Sahp - doing chores with a young baby/toddler

[Hope54321]

Sahp, how much chores and cooking are you able to do when your partners is at work and whilst you are at home with your LO?

Depends on the day honestly! Some days I used to put dd in a sling and Ds in the high chair with an activity while I did the kitchen then move us to a different room.

Now they’re older ( 2 & 3) I find I can get much more done but I don’t always feel like it most days tho food is cool, dishes are done and living room is tidy (main play space)

It honestly depends on the child and how old they are. When I just had a three year old I could do them all, I just got her to help me. Now I’ve got a three year old and a baby it’s more of a challenge

Lunch is usually just sandwiches / leftovers / egg and toast etc with crudités and fruit so takes no prep. My youngest still naps so I sometimes prep tea when she's asleep but usually have 1-1 time with the toddler instead. The toddler likes to help me peg washing out / take it in so we do that together while baby pootles round the garden. Then I make tea when my teenager gets home - she minds them for 20/30 mins while I cook.

Everything else I do when they're asleep. It's reduced my stress level 1000% not trying to do it through the day. I whizz round cleaning kitchen/hoovering etc soon as they're down then spend an hour or so watching TV with DD1 and doing jobs like folding washing, mending stuff, organising things etc. Then I send her to bed at 10 and finish off so I come down to a spotless house the next day. Works for us

I wouldn’t say my standards were massively high, but I did pretty much all the housework when I was a sahm with little ones (2 year gap). Obviously some days were better than others.

My kids were good nappers so that helped massively and my eldest did 2 mornings a week of nursery from age 2, but overall every day as a minimum I’d do the dishwasher, make breakfast, lunch and dinner (ok sometimes dinner was straight out of the freezer or a takeaway) and clean up, do a load of laundry and associated putting away etc, and generally try and keep the place vaguely tidy. Maybe run the Hoover round. It was in no way perfect, but it was ok.

Weekends I usually got DH to take the kids away for a bit and would do actual cleaning. DH would normally hang out with kids after work if he was home so I could do cooking and cleaning kitchen etc, and he did a lot of the bath and bedtime stuff

Ive always done all of it. As its not like dh can get in and start hoovering when kids in bed. Or mow grass as its either dark or neighbours would complain after a time.

But ive always had a good routine of hoover polish mop washing drying ironing daily
Beds weekly wipe fridge out weekly mow grass weekly, hoover car fortnight (i let them eat in there and it gets a tip)
Its sounds loads but when its kept on top of its quite easy. BUT depends on the child. Mine have always napped well but when past that stage. Weve got up got ready go to play center, farm, etc. Come home and they've played in playroom or watched tv whilst if run about.

I never put anything off like oh ill leave the washing up till the morning as guaranteed that's when the morning goes tits up, and over sleep or something and run out of time.

However if i did leave 1 job or all jobs to dh ( if works around his hrs) he would in a heartbeat

After two years of doing it all whilst working at the same time, I can get it all done but I wouldn’t recommend it considering how stressed it makes me.

I am now a single parent but when DH was here I got all of the tasks done that I needed to do through the day while he was at work. I either worked around the babies or did some of the bits while they were napping. My routine now is the same as it was when he was here.

It's been a long time now since the DCs were small, but I could never count on getting a lot done daily, mainly thanks to:
No separate playroom.
DCs were terrible nappers.
DCs were also terrible nighttime sleepers so I was deadly tired all the time.
I had three DCs before I got a dishwasher.
No garden where DCs could be turned loose.
No nursery option available.

Most days I made three meals, washed up, put dishes away, made beds, swept floors (all wood), took DCs out to let off steam or to the library.

Periodic chores included laundry (down two flights of stairs and back up again carrying laundry, baby in back carrier, and herding toddler), supermarket shopping, bathroom cleaning, mopping, vacuuming rugs. I usually got around to most of these once a week but I always felt I was running around catching my own tail. I turned on the TV if I really needed time to get something done.

I really need to know how people do this 😭 in a day I can generally unload and reload the dishwasher but that's it. My baby is four months old and starts crying if he's put down in a bouncer or similar and left alone for more than literally a few minutes - and when I say left alone, I do mean in the same room as me still. I never leave the room, but if I'm not holding him or sat right next to him, he's not happy 😭 is it going to get easier?! How did other people manage stuff with young babies?

On a very good day I can sit him on the bed with me and get him to roll back and forth for toys etc whilst I fold washing but I can rarely finish the task before he gets bored.

There was also all the time spent reading little books, putting out and clearing up paints, playing with blocks and dollies, imaginative games, giving baths, general baby and toddler care, dealing with crying and upsets, mopping up after spills and all meals, and all the thousands of little things you end up doing all day with babies and toddlers. And breastfeeding, which was very time consuming.

Oh, and he won't nap unless he's being held so that's out the window.

I do it all really. My husband works very long hours from the start of March through to October, gone at 7 home sometimes 8, sometimes more like 11, sometimes later(!) so I don’t have much help on that front. The house isn’t a show home by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s tolerable, and it’s clean if a little messy sometimes.
I only have one five month old tho. I dare say it would be harder with more!

@Sathexperience, I had a baby carrier which I used to carry one particular DD around in or she would scream until she was blue in the face. I remember her on my back while I was cooking. She sometimes fell asleep in it.

I used to carry her around the supermarket in it too because something about the supermarket really distressed her. It took a little adjustment to reach items on the bottom shelves without tipping her out of the carrier. Before she was able to sit up and fit in the carrier I got very little done with that particular baby.

I took out a book from the library by William and Martha Sears 'The High Need Baby' or something like that. It was extremely helpful.

Whilst on maternity with twins I did it all - some days more some less depending on what needed doing. That includes gardening and DIY

I'm beyond this stage now but my advice is to assess how much you think you can reasonably get done during the working day and have a grown-up, sensible chat with your DP about what this would look like and how any leftover chores will get done.

The word reasonable is really important here. Babies and toddlers have different temperaments and have different nap requirements. If you have a baby that won't be put down, a clingy and needy toddler that never sleeps or a baby that won't nap without being pushed in a buggy then this is a whole different ball game to those with babies and toddlers that are more easy going and sleep in their cots for extended periods in the day. Do not underestimate how different people's parenting experiences can be even if on paper the amount of children/ages can look similar to your's.

Also people have different approaches to the kind of experiences and enrichment they want to give their children. Sure, you could theoretically stay at home all day focussing on chores but is that what you or your partner want for your children? There are baby groups, play groups, playdates, trips to museums, the library, the park, the list really is endless. Just being at home and giving your child your undivided attention is so valuable and toddlers in particular get so much from socialisation and experiencing different things. Put it this way, babies and toddlers in childcare at childminders and nurseries aren't expected to play second fiddle to someone constantly doing domestic chores so why should your children? A balance needs to be struck somewhere for sure, but I believe the priority should be the children not the housework.

In conclusion, you're an adult who knows your children best and can agree with your partner what kind of activities and experiences you want to give your children. You can work out how many hours you have in the working day and how many of those you can devote to chores. Have a proper rational conversation about this with your DP and talk them through everything and agree how to manage leftover tasks. Don't be pressured into trying to do everything or be treated as a lesser partner because you're at home. You're a SAHP not a skivvy.

I never did the washing up until DH was home, but would get the washing done sometimes and cook the meals. House tidiness depended on if anyone was coming round! And if DC napped.
Grocery shopping I'd go after they were in bed.

17 months between mine and they were both climbers. DD1 was an emptier too, she could escape her cot by 12 months and climb over baby gates by 15 months dropped consistent naps early etc...

Basically they ran rings round me , the house was a tip, there was always jobs that I needed to do and could only get half done etc. But they were so, so funny and actually I enjoyed the craziness.

DH worked a lot in those days so was out long hours, 6 days a week, I did all the house stuff.

I felt that when you have a baby you can get about one thing done a day. When they are 1 you can get two things done. I mean, a trip to the post office for example, on top of some daily washing, cooking, cleaning.

When they are older it depended on what sort of child they were and how much attention they needed. If you can distract them with play long enough to wash up.

Then they go to nursery and that helps.

I had help with cleaning. That took the edge of it.

I had no choice with ds3 as ive been a single parent since he was born. I just moved him round the house with me either on a play mat, his bouncy chair thing , play pen or cot depending on where I was. Ďd11 was also very helpful when she came home from school.

My DH was the SAHP but we worked it on the basis that his ‘job’ was to look after the children rather than doing housework.
He’d generally do the dishwasher and put washing on during the day and probably run the hoover round but the rest of it we’d do between us in the evenings and weekends.

I had two with 12 months between and would take them out every day to parks, mums n tots, library, etc. I got a lot of chores done once we were home mid afternoon coz they would settle and watch CBeebies for an hour or so, usually exhausted after all the activities

I'm no longer a sahp and came on to say - not a lot! And it varied day to day whether the kids let me get on at all.

I would meal prep for the day in the morning while DH had some time playing with the little ones.

I put baby in a sling to do a few chores. Didnt work too well tbh.

Once kids were toddling they "helped me" clean and cook and garden and grocery shop. They loved: supermarkets, vacuuming, cleaning windows, polishing and dusting, sweeping, making beds, hanging out washing on the line (handing me pegs, good for counting practice!).

Once they could sit up alone, I would clean the bathroom surreptitiously while they had a long bath. (Hint: if you have hot water in the morning sometimes a morning bath is lots of fun on a rainy day!)

At mealtimes frequently I would get an old folded-up duvet (kitchen floor is cold in my house) to use as a big playmate. The duvet, being warm and soft, encouraged ds not to spread his games all over the kitchen. Then DS had his own tub of uncooked Aldi fusilli to play with - labelled DO NOT EAT so I didnt cook it ever - I gave him saucepans and wooden spoons and plastic mixing bowls and he would endlessly pour it from one bowl to the next. He hated sitting in a high chair while I worked. At the end we would play "tidy up" and sweep it all into the bowl again. He slowly progressed onto a plastic child-care knife and now he can stir very competently, crack eggs, pour, and chop soft fruit and veg like peppers!

Now I'm back to work and the challenges are very different but... finally found a marvellous cleaner so that's one problem solved!

Child-safe knife, not child-care! I bought one from Amazon assuming it would be rubbish but it's actually brilliant. A bit like those plastic child safe scissors but better. Anyway it's off topic but if you have a toddler who always wants to help you, giving them tasks similar to yours is a good idea, and if there is some mangled, badly chopped, oddly sized veg with dinner, well who cares? (Sometimes I'd find tiny little bite-marks in the veg as I tossed it in to be cooked, so cute! My DS does really like his veg now, so maybe all that pointless pretend chopping helped somehow).

@Sathexperience

I really need to know how people do this 😭 in a day I can generally unload and reload the dishwasher but that's it. My baby is four months old and starts crying if he's put down in a bouncer or similar and left alone for more than literally a few minutes - and when I say left alone, I do mean in the same room as me still. I never leave the room, but if I'm not holding him or sat right next to him, he's not happy 😭 is it going to get easier?! How did other people manage stuff with young babies?

On a very good day I can sit him on the bed with me and get him to roll back and forth for toys etc whilst I fold washing but I can rarely finish the task before he gets bored.

You sit them in the bouncer and they cry for a bit, eventually they get used to it