To ask how on earth you keep your house clean?

[Wonderland554]

I've got a one year old and a three year old. I spend my life doing washing, sweeping up (one year old still in the process of learning how to not through every meal I cook on the floor), picking up toys, cooking, dishes etc etc. I just don't know how people are finding the time to clean their bathrooms, kitchens etc, like give them a proper thorough clean? I'm struggling to find the time to even hoover & polish. My husband is working away just now so it's just me and the kids for the next 3 months and I just can't bare not being on top of all of this.

Any tips/advice most welcome

OP i feel your pain. I have 5 kids and an old house and am constantly looking at dust and dirt. It's depressing and futile! I would get a Cleaner except I live in a small rural town and there just aren't enough cleaners available, they are all booked up by other people so no one to do the work except me!

Two minute rule - if it takes two minutes or less do it. Also do washing first thing and bathroom whilst child/ren in bath. Wash up after each meal ( air dry ) -apart from glass and cutlery. One toy has to be out away before another one is taken out. Swear by a dustpan and brush 99p at IKEA and use this far more than my hoover ).20/30 minutes tidy up /wash up / wipe round kitchen before bed and that's me! ( Don't have a cleaner or a robot vaccuum. bonus tip - drink wine

Calling other people's habits disgusting isn't going to help anyone. Much 'dirt' now is cosmetic, as long as you know how to cook chicken safely, can wipe a surface and clean a toilet, and don't let mould grow, your house isn't going to make you ill. We just clean them so they're nice places to be in.

OP I had a cleaner & still struggled with the day to day grind. Are your DC sleeping through or do you have sleep deprivation to add to the mix? Even if you don't bring on the go with children that age is tiring and I found I did so much clearing up as I went along that I didn't have the energy to do a big clean.
Now I've done the sympathy, some practical tips... Dettol wipes & floor wipes are your friend. A quick wipe around the bathroom whilst the children are in the bath will keep that clean. Next time the DC are bored, give them some baby wipes & do the skirting boards etc. If you have a feather duster, put them on your shoulders to do around the ceilings. Consider whether they do need clean clothes. If they get sauce or something down their top at lunch time and you're at home for the rest of the day, they don't really need a clean top (obviously exceptions if it is making them uncomfortable) - mine generally just wore pants after tea! Once you're up & dressed etc, half an hour of TV whilst you tidy up the kitchen, do some lunch or tea prep etc; after tea, another half hour of TV whilst you tidy up the kitchen etc again. If you're not already doing so, I'd suggest eating with the DC at tea time so you've had a meal & can then have a snack later if you need to. Also, at this time of year, have as many meals outside as you can. Picnics in the park don't need much clearing up & my two were just as happy with a baguette which I tore bits off and cheese slices followed by a banana or something as they were with lovingly prepared sandwiches. A solution which a friend swears by is get a dog, preferably a Labrador who eats all leftovers so you never have to worry about the state of the kitchen floor. Of course, you will have dog hair everywhere & a dog to walk twice a day!

If the evening routine is too stressful, ditch the bath. Mine only had baths on alternate days & then often in the morning. If they did get filthy in day, a "standy uppy" bath was seen as a great treat. This consisted of an inch of water which they stood in whilst I gave them a scrub with a flannel.

have a good clearout. get rid of all clutter/kitsch.

it is a lot easier to keep a home clean and tidy if it is not full of things nobody needs, esp with little children.

It's having to train myself to be organised and tidy which doesn't come easily.

Kitchen - clean as I go rather than leave a pile up for later as tempting as it maybe

Cleaning kit upstairs - helps to deal with issues immediately rather than leaving them for later

Buy cheap baby wipes and encourage your toddlers to wipe skirting boards & hard to reach surfaces

Operate a one in so one out policy with toys, books & clothes. Giving to Charity shops, friends and leaving stuff out on the drive all helps to reduce clutter.

Remember clutter = dust

Divide jobs between you and your partner and just be responsible for your own tasks.

Go through recycling particularly paperwork day before bin day so it's not hanging around for long.

Put a 'no junk mail' notice on your letter box to reduce paper

I once tried making a list of what needs doing and then allocating one job per day, it made it seem more manageable and made me feel I was keeping on top of it. The only drawback is that you never get that "whole house clean in one go" look, but it certainly didn't matter to me at the time because I had the assurance that it was being kept up together.

So it kind of looked like this:

Sunday: dust everywhere - using duster or wet wipes!
Monday: vacuum everywhere and mop any hard floors if you can't bear to wait until tomorrow
Tuesday: mop any hard floors
Wednesday: clean toilets, bath, sinks
Thursday: vacuum again, but not mop unless sticky
Friday: clean kitchen sink and draining board/put utensils holder in dishwasher
Saturday: change beds

I load the washing machine before I go to bed so all I have to do in the morning is stick the detergent in and press play.

I also am a great believer in leaving the kitchen tidy to come down fresh in the morning. But I'm a night owl so maybe that helps? It doesn't take too long to do a last wipe and clearing of the kitchen sink area.

As soon as the kids are in bed I do a quick whip round of their toys downstairs (there are no toys except cuddly toys and books kept in the bedroom). Sometimes it's just left in a pile and sometimes it's actually put away, but never left all over the floor.

Tv on after breakfast for a bit to do kitchen and laundry. Prep some lunch and stuff for dinner.
At the end of the day, tidy up and clean the living room and kitchen. Get kids involved.

Most jobs don't take too long. If you're doing the bathroom and cleaning the fridge etc regularly, it probably doesn't take longer than 10 mins. Find that 10 min slot daily and do a non-daily job that needs to be done.

There'll be days when you can be on top of things and days where you can't. Don't stress about it and just do what you can.

I try to break things into little chunks so it doesn't seem overwhelming. eg during the time DD is in the bath I can whip round the bathroom cleaning the sink, loo etc with those ready to use cleaning wipes. Also in the time it takes to boil the kettle and toast pop up I can put away all the washing up from last night. I fold dry clothes to put away whilst watching tv. In short I think the trick is to multitask and get jobs done quickly and with little pain. The thought of cleaving for a two hour stint fills me with horror. Oh and get a very long extension lead so you can Hoover as much as possible in one go. It keeps the momentum up.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/housekeeping

All these "I have a cleaner GRIN GRIN GRIN" posts are not particularly helpful to an OP is clearly struggling and doesn't have a cleaner
I think that actually they could be.

Some people think that it is not the done thing to get a cleaner.

These posts might make the OP realise that a lot of people need help to keep their homes clean and she might consider getting one if she wants.

Mine are the same ages. I have a cleaner for 2 hours a week, best £20 I spend, and it forces me to have a good tidy up so all surfaces are clear and toys put away. My 3 year old has got good at tidying up now and knows to put her own toys away at the end of the day. Once they're in bed on a night I fill the dishwasher, clean the kitchen surfaces and if needed run round downstairs with the hoover. Dusting, deep cleaning the kitchen, bathrooms and hoovering the rest of the house gets done my the cleaner. I use to be a perfectionist and have a spotless house, but I've come to realise that's not important, as long as on the whole it's clean and today then I'm happy.

Easy!

No children,
I have a cleaner.

And I should have said I never thought I'd be the sort of person to get a cleaner or feel comfortable with one in my home, but it's been great.

I try to stay out of the house all day so there is no chance for the kids to mess it up

Seriously, when mine were your kids' age I'd go from playground, to play group, to library all day, then only take them home when they were too tired to do too much damage.

I have a 3 year old and a 1 year old and a DH who works away... I feel your pain!
First of all... declutter. The less clutter you have, the easier it is to keep clean/tidy.
Do as much as you can as you go along. Much less daunting to wash up a couple of plates/cups after lunch than to do a whole load at the end of the day.
I clean the bathroom while the girls are in the bath! Just keep a cloth and some spray in there and it only takes a couple of mins to wipe round. I clean the en suite shower while I'm in it!
I run the hoover round every day as I have a dog too.
The girls love helping to clean the windows/patio doors .
Don't go upstairs without taking up something that belongs up there.
If the girls are playing together nicely I'll use the 5 mins to do something like dust the surfaces in the living room.
I don't ever spend hours cleaning, just 10 mins here and there.

Tell me more about the robot vacuum cleaner from Argos.

Cleaner
I have never even attempted anything other than loading/unloading the dishwasher and wiping the kitchen surfaces since I had my first dc 5 years ago (have 3 total)

i don't
i live in a shithole

I clean one room a day and just try to be tidy before bed everwhere else. I also put the washing on over night then I just have to peg it out in the morning or put the drier on if it's a wet day.

My DH says that the washing is my "handle on life". I think we all have one, that one thing that if it's done makes everything else seem manageable. For DH it's the vacuuming.

I think the cleaner posts are helpful actually. I used to think I must be doing things wrong because everyone else's house seemed cleaner/tidier than mine. Turns out most of the people I know have a cleaner! Plus it makes you realise that you aren't the only one to struggle with finding the time, energy or inclination to keep on top of it all. We all just manage as we can.

Tell me more about the robot vacuum cleaner from Argos.

I have a Roomba robot hoover and I bought it from Amazon about 4 years ago now. They've got much more updated models that do much more fancy stuff than my basic model, but then again they're twice the cost. Mine, delivered, cost £199 all in.

So you press start and walk away. I did an awful lot of research about it before buying one, and it seemed too good to be true. But it actually isn't! It can't fall off the top of the stairs, it does clean every area, although if you stand and watch it, it has the appearance of missing bits here and there. The YouTube video I watched showed the screen change colour showing where the Roomba had been, and sure enough, every inch was completely covered.

The problems are that it can't do stairs so you'd have to either use another vacuum cleaner or dustpan and brush. It can't cope with steps between rooms. It will try to suck up anything you leave laying on the floor.

But it's lovely to press start and walk away, then come back to find it has docked itself neatly to charge with a lovely clean floor. The bin is so easy to empty too, you can use a completely non-touch method (unlike my dyson cordless which involves grabbing disgusting bits of filthy fluff out of the container).

So tempted with a roomba. I do have long thick hair and I've read it can kill the robots. It tangles in the brushes or something.

Get a fridge magnet that says "A tidy house is a sign of a wasted life" and enjoy your kids while they're young.