AIBU to be depressed by the state of my house

Limiting the number of toys out at once and where toys can be can be a huge help. If you've got a toy room, that (and their bedroom) could be the room toys are allowed in, not the dining room, kitchen etc. It helps to contain the nuclear explosion that is young kids in any house.

Ultimately having little ones does make a house super hard to keep tidy. What I find helps a lot is making sure you have a lovely space of your own at least - a sanctuary you can retire into. So if nothing else (beyond the basics of hygiene obviously) make sure your own bedroom is tidy, clean, with lovely things around you - be it favourite photos, fresh flowers, a beautiful room scent that makes you smile, etc. It's so hard when the whole house is a perpetual child-mess but at least then you can retire to your calm and peaceful bedroom and have a little moment of "things are as they should be", which is very good for your mental health I find.

Maye it's time to try more firmer boundaries, you say they have a toy room so to me that is the room they play in and thwy know that other rooms are not for play. And if that is messy you can shut the door at least.

If it gets too messy then you can just grt them to chuck stuff into 'bins' but don't be so organised about it, they don't care.

My nephews are.looked after by my parents they have two plastic ikea boxes one for each of them. All toys go in their own boxes sometimes it gets mixed up they just find it themselves.

When I'm with my nephew they love to tip stuff out I'm always like omg what a mess in my head but I get them to tidy up at the end by playing a game with them who can pick up the most things in 10seconds. Works on them 90% of the time. You might have tried this bit if not making tidying up gun like a game might help.

Can you talk to your GP or HV (if nice).

Do you have mates you can invite for a cleaning party or who can hold the kids while you get something done? Family?

I do one room at a time and if that means moving crap around so be it. At least you have one clear space to be human in.

Eishing you all the best x It's not easy.

I’ve been here. I remember one day feeding baby #3 and just looking round the room thinking fuck I just really need to accept I’m not going to have a clean tidy house for the next 5/6 years. I’m now 6 years in and it’s starting to get better. It’s been very much baby steps and the slow depreciation of toys. My older 2 are 10 & 12 so don’t have much in the way of toys these days, though they still craft and do a lot of art. My youngest 6 I’ve managed to reduce large toys. There is still clutter and I certainly don’t want her to grow out of toys any time soon but I am getting there.

We now have a complete child free room, no toys, food, crafts, markers nothing in the living room. It’s meant to be kept clean and tidy 24/7, it dosnt always happen but on a whole I can walk into a clean room. We have a robo vac that dose the floor every night and the doors closed when we need to.

As they get older is definitely dose get easier. All mine earn pocket money for doing chores, they sweep, hoover, dust, wipe down table tops, tidy their room etc..

Hold in OP, pick what’s important to you and just focus on that one thing. For me it’s clean work tops and floors. I stopped sorting toys, they just all got thrown in big tubs so I could do the floors. I’d do a clear out and sort every few months. I can leave the dishes ( we don’t have a dishwasher) as long as they are rinsed off and the benches are cleaned down, the washing up gets done when it gets done. The same with laundry, I prioritise what needs doing most.

Very random and not everyone can do it, we haven’t had a dryer for about 4 years, at one point I’d do bulk washing loads 3/4 loads and take them to the big dryers you sometimes get at supermarkets. I’d do my shopping while everything dried. Two birds one stone.

No advice, but solidarity.

I have have two small kids, 4 and 2, and my house is an absolute sty. As you say, I can work as hard as I can to tidy and even clean if I have tome. But within the day it's completely trashed again. I can't remember when I last hoovered my bedroom or the stairs. It may be excuses, excuses in the end, but when you're tired, worn down, have little/no help, and all your hard work is rapidly undone, it's hard to even muster the will nevermind the energy to get it done in the first place. All my efforts go into keeping the kitchen clean. And that's it. The rest of it can go to hell.

I can only assume that the kids getting bigger, and having a useful partner (mine gets extreme blisters on his hands in reaction to many cleaning chemicals and rubber gloves, so yeah....) is the key to success. It's just a case of waiting it out and not going insane in the meantime.

My DS is super messy. The kid who takes the basket of toys, tips it on the floor and walks away. Same for clothes. At some point in the last year I decided tidy is more important than organised. So I put all his toys in one of two boxes - the lego, the jigsaws, the plastic dinosaurs. I don't sort, just put away. Same for clothes. No organised drawers for cars versus sticklebricks, trousers versus jumpers. Tidying is now much much quicker, and it hasn't really made a difference to how he plays - he picks through, mixes trains and dinosaurs to make dino trains... I recommend it.

At 3 he cleans up however he wants to. I am quite tidy and at that age ds put living room toys in a storage cube. Quick, fast, and living room tidy.

Bedroom toys as well.

Since you have a toy room I would just leave the trainset out.

Even in the living room I'd often leave the trainset he built out. The trains and track not in use away, but the track out of he wanted it for the next day.

The raisin battle I would have simply said pick it up or no more raisins, and no raisins for a few days.

I'm a big believer in routines. I have ADHD. Ds has ADHD and other sn's.

We do a 15 minute clean every night together. I've also always done my clean outs with him. I am happy decluttering and I think getting him to do this with me at a young age helped him do it too.

He sees me getting rid of my own stuff so he learned to be good with it too.

It might sound silly but I also find multitasking easier because of my ADHD. I brush my teeth for two minutes and with the other hand wipe down my bathroom every night. On the weekend I do a quick mop and bath tub scrub in the morning as well while brushing my teeth.

I think habits and routine are a Godsend especially when they are young.

I used to clean while ds played also. Sometimes he'd join in but other times he'd play while I dusted.

Our lives are chaotic and because ds has complex sn's and I am a single mom I find being ridgid in terms of organization helps so much.

I feel your pain and understand how overwhelming it is. I have a to do list on my phone of everything that needs doing, a year has passed and most of it still isn't done. We have 2 children and both work and rarely have spare time. Everytime I walk into certain rooms I just sigh and don't even know where to start. I have been brutal with getting rid of some things though, like clothes etc and have been selling stuff on vinted, I've made £250 so far and also given a lot to charity.

My sympathies, OP. It's really hard to keep a home nice when you have small kids. I find that when I'm depressed it's also really hard to get the motivation.

There's some good accounts on Insta and Tiktok for people who find the cleaning hard. I also think it's worth finding a system: I use the (free) Tody app which allows you to set your own tasks and schedule. You can start out with a fairly basic and not too demanding schedule, then notch it up as you grow in confidence. It allows me to be realistic, and also schedule in tasks that are infrequent and easy to overlook.

Mainly, though, what made a difference in my house was my little kids turning into big kids. That, and splitting up with my hoarder ex. It does get easier.

Firstly, he does a bad job, really bad. I have a system in place where toy animals go in this drawer and toy cars in that one and so on and he just doesn’t follow it.

Honestly, small people really aren't that arsed about systems. I just got a massive basket with a lid and everything went in it. I liked to think it encouraged creative play But it was honestly a lot easier to say to a small person, 'right chuck everything in the basket now' , plus they used to spend ages just looking for stuff in the massive basket.

DS, no, he will not tidy up. I had a fifteen minute battle over picking up two stray raisins before.
In that case pack every toy away into crates/drawers and only allow one at a time out, you're in control not a toddler. I agree with other PPs excuses excuses.

It’s really tough to get anything done with little ones, especially when they cause chaos. I think you’re being too harsh on yourself. It sounds like you’ve achieved lots. Having a big sort out with two young children takes forever and is hard to do. Is there anyone who could give you a hand with a good declutter and organise? Organise stuff by category so you always have the same stuff together, then you can see what you need and what you can let go of. Then make sure everything has a really clear home so that you can chuck stuff back easily as you go about your day. The less you have, the less you need to stay on top of. I’m the same re getting the children to help me to tidy. My eldest was great and my youngest is still a lost cause! Be kind to yourself, your surroundings have a huge impact on how you feel and particularly at your stage of life it takes time to get sorted. See if you can find any Facebook groups or Instagram accounts to follow for hacks and inspiration and take it bit by bit.

OP, you can definitely stop being hard on yourself - it sounds like you’ve already done lots.

I do think you need to focus on decluttering first. I know you say that will mean you won’t have time to clean but as long as you keep things like your kitchen surfaces wiped during this time then the hoovering and other stuff can wait for a little while.

The Organised Mum Method is quite good to help keep on top of things too. I think there are even boot camps for decluttering on the app.

People with really dirty homes don't even do a fraction of what you do OP, so cut yourself some slack.

DD is just 4.

Have you tried 'how many toys can you put in the box before I count to 20'! This often works with DD when other things fail.

DS is 8 and as stubborn as they come, and getting him to tidy up is very very hard. I do think it's worth getting your 3YO DS just to put even one or two things away before bedtime just to help him internalize the idea that tidying is not just your job.

I totally agree about picking your battles but I kind of wish I had fought this one with DS from an earlier age.

I've been trying to get DS to tidy now he's a little older (6) This morning I woke to him "tidying" his room, which was a good effort but really everything from the floor was just shoved on top of his cabinet or round the edges of the room! I spent an hour in there afterwards cleaning it properly.

Usually I focus on Downstairs first. Where any guests would see, where the dog and kitchen is (always used obviously) then upstairs ends up neglected. Today I focused on upstairs, but here I am at nearly 9pm waiting for my living room floor to dry so I can go do the kitchen floor 🙄 it's just a daily ball ache unfortunately

I know exactly what you mean about wanting to have a system to keep the toys organised - I know that the more stressed I an about the state of the house, the more I need to keep to my systems. I also have a small house, no spare room/ garage/ attic storage, difficulty getting rid of things, and did struggle in the toddler years.

How about getting your DS to tidy away all his toys into one box/ basket at the end of the day, then after he’s gone to bed you put the toys away in the correct place? That way he’s learning about the idea of tidying, even if he hasn’t got the hang of sorting stuff into types. Does he go to nursery? That’s the kind of thing they teach the children during the tidy-up sessions, though probably more at pre-school age.

We have a rule in our house. All toys go back to the bedroom before bed.

This is a good rule. We (mostly) have it too. It means that the kids bedrooms are a bomb site but downstairs is often not too bad.

First of having a tidy house all the time with young kids is impossible. I found de cluttering the best thing I ever did and being proper ruthless about it when getting rid of stuff. I also do the 15 minute timed cleans and find it helpful. You also need to make tidying toys up a game so your kids will help out we do races to see who can pick the most toys up quickest or say first one to find something yellow to put away wins ect .

Really ideally I need a couple of days clear to sort everything but that’s a while off yet so I’m sort of wading in treacle uphill.

This is my dream too! But in my experience it doesn't actually help. Firstly because a couple of days isn't nearly long enough especially as I get bored really quickly and end-- up spending half the time on Mumsnet.-- Secondly because even if you get it all pristine it lasts about a day and a half then you are back to square one.

How old is DS? (Sorry if you have said already)

It sounds like you're making excuses for not getting anything accomplished. If their toys get in that much of a jumble, that will teach them to take care of their things in a more effective way. Right now, you're not teaching them anything about being responsible for their own stuff.

I'm not picking at anything, you're being defensive and so far refuse to entertain any of the good advice you've been given on this entire thread. I've been there, done that, many years ago. I know what it's like dealing with a house and kids. You need less stuff and the kids need rules.

I feel quite similar, though I am trying not to let it get me down too much.

i have two young children, a full time job and a tiny 2 bedroom house for the 4 of us plus dog. There's mess everywhere