cut yourself some slack. Wipe the loo seat with a disinfectant wipe and chuck bleach down each day (wipe basin/bath with sponge after good spray of Flash every 2/3 days). Wipe kitchen work tops with disinfectant each night. Change bed linen when it loses its va-va-voom (have a sniff to check) and towels once a week. Done. Oh yes, floors - mop them when they look grimy of feel gritty underfoot. Be kind to yourself.

[lifestooshort123]

Sorry, just seen toddler crawling. Yeah, mop the floor - sorry!

[justanotherneighinparadise]

@thecakebadge

...of how frequently I should do these things before I should get environmental health involved.

I don’t have particularly high cleaning standards as a general rule although I like to think I’m not totally gross. I’m currently 11 weeks pregnant with DC2 and suffering really badly with all day nausea, it just never goes away. DD (nearly 2) is still a terrible sleeper and generally quite hard work and I’m having to look after her most of the time at weekends as my DH is trying to do up our house which we just moved into, before the baby comes (this all sounds like awful timing now I type it out!). I’m getting next to nothing done around the house, most stuff is being done by DH in between everything else he’s doing (cooking, washing up etc). People keep telling me to ‘just lower my standards’ but I’m pretty sure they can’t go much lower. So how often can I get away with doing these things before it just becomes disgusting?!

1. Change bedding
2. Change/wash towels
3. Basic bathroom clean ie. wipe down sinks, clean toilets (just typing that makes me want to vom)
4. Proper bathroom clean including shower, tiles, bath
5. Vacuuming
6. Mopping (all of downstairs is hardwood flooring)

1) weekly. Sometimes fortnightly.
2) towels get washed adhoc. Definitely not after every use.
3) and regularly clean toilets and keep sinks clean but deep clean weekly/sometimes fortnightly
4) as above
5) hoovering as abs when but at least once a week
6) mopping. Rarely. Once a fortnight 😬

[Beechview]

Most of your list once a week or up to a fortnight
except toilet, wiping sink and hoovering which could be once a day or every other day seeing as you have a toddler.

[Judystilldreamsofhorses]

Bedlinen and towels weekly
Bathroom light clean twice a week
Proper bathroom clean once a week
Hoover/mop weekly, but hard floors swept daily as we have a very hairy white cat - hoovering should be more often here really too, but CBA

[SnackBitch2020]

Can't speak for everyone but this is what I do. I consider my habits normal and non hysterical lol

1. Change bedding

Every 2 weeks unless it's really hot, then once a week.

1. Change/wash towels

Hand towel - once a day, bath towel - once a week

1. Basic bathroom clean ie. wipe down sinks, clean toilets (just typing that makes me want to vom)
   

I wile around the toilet with an anti bac wipe and put bleach down once a day, takes about a minute to do. I spray the sink with dettol spray, again takes a few seconds.

1. Proper bathroom clean including shower, tiles, bath
   

Once a week although I don't bother with tiles.

1. Vacuuming
   
2. Mopping (all of downstairs is hardwood flooring)

Both once a week.

[justanotherneighinparadise]

I don’t mind cleaning the toilets. I have zoflora on the windowsill and just put some on a widge of toilet paper. Give everything a good wipe. Buff clean with some more poo paper and flush. Easy.

[justanotherneighinparadise]

*loo paper 😮

[Fightthebear]

We do once a fortnight on bedding.

Once a week on everything else but I wipe around the kitchen daily.

In lockdown I didn’t hoover upstairs for 4 weeks, it was fine.

Don’t make a fetish out of cleaning, you have other priorities.

[ApolloandDaphne]

I do all those things approximately once a fortnight apart from floor mopping. That gets done when it looks visibly skanky.

For context I am a retired social worker who has removed children from dirty houses. I cannot even describe to you how bad things have to be for that to happen. Those houses had probably never had anything cleaned in years.

My very lovely health visitor always said 'a wee bit dirt never hurt anyone' and it is a motto I've always lived by! You are pregnant and struggling. Cut yourself some slack and do the bare minimum to get by.

[Millie2013]

I think with cleaning, the trick is to have the right “tools”. I hate cleaning, but I like having a clean house, so go for the easy option most of the time (eg cordless vacuum if poss, spray mop with washable pad)
I also hate ironing, so most things get a quick shake then get hung up to dry on wooden hangers. I swear I’m the queen of lazy arsed household hacks

1. Change bedding - weekly -have 2 sets per bed. OH strips and makes the bed, I wash and dry the bedding
   
2. Change/wash towels- weekly, ditto 2 sets each
   
3. Basic bathroom clean ie. wipe down sinks, clean toilets (just typing that makes me want to vom) -when it needs it/when DD is in the bath and I have a spare 5 min, probably a wipe down 2x a week
   
4. Proper bathroom clean including shower, tiles, bath - not very often, 6x a year maybe. Shower door gets a wipe over daily by last one in, to prevent limescale
   
5. Vacuuming - bedrooms - weekly. Downstairs floors daily whizz round with cordless hoover
   
6. Mopping (all of downstairs is hardwood flooring)- weekly, with spray mop. Kitchen gets done every other day or so
   

But echo the advice to be kind to yourself, if I had all day nausea, I doubt I’d feel like doing anything at all, it’s so debilitating

[Violetroselily]

1. Change bedding

3 weeks

1. Change/wash towels

2 weeks

1. Basic bathroom clean ie. wipe down sinks, clean toilets (just typing that makes me want to vom)

Once a week

1. Proper bathroom clean including shower, tiles, bath

2 weeks

1. Vacuuming

Once a week

1. Mopping (all of downstairs is hardwood flooring)

2 weeks

[happytoday73]

I pressume you can't afford a cleaner? .. Pregnancy when struggling and with a new baby are the key times I paid out for a cleaner... Once a fortnight for 3 hours or 2 hours each week
It made a huge difference to the house and how I felt.
Even if one off clean....

[wendz86]

1. Change bedding - 2--3 weeks
2. Change/wash towels -1-2 weeks
3. Basic bathroom clean ie. wipe down sinks, clean toilets (just typing that makes me want to vom) every 2 weeks
4. Proper bathroom clean including shower, tiles, bath -2-3 weeks
5. Vacuuming - 10 days - 2 weeks
6. Mopping (all of downstairs is hardwood flooring) 2 weeks