to feel a bit weird and embarrassed now we've got a cleaner?

[ScaredToBeHonest]

I've just started back to work after maternity leave. I'm self employed and work from home most of the time. I'd done all the cleaning whilst on maternity leave so that my husband could spend time with DS when he was at home - he works long hours so doesn't see him much during the week.

Now I'm back working, I don't want us to have to spend what precious free time we have doing the cleaning, rather than with DS. So we decided to get a cleaner to come in for a couple of hours once a week. He's been here 20 minutes and has made a start.

I found it really awkward when he arrived, I felt really embarrassed telling him what things I wanted doing. I was almost apologetic and he said "you're the boss, whatever you want doing" I'd already gone round the house this morning tidying everything up and cleaning the loo and kitchen surfaces before he arrived as I didn't want him to think we were scruffy buggers!

I'm now upstairs in my office keeping out of his way I'm supposed to be working but am obviously MNing I'm cringing with embarrassment that someone is downstairs doing my cleaning.

Why is that funny?

It's amusing to me , because I can never imagine myself being in a frame of mind where I would not feel that a cleaner was judging my skanky abode

(and way to reassure OP btw)

We're talking having the house cleaned, not major surgery!

I use a loo brush and Toilet Duck on the loo before she arrives, and empty the bathroom bins. Couldn't bear anyone else having to scrub the family poo remnants / emptying floss, tampon wrappers etc.

I also find it awkward if I'm at home and she comes in to clean a room I'm in, as I feel like I'm sitting there with my feet up while she works up a sweat. I find something to busy myself!

Hopefully you'll just get used to it! I found it weird to begin with- but now the bliss of a clean house after she's finished has overtaken any previous worry!!!

But maybe let yourself work somewhere else the morning he's there- Starbucks, library? Then you're out of the way and not feeling awkward!

Well as a cleaner i can honestly say i do not judge the houses i clean. Probably because at any given moment my own can be in varying stages of cleanliness from spotless to pigsty.

YANBU to feel weird if you've never been an employer or in a managerial position before. My 'staff' (as DS calls them) has now swelled to a cleaner and two gardeners and I'm way past feeling awkward. If I take on anyone else I may have to rename the house 'Downton'

My cleaner who I felt really awkward about 3 years ago has became more of a woman who does. She'll clean tidy put shopping away etc and will babysit.

We took her on holiday last week! Seriously she hadn't had a holiday in 17 years the villa had an extra room so it only cost us a plane ticket and a couple of meals out!

I just asked her to muck in as we have 3 dc all 3 and under...best idea ever! She was an angel! She enjoyed it too and cried when the plane landed as she didnt want to go home.

I used to cringe when she first came but now shes indispensable!

It's a good idea to have a tidy up before the cleaner comes, they are there to clean not tidy and it is much quicker and easier to clean clear surfaces and hoover an empty floor. If they have to spend ages picking stuff up before they can clean they'll get less done and it won't be properly tidy as they won't know where everything lives, so it will just end up in a pile somewhere.

I don't think it's necessary to clean the loos though (I say this as a cleaner, although the house I clean has 2 girls living there - someone cleaning the toilets my boys completely miss use might think differently!)

GinIce that was really lovely to read!

Are you me, OP?

I was exactly the same when we first employed a cleaner ... Mad panic-tidying and cleaning before she came then hiding and feeling like a slave-driving layabout until she'd gone ... Much better now she's given me a talking to and I've calmed down a bit! ( Still tidy up and do the loo before she comes, though )