To be jealous of their free time

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I know I was the one who decided to have two kids but I really need some help to clean my house. Things are at a critical level, climbing over mounds of clean and dirty washing to get into the bed, not able to shut dd's door due to toys and books, no room in fridge due to mountains of half eaten left overs. I just need a few kid free hours to do it and they don't nap.
All I can think of is that loads of my family and friends are just sat about at this time of year, eating. No one has volunteered to have them. Should I ask or do people want to relax at this time of year without a 2 year old and a 1 year old crashing about the place. I just feel so desperate to make the most of my few days off and I'm fed up of living in these conditions.

Soon as you can get the Christmas tree down and speak to your dp about when he can help. You have someone else there.

Washing I always put a load on before bed and in the morning before work plonk it in the tumble drier. After Christmas I plan to go to ikea and get loads of storage for dd's tiny room as it looks like a toy explosion atm.

Most of all lower your expectations a bit. I work full time and am a lp to two young ones; my house is a disaster half the time but as long as I have the family room and my bedroom decent I don't care.

Your time will come OP, my kids were very close in age and we moved frequently and always overseas with no support network, so I did it all alone and it is overwhelming. Mine are grown now and I am really enjoying sitting on my fat lazy arse drinking cocktails and eating cheese. I also love that I can just up and go out without a thought for anyone else. I deserve it and would NEVER give this up to look after someone else's children.

Oh aye and having 2 kids under 3 is bloody hard going too! There’s 11 months between our youngest and the house got on top of me, a LOT!
So many perfect housekeepers on here eh, talk about kicking someone when they’re down!

Sounds very challenging OP. I wish I could help somehow. I do offer to take the children of friends (though this has become easier and more likely since starting school). My two have a bigger age gap - I think that made it easier for me. Your circumstances do sound difficult. It's a cliche but it will pass. Please take it a day at a time. Lower your expectations. Everyone made it to bedtime, fed, alive and cuddled? That's enough. Could you speak to your GP or look for a local HomeStart organisation? They provide trained volunteers to support families by spending time with the children. Every HomeStart is different but please do check a local one out.
A day at a time, lower your expectations and be kind to yourself. Good luck. I hope you find a volunteer (family, friend or others) and in a few years perhaps you'll be able to pay it forward. Don't worry if you haven't done anything in the past for others, you can do so in the future.

I think you can ask. If people don’t want to they can say no. I do know what you mean, it’s really hard when you work and have to fit in everything else whilst the kids are around. My husband takes the kids out so I can clean and I resent having to spend that time cleaning but I can get a lot done in a couple of hours without kids. It sounds like your husband is working so that’s not an option so just ask.

By the way my two youngest are now 2 and 3 and about 6 months ago it got easier - they will now sit and watch tv for a while so I can keep on top of things.

I think you need to speak to your DH. BTW, the idea that he has to go back to work because all these unreasonable people want their New Year dinner, millions of people are back at work this week. Even if he is doing a 12 hour day (which would be uncommon I would’ve thought), doesn’t he start really early and finish relatively early? If he’s home by, say, 6, give him half an hour to shower/have a beer/whatever, and then hand over the children.

At this point, you can go and crash for an hour yourself, have a bath, go for a walk, whatever gives you energy. If you’re lucky, maybe he could (perish the thought), do everything with them til they are asleep, apart from any breast feeding of course, and THEN, you give yourself the hour a pp mentioned to blitz something.

Start with the fridge. Seriously, one hour and you’ll have it back to normal. Not necessarily cleaned from top to bottom, but you’ll be able to see what you’ve got. If you have any decent leftovers, then that’s dinner tonight.

Then, buggies, car seats, potty etc. - do you have a porch, back yard, lean-to, car, anywhere you can put them from the moment you get home in the afternoon (well, maybe not the potty!). Just getting them out of the house is very helpful.

Followed with just normal cardboard boxes, if that’s all you’ve got, and fill them with toys. Keep out 6-10 that your 2 yr old loves, and seriously, a small piece of sellotape to close each box, and stack them up against a wall. If your 2 yr old is always following your around, give them something to do which is similar to you - a cardboard box to fill.

Put some catches on doors so they can’t empty cupboards - you can get them at pound shops.

Music. For you not them! Even the radio, but something loud/bouncy, not magic fm.

but pp has the right idea 1 thing a night - 1 hour a night. If by some miracle you have a moment of calm during hte day, have a cup of coffee and do another 15 minutes.

Good luck, and if you feel overwhelmed for much longer, maybe go to the GP (maybe make that appt today, so it’s there if you need it next week). They can help you know whether it’s just having two small kids, and it being hard, or if it’s depression.

So I have a baby and a toddler and have a few days a week where I have both (toddler in Nursery too). My house is pretty tidy but only because I do a lot while they're occupied. Toddler plays quite independently and will sit glued to the TV for hours if I let him so it's quite easy to tidy as I go along with him. Baby will go in the baby walker in the kitchen while I'm in there tidying or will play with toys on the floor in the living room while I run up and down stairs sorting washing etc. Anything that is additional to the daily stuff gets sorted in the evening when they're asleep (both down by 7.30). I do have a cleaner once a week who does floors, wet rooms etc so I don't tend to do that stuff.
It's exhausting but you need to find ways to distract the little ones. If that means they watch TV for 2 hours, fine!

Wow, people are being so unkind.

Is it really beyond the realms of possibility that you would ask a relative with two young children if they needed any help?

I really don’t understand why people don’t use play pens any more. I had 2 under 2 and would get housework done while the baby was sleeping and the older one played or watched me from the safety of the playpen.

Use any Christmas money you get to hire a cleaner as a one off, take kids to a play area for two hours and come back to a sparkling home! Don’t look to others to help you, help yourself.

I second play pens. That is what we used to use to get things done.

You need a playpen/travel cot. Put the kids in it to play for just 15 mins at a time - it's surprising what you can get done in 15 mins if you put your mind to it. Concentrate on 1 room/area at a time and you'll soon get on top of it.
Btw nothing on earth would prompt me to volunteer to have a friends/family member children so yabu to expect it, however if someone came to me saying they were struggling i would take them for a couple of hours - so you need to ask, they don't know you need help if you don't tell them.

Oh and YY to play pens! They were really useful when mine were tiny too!

1. Buy lots of bin bags.

1. Put everything you haven’t used for a year, or things you don’t like, in it (be ruthless!) Now is a good time as you are feeling desperate.

1. Take bin bags to charity shop. Make sure everything you are keeping has a ‘place’. If it doesn’t have a place, get rid of it.

1. Hire a cleaner to do a one-off clean.

I think you need to demand more of your partner and also make better use of small blocks of time. You don't need 2 hours. But if you have 10 minutes a day, you can get lots done if you're really strict about it and devote time to focusing on specific tasks.

My dh and I both work full-time in fairly non-traditional hours (self-employed, so we work weekdays, plus weeknight evenings for a few hours and sometimes on the weekends for an hour or two here and there). So we have lots of flexibility for school runs and such, but we probably work longer hours than normal people working full-time. We have certain things we get done at very specific small bits of time each day. I doing the getting up/getting dressed/packing up school bags/etc. each morning while he takes 15 minutes to have a coffee and do all the washing up from the night before. At night, he runs the bath and does bathtime, I hang up the washing and put away anything that's dried. It takes 10 minutes. If your house is truly a tip (as in dirty, not just disorganised), get a cleaner. Seriously. Once a month for 2-3 hours to do a deep clean of floors, bathrooms, kitchen, etc. is not that much and it's the best money I've ever spent. It means everything else is so much easier to stay on top of because those things which are harder to do with a child attached to your leg, get done and we can focus on other tasks. On weekend mornings, dh often takes the kids and I do a more superficial clean of the bathrooms or tidy up the bedrooms/lounge. Again, it takes like 20-30 minutes, but it's easy to get done when I stay on top of it and just make sure I do it pretty much every week.

1. Play pens are your friend.

Nothing wrong with asking imo if u had a full day to sort out your house off would take less effort after that

They are your children so why would you want others (except their other parent) to look after them?

"No harm in asking people they can only say no."

I agree with this - I probably wouldn't think to volunteer, but I'd be happy to do it if you asked me.

(I'd probably agree to do the cleaning while you watched the kids. I'm not very confident with little children but I'm good with a sponge.)

They are your children so why would you want others (except their other parent) to look after them?

What a strange thing to say.

They are your children so why would you want others (except their other parent) to look after them?

Come on. Lots of people have occasional help with childcare to give themselves a break or time to catch up.

Op there are some lovely supportive threads on the housekeeping topic here. The flylady thread in particular is good for motivation to get in and declutter.

I get it. I often felt like this when mine was this age. Felt like a relentless slog and an uphill battle, and honestly wondered if I’d ever have a bit of chill time to myself ever again. It does get better though.

As someone who can’t bear mess or clutter, I found ways to deal with it. Putting things away as soon as you don’t need them is one. Keeping your DC’s stuff in one area so the mess is contained and easily cleared is another. Chin up, this time will pass.

I would say yes if someone asked me. I am not sure I would offer as it would sound rude ‘do you want me to look after your kids, so you can tidy up?’ - I mean, they might be offended at me thinking their house is a mess.

My house is tiny, I am a single parent of two DC and honestly, everything not needed has gone to the charity shop. Between that and IKEA storage solutions of various kinds, things are manageable. But it is a treadmill and small DC are hard work.

I'm so glad others have said playpen and also, 15 mins.

I'm probably projecting asking if anything else is wrong because I have really bad SAD and this completely zones me out. I have to do 15 min blocks or nothing would get done! It's not showing off about housekeeping, but we live in a small space and the idea of there being room to clamber over laundry to the bed sounds like luxury!!

That said, it does mean very strict rules about stuff - I can't fathom so many toys and there's only one area toys are/were allowed.

The fridge will not take an hour. 15 mins max. Sometimes things take much less time than you think but being low makes it look a bigger task than it is.