I have spent everyday this week cleaning for at least 3 hours and my house is still a shithole

[JTTWC]

Yep, everyday at least 3 hours. That includes doing washing and putting it on the line.

And what does it look like? Like a house from How Clean is your House.

What is wrong with me? I don’t expect perfect but I expect to walk through my hallway without getting mud, crumbs, other random shit stuck to my foot. Also without tripping over whatever the children have left on the floor.

I honestly feel like crying. I am a much happier parent when it’s reasonably tidy.

I try and do something but get stopped by the children asking a million questions, moaning they are hungry, arguing, hurting themselves.

The washing has piled up and is unmanageable. My children had Covid last week and part of the week before so it was an early half term for us which didn’t help as I was hoping to get it clean for the 2 weeks off.

I literally cannot cope. Half term has always been a struggle for me. The kids literally destroy every room. I work from Saturday - Monday. My partner does a bit but not enough.

I’m not sure if this rant or asking for advice but just wanted to know how everyone else copes?

First things first, as others have said, declutter. Get the kids involved. Make it fun!

Unsure of the layout of your house, but you say crumbs in the hallway. Do you all eat everywhere? In my house the kitchen is for eating and no other room.

And also the washing. Do you really need to wash so often?

@MrsDThomas

First things first, as others have said, declutter. Get the kids involved. Make it fun!

Unsure of the layout of your house, but you say crumbs in the hallway. Do you all eat everywhere? In my house the kitchen is for eating and no other room.

And also the washing. Do you really need to wash so often?

Yes I agree on confining food to the kitchen, preferably sitting at the table. If kids are wandering around eating biscuits and snacks there will be crumbs everywhere. Also, muddy shoes should come off at the door. I am guessing your DH also tracks in mud and scatters crumbs, if he's not bothered about having a clean house?

It must be utterly demoralising, huge sympathy. Also getting over covid is draining.

I can remember all the toys I had as a child - not many!
Of an era when kids went 'out' - don't be late for dinner at 1pm from Mum...
I found taking kids out most days solved lots of problems. Less mess inside, less boredom, more active - no weight problems, really happy kids.
Go to swings in parks, get bus to 'country', feed ducks, pond dipping, look at canal/river, race up hills, meet sheep, paddle in stream, collect flowers to press, make daisy chains, collect wild flowers ( aka weeds to press in book), look for 4 leaf clover, spot different birds/plants, gardening - dig holes, plant cuttings, visit City Farm, play French cricket, treasure hunt in garden, take sandwiches to eat sheltering under the rocks in a thunderstorm!) All free. Kids pretty knackered by the time you return - win, win!

There is a programme on Netflix about home cleaning.

Once I had got over them having a group scream in the first ten seconds and them being “like, super excited” about everything all the time it wasn’t too bad.

@SnowingInApril

*My daughter has 1 ikea kallax storage box of toys and 1 book shelf When I can no longer fit the toys in the box then something has to go! same with the books* what a sad environment for a child to grow up in.

It turned out that poster actually just had a baby, so pretty irrelevant to the thread but not particularly sad or draconian

I used to feel like this, I have 3 under 8 dc and they have a lot of stuff between them and also create a lot of laundry!

I also wfh so was finding it depressing living ad working in a messy house, so split it down into 3 30 min sessions per day where I do specific things :

Morning - washing on, dishwasher emptied, dry stuff put away

Afternoon - one or two of something like ironing / wiping down doors / cleaning a bathroom / vac hall stairs and landing / change the beds

Evening - wipe down kitchen, steam the floors, vac the living room

Then on Friday night i dust and vac upstairs so when the weekend comes theres not much left to do.

Teach them to tidy the toys after using them bribery and a star chart.

New rule of only eating in the kitchen.

You're not alone, I clean everyday and everyday is like a new day starting from scratch.

I try do a laundry wash everyday it prevents a build up.

Get them ipads when you need peace.

If you have a play room, put bolts at the very top of every other door in the house. When I was a child we weren't allowed in the " front room". My mother insisted she needed one room tidy and clean at all times. I am sure it saved her sanity.

You need Fly Lady.

Teach the children to do simple things they can't get wrong eg strip their own beds, carry washing upstairs and downstairs. Start small eg empty cutlery basket of clean dishwasher then show them how to carry crockery safely to the cupboard. Get a step stool so they can reach. Set a timer and see who can tidy the most in 2 minutes. Make sure you get a rest as well otherwise you'll feel resentful. Your partner could do specific jobs that are obvious when they need doing eg take bins out, hang out washing, cook dinner.

Re the kids tidying.

They’re both at school. And I imagine some form of preschool or nursery prior to that? Every establishment like that that I have ever been to, they have some form of ‘tidy up time’ where the kids get involved in taking responsibility for clearing away toys, books, mess etc.

So your kids do know and will have been tidying up after themselves in other environments. They just haven’t done it at home. Well, now it’s time to change that. Might have been on here that I read a teacher used to put on the Benny Hill theme tune for tidy up time because it made it fun. Maybe put their fave song on and say right you’ve got until this song finishes to put away as much as you can.

I know how you feel, kids that age just seem to have so much stuff!

Get rid of some stuff, or put some stuff away and rotate toys every few months.
Introduce a "tidy up time" before bed time and get the DCs to put their toys away. They are also old enough to do a bit of dusting and hoovering, even if they don't do it very well.
Make either Saturday or Sunday morning a family "tidy up time" with a family reward if it's done well - cinema, visit to the park, watch a film at home together with popcorn etc something small. Include DH/P in this.
Remove any electronics like tablets and use these as rewards, not routinely.

My dc are 8 & 6 and we had to introduce sticker charts to tidy and clean. They have to tidy all away at end of day ( downstairs) or its black bagged for a few days. Their bedrooms (so messy) need to be tidy once a week for a hoover.
They both scrap plates, load and unload dishwasher. Put dirty clothes in washing machine, clean sorted clothes into drawers. Get uniforms for week sorted. Swimming kits etc.

Ds 6 dusts and tidys
Dd8 hoovers once a week

We both work full time so they have to pull their weight.
OP what do your children do to help? They're clearly old enough to hoover/tidy/dust/mop etc

That's the joy of housework. The endless unachievable goal of a clean and tidy house.

No advice, just offering some sympathy.

Right now there is a pile of dirty laundry on my kitchen floor and that's before I start on ds's school sports bag. He is sprinkling toast crumbs under his desk as I type. The glasses from last night still need washing, Bathroom and bedrooms need cleaning, ds's books, coat and trainers are all over the hall and I need to change the beds.

Maybe do one task and then reward yourself. I go and hide in the greenhouse for five minutes, it's calm and smells nice

[quote JTTWC]@ReadyToMoveIt I completely agree. I am all for kids being kids but I think they should learn responsibility. When I ask them to do something though it results in whinging (well from the younger one) and in the end I get annoyed and do it myself! How do you get them to tidy without a load of hassle? I know I should be stricter [/quote]
There's your answer. They won't learn consequences if you don't make them tidy up after themselves.

My kids are not allowed XBox, Roblox or TV until they’ve done the following:

• Homework
• Blazers & school hats hung up
• Dirty clothes in hamper
• Crockery & glasses in kitchen
• Rubbish in bin
• Showered
• PJs or trackies
• Toys tidied away.

Works like a dream.

[quote Pommelegible]@Hibbutyhop the different play styles is so true. My friend used to put a film on for her dc so she could do housework and they’d just sit and watch the film. Mine would have the film on but all the cushions would be everywhere, there’d be toys all over the floor, another set of toys set up in a tableau on the coffee table, more toys in a house/den/prison behind the chair, one would be colouring while the other tried to ram them with cars and they’d have got a board game out and abandoned it part way through. It’s only 10-15 minutes of tidying (which they’d mostly do) but it’s quite soul destroying to do a load of cleaning elsewhere in the house for an hour or so and then walk into that![/quote]
I find it helps to seperate out the concepts of 'untidy' and 'unclean'. I can cope with an untidy home at the weekend or for a few weeks in the holidays, but not a dirty home.

@SnowingInApril

*My daughter has 1 ikea kallax storage box of toys and 1 book shelf When I can no longer fit the toys in the box then something has to go! same with the books* what a sad environment for a child to grow up in.

An environment with more toys and books than the vast majority of the world's population, and probably more than 99% of kids had in this country until about 50 years ago? Not to mention free access to as many books as she wants, and a tidy and organised house? My heart is bleeding.....

De clutter like a woman possessed but remember you’ve had 2 sick children to deal with and be nice to yourself.

They do know how to tidy up (and will have been doing so at school) and they don't have to moan about it (they won't at school).

Know that you can teach them a home-tidying routine and it will be worth the initial effort. Just stick at it and make it an expectation.

(Yes the moaning is worse than doing the task yourself but it is well worth tackling that habit and having a better time in future.)

Things we have done:
Make tidying a game.

-Yes to music (we liked the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' music and other lively things) 'How much can you tidy before the music stops.'
-Award points - for fastest tidy-up or most items put away - or most impressive bedroom inspection. (I've found that the points don't have to mean anything - they just want to have them but having the 'tidy-teddy' on your window-ledge today or a button on your jar could be incentive.)

-We had magic tidying - that happened whenever I turned my back/left the room. (Lots of amazed drama.)

Present the tidying as a step to something else and give them a choice:
Shall we tidy and then X or shall we tidy and then Y?

Make a thing about how lovely it is when they have made the place tidy. Make the effort of putting things away worth while to them because it makes you happy too?

Yes - to be kind to yourself just now. You have tackled a mountain if you've been caring for sick children - you need time to recover from that.

I had an aunt growing up who drilled this into me 'If you are part of making the mess, you are part of clearing up the messing helped children understand and learn that doing jobs round the house wasn't a favour for the adult, it was a shared duty for everyone.

I say that mantra a lot now. I even said it at work once when after a little lunch time office party (mandated by a boss who thought we needed it) 4 people were just standing around watching the clean up operation. Worked a treat.

That sounds like an awful lot of cleaning each day to not see results.

Could you post a photo of a room? Not so people can ridicule, but maybe herring if your expectations are out of line with other people might help? Or, if it really is a mess, people might be able to offer advice specific to the room?

Summer holiday 'game':
Everything portable (toys - stray clothes - bits of games -general rubbish) scooped into bin bags and taken outside to the garden.

Room cleaned (by all of us when they are big enough).

Children select items from the black bags (a few at a time) and take them back to their proper places in the room.

Anything left in the bag when they have finished taking stuff up can be thrown away :)