To ask how you manage to do everything? (cleaning, child care etc).

[timeforanappychange]

I am struggling with the house and two toddlers and am sick of it all.

I work full-time (though flexible hours, not 9-5 Mon-Fri) and run the house. DP can't do much due to chronic illness.

I have been throwing lots of stuff out and giving it away which helps a lot, but I still feel like I'm having trouble coping. Now that the younger child is nearly 2, the child care / sleep is a lot easier than when they were babies. It's time to get fitter, get my life back in order, get the house under control. But where do I start?

If you have some sort of a routine involving children, house cleaning, meal planning etc, please share! Oh and self-care tips are also welcome!

Agree with the bleach tip !
Slow cookers a life saver x

Hmmm. The only way I manage to fit in exercise is to make it part of my routine by cycling to work. Could you do something like that?

Meal planning for me involves having a repertoire if about 20 main recipes which i rotate- that way my online shopping looks similar most weeks.

I tend to spend about two hours cleaning a week- kitchen takes an hour and rest if the house combined takes an hour. I whip through it a quick as possible and usually only do the bits I can see. Tidying involves pushing the mess into a cupboard where I can't see it anymore which makes me feel much better but means I can't open any of my cupboards. DH is a lot more thorough but doesn't have as much time available for cleaning so doesn't complain about the job do. House definitely isn't spotless but it's not too bad. I work part time so although I do it with toddler around, I have more time at home than you.

I think you should stop being so hard on yourself though. It sounds like you are doing a great job but you're aspiring to be some sort of perfect super woman and it's not possible!

Its really difficult especially when you work I,m a nurse some have always worked irregular hours and even when I am off feel to knackered to start cleaning and washing due too many issues I have been off sick a while and probably won't be going back so the house looks better but its still hard and can clean solidly for several hours which I have been doing most days but with two kids one with ASD it still looks !ike a bombsite every day .

I don't want the kids to grow up thinking that it's normal to have a sticky kitchen floor or that you only clean the loo before visitors come.

I dont understand this at all - it takes me 4 minutes twice a week to wash the kitchen floor, ditto the bathroom. No one deep cleans every day. You rinse stray toothpaste spit and squirt the bleach down the look and wipe over with a cloth.

DP can't do much due to chronic illness. can you define that without too much detail because unless hes utterly bed bound on oxygen then even he can pair up the sock pile and slowly put washed crockery away.

Dont forget most importantly The Magic Chicken its a modern day version of Jesus with loaves and fishes and feeds five thousand.

if you roast a chicken on a Saturday or a Sunday for lunch and do boiled new potatoes and microwave veg or salad dependent on weather, then the next day have chicken pasta with a stir in sauce, then the day after chicken and lettuce sandwiches and oven chips, that's three easy meals with barely any prep at all and you can buy most of the ingredients cheaply and mix and match a bit?

I think you need to have lower expectations :
It's time to get fitter, get my life back in order, get the house under control.

That's a lot to ask of yourself with two young children, a full time job and a DH who is unable to pitch in. I work p/t have one DC and don't really feel like I'm achieving all three of these. To break down what you could do:

1. Get fitter - try to bring exercise into your daily life so walk or cycle all or some of your commute if that's possible, or if not and you get one, do it in your lunch break.

2. Get house under control - if you can afford a cleaner then it's a real help provided you get a good one. I've worked through a few not so good ones but our current lady is a gem and also will take away and do ironing for an additional cost.
   I'm not tidy which drives DH mad, but I do try to give outgrown toys and clothes away as often as I can to save on storing them

3. Get life back in order - not sure what you mean by that, but I'd start by trying to do one thing a month just for you be it reading a book, going for a hair cut or just sitting and enjoying a coffee somewhere. There's always something more to be done or organised or blitzed and sometimes it's helpful just to say sod it and walk away.

Frank - you never met my mother in law :)

I worked full time in London with four under fives. It was chaos. Once went to work in mismatching suit jacket and trousers and odd shoes. Even worse, I once got to London Liverpool Street with a bath towel still on my head.

So, these are my top tips, and they worked for me.

Get a hanger for each day of the week for each child. I have four kids so that meant 28 hangers. Put a complete outfit (including underwear) on the hanger and then get some "over the door" hooks for their bedroom door.

When you get into this routine then when you do the laundry and ironing have the hangers ready and organise their outfits (don't forget the underwear). This also means no more separate piles of clothes to put away as well, so it is a really good timesaver.

It works really well with school uniform, or nursery polo tops.

Not ashamed to admit that I also organised my clothes in this way when I was working as well. Suit, shirt, scarf, undies, all on one hanger for the entire week. Really handy for when you go to the gym as you can just grab the hanger and fold it all into your gym bag or holdall and you can hang it up when you get there.

I used the gym at lunchtimes and not always do use the gym or go to a class. It was where I would do my weekly conditioning treatment on my hair! Non-disturbed shower time was priceless to me. This also gave me more time in the morning and evenings as well. Ditto any apppointments for hair etc., do them in your lunch hour.

Menu plan for the entire week, including all meals and packed lunches. If you get in the habit of cooking more and freezing the spare portion it really does mean less work. Invest in a slow cooker.

Bleach is your friend. Squirt in the kitchen and toilets before bed. Floorwipes become your hero as you can use them on anything apart from leather.

Most importantly, accept that it will be chaotic. Accept that everyday there will be things that don't get done. That is family life, and I don't believe in teaching kids that anything less than 100% is a possible failure. Teach them that everyday you need to "let something go" is much more healthy.

Give yourself an hour when the kids are in bed. Stick on motivating music, move fast and call it a workout! Scrub anything which is actually a health hazard, do anything that will cause you problems in the morning, and if you have time, do the one thing that irritates you most.
Institute 5 minute tidy ups with your kids-putting toys away and picking up clothes.
Can your OH do ironing/ load a washer/ take the kids to soft play once a week while you blitz the place?
Clean the bathroom while the kids are in the bath.

C-beebies is your friend! Park the kids and do what you need to do.
Oh and pat yourself on the back, lose any ideas about what you 'ought' to do and say "sod it, I'm not superwoman!"

Finding this really interesting as I've got a baby (or maybe a toddler now he's 1 - sob! ) and a preschooler habana just going back to work.

The exercise I'm pretty good at - the trick is to have a car that is a real hassle to get out of the garage so unless I'm going to Spain it feels less effort to walk or cycle everywhere.

We have a cleaner which keeps the house from descending into total squalor but we just have So Much Clutter.

We are in the middle of getting new wardrobes which I'm hoping will help as currently we don't have "A place for everything" so it is no wonder we don't have "Everything in its place".

I have also put a moratorium on buying toiletries in August as we are both very good at spotting bargains on them. At last count we had 13 bottles of mouthwash and I hadn't even checked the garage!

If you find the answer, do let me know. On the surface I look like superwoman. Working full time, keeping fit, food cooked from scratch every day, entertaining at least once a week, two DS's and a third in the process of adopting.

Truth is, the house is always a mess (mess is hidden when visitors come), I cry every couple of days, I am a grumpy bastard, and toddler doesn't get nearly all the attention he deserves from me. But people are always telling me I am amazing.

I could have written this. (Except I work less hours!) in all honestly whether it's right or wrong I've just lowered my standards, I'm also pregnant with dc 3 so not much chance of getting back to pre child standards soon. My house is clean and has some degree of organisation but I can sleep easy thinking it might not be a show home but the kids are happy, I also remember another mumsnetter saying "everybody's fed nobody's dead" successful day!!

I follow FlyLady (roughly) we have a very lovely friendly Fledgling fliers thread in Good Housekeeping. You would be very welcome to join us.

I meal plan and also get my shopping delivered. It saves me time and money. I get a delivery twice a week so that the food stays fresh and so I have "bought" a Delivery Saver so I've already paid a set delivery charge for the year.

As a child out house was only cleaned for guests and I hated that but it's a hard mindset to get out of.

For me, it's routine.

Same tasks, same days so you know exactly what you're doing.

I food shop online, I make packed lunches generally the day before, get as many clothes as possible away in their correct places.

Everything has a home.

It's still not perfect, but there is some order in the chaos!

Best of luck.

I worked part time and went to college part time when I had 4DC.

The two older DS were at school and then after school club mon-fri and the two youngest DS and DD went to nursery mon-fri.

I'd iron everyone's clothes the night before I needed them and lay them all out with all the underwear.I'd also make sure school bags and bags for nursery,bits for me for college were all ready the night before.That used to save me at least 40 minutes every morning.

Every morning I'd get up just before 7(then I'd get the children up at 7)I'd stick on the washing and get washed and dressed,stick the kettle on,get the DC up,air the bedrooms,make everyone breakfast.Once we'd had breakfast the older 2DS would get themselves washed and dressed whilst I got the younger two washed and dressed.Then the children would sit and watch some tv or play whilst I washed up and cleaned the sides of from breakfast,hung the washing out,stuck another load on and made the beds and then we'd leave by 8 am.

The rest of the housework I'd do after work/college.If I finished early from work/college I'd come home and get all the hoovering/dusting done,laundry put away,kitchen and bathroom floors cleaned/bathroom cleaned twice a week/bedrooms hoovered and dusted twice a week/bedding changed once a week whilst the children were still at Nursery/after school club.

The gardening was all done at the weekends.

I had the food shopping delivered every week and I'd meal plan.
I was on my own at the time so it could be thoroughly exhausting sometimes.

Sounds hard.

Remember this didn't happen in a day and it won't sort in a day, so little steps.

And its true that it gets easier.Never easy,but easi-er!

First thing I found helped was to have little organised 'stations' for things -ie an area with going out stuff and packed bag, an area for dealing with paperwork etc.
Start small, develop more places, and finally the organised places grow together.
While you're organising, don't aim for perfect with cleaning -adequete will do.And let the weeds grow a while longer in the garden -have a big weed and cut down in Autumn.

With laundry ........wel,, all I can say is good luck!....

I struggle to get it all done but I concentrate on the basics. If everyone is clean, tidy(ish), fed and watered that's a start. Before work, I make the beds quickly, wipe round the kitchen after breakfast. Uniforms already in dc's bedrooms, bags and shoes by the door.

I manage to keep up with washing and ironing but things I let go are kitchen floor (sweep every day but not always washed), tidying dc's bedrooms and decluttering. And forget the garden - that's a job for one day in the future.

Starting to have a clear out which hopefully will help. The council have just pulled up to collect an old mattress and desk.

I am not great at meal planning either but pasta can be cooked and on plates in 20 minutes with yogurt and fruit for dessert.

I think you are doing amazingly from what you say.

The thing I drop tends to be making myself look lovely. Just doesn't happen much. I found a salon that does evening cuts, so just about remember to go there every six weeks to get the crop recropped.

When I'm eating (seven months gone and can't eat of an evening, so doing main meal at work) I batch cook at least one slow cooker meal at the weekend (normally pasta sauce of some kind) so that we have it in the fridge. I meal plan before I shop (only very basically, so make sure the kids have food for lunch and tea and I know what main meals we're having so I buy the right things) which saves time thinking or sending DH for more ingredients during the week. Toddlers will now do tidy up time, but I generally spend five-ten minutes doing the living room every night before we eat. What helped with that was chucking out a load of toys and then getting those really big Ikea Stuva toy boxes so everything can get shoved into those.

DH does the vacuuming, which is something, but is a bit slapdash about other stuff, so I tend to do all the washing at the weekend (bought a very big washing machine, so it is quite quick). Clean bathrooms and kitchen as we go along.

What I find doesn't happen often is the deep clean stuff, so washing the hard floors, wsahing the stairs, washing the sofa covers, washing the inside of the windows etc. I keep thinking I should make a list of that stuff and get a cleaner in once a month for a few hours to do it.

Firstly, are you getting enough sleep and are you eating well?
If you're going to bed late and eat a lot processed food, you will find it difficult to feel your best.
Try a good multi vit for a while too.
Start incorporating a bit of exercise into your life. It could just be walking for half an hr a few times a week or something more strenuous if you feel up to it.
Start meal planning and try do one pot/one oven tray type dishes. It will be easier, quicker and with less washing up. Have a look on bbcgoodfood for recipes.
Try to clean your kitchen and your living room every night so you're not playing catch up the following day.
Try to timetable in other jobs when you think you can fit them in.

I'm a LP who works PT, and I don't do it all. We're healthy, well fed, have clean clothes, organised and work + school are going well.

I never dust or iron, the bathroom gets cleaned once a month, dyson a couple of times a month (no shoes rule helps), prioritise rest / OU work / gym above housework and generally turn a blind eye to the clutter. If I had a fortnight to myself, and sleeping children, I'd blitz it. But I don't so I don't beat myself up about it.

When I was working I couldn't get it all done either so I sympathise.
What DID work for me for a bit before it all went wrong again was deciding what needed doing. I made a list of daily and weekly tasks so daily were a load of washing, washed, dried and put away, loading and emptying the dishwasher and clearing the kitchen sides. Then I got a piece of paper and made a chart listing all the days and I added the daily chores to it. Then I divided up the weekly chores over the 5 working days, leaving the weekends free of all but the daily chores. I laminated the paper and stuck it up on a door with a whiteboard marker.
When I got in from work I checked the chart, did the jobs, ticked them off.
The kids also had the job of clearing the living room every night before bed so we sat down to a clear room in the evening.
Before bed I sorted the kitchen. DH did the packed lunches.
Once I got in the swing of things I loved seeing the ticks on the chart!
It all went wrong when work and problems with DS got me spiralling down but that's a whole other story.
I'm going to be a SAHM for a while now but I will still follow my chart. In fact I am about to go and do today's jobs which are the kitchen (deep clean) and Big bathroom (we have an ensuite too). The washing is in the machine and aboutt o finish so it will go outside in a min.
We will stick on some music and the kids will help with things like taking all the bath toys off the edge of the bath.
Don't try and do it all in one go. Be kind to yourself.
Celebrate what you have achieved, don't focus on what doesn't get done.

I live in chaos too!! To be fair the house is tidyish at the moment bar our bedroom. All in all I reckon I will do about 30-40 hours a week. I have two cleaning jobs and help DP on family farm.

I have my own DD who has just turned 1 and is walking, then I have DSD 5, who is with us the majority of the time, even more so in the school holidays. Luckily they both eat, sleep, etc pretty well which helps.

Must admit, when I have time to do things like housework I often feel too knackered to even attempt it but then I always feel better after a good sort out. Farm work is hard and my DP does nothing around the house and very little in the way of childcare.

We often leave the little ones with his mum or ask my mum to come over and mind them. We are very lucky in that respect.

I do struggle sometimes but I just keep plodding on. Anyone who judges me can do so but I make no apologies for letting the kids be kids, for letting them make a mess and letting them be carefree.

After all a clean house shows a wasted life

Oh I don't iron ANYTHING. At this time of year, when I get my washing in it doesn't need it anyway. I probably try and Hoover every three days but that doesn't always happen.
You can never tell I've hoovered anyway. We have dark carpets and DP brings straw, hay, cow cake, mud etc etc in on his boots. I do have a no shoes in the house rule but I think I'm the only one who sticks to it.

Thankless tasks really and it can be should destroying if you let it but just do what you can

Caffeine. Just that really. I tried everything else but the only thing that really had any effect was accepting that these early years are intense but short, and that I'll probably have to wait until my youngest is at school to really be on top of things.

I'm lucky in that DH is an organiser and I'm crap at that but good at cleaning, so we play to our strengths. He finds places for things and I clean. But with the sheer amount of people plus animals we have we fall into the trap of spending our free time catching up in the house when we should be enjoying time with the DC. I'm trying to worry less about the house and more about quality time with the family. I might give flylady another try though, the sheer amount of emails put me off last time.

Likewise struggle and it's good to hear other people's tips (love that one about the hangers! And the life hack on tshirt will help me with DS' drawers - he always wants the one at the bottoms and then it's a complete mess) Need to get back into Fly Lady again and Shine My Sink!

These things help me:

• try and do things eg kids bags the night before - somehow a five minute job in the evening is a ten minute job in the morning (must get better at following this one myself!)
• batch cooking eg spag Bol sauce frozen in portions
• always have an emergency packed lunch (eg cheese sandwich, John West ready made tuna salad) in the freezer/cupboard for when you're ill
• a place for everything and if not bin/give away (problem is DH never puts things in The Place!)
• always immediately hang up car keys on their hook as soon as you get in
• never go empty handed. Chuck everything that isn't from that room into a box/bag and take it upstairs with you and repatriate as you go
• pop up laundry baskets from the pound shop for each DC so immediately out in each basket when dry, put in drawers another time (then at least they know where to look for there clothes if no pants in the drawer)
• tumble drying on a low heat for 20 minutes removes the need to iron most things (except shirts)
• DCs are great at cleaning the bathroom and mopping the floor (it does all get a bit wet but dries off)
• always put a load of laundry on very first thing
• always do the kitchen before you go to bed