If you have DCs and spend very little time keeping your house clean...

[overweightcat]

Can I please ask for your routine?

And I don't mean just the tidying part but actually clean, as in someone could turn up at any moment and the house would be perfectly nice.

We are in a small 2 up 2 down with 2 DCs and Ddog.

We don't have a dishwasher which means I'm stood at the sink 3+ times a day washing the dishes unless I want a mountain piling up on the already small amount of worktop space.
I also seem to forget some jobs and get blind to them. I decided to give my bathroom a really good clean today and I was horrified when I actually had a closer look at the tiles next to the shower.

Little and often is what I'd like to achieve so that I'm not then stuck for 20mins scrubbing something that's gotten so bad it's now very hard to get clean again.
But I'm also worried about getting stuck in a loop where I'm just walking around the house cleaning all the time rather than spending it with my toddler and DC.

Any tips/routines/advice?

I personally like the The Organised Mum method. She’s on Instagram.

I don’t follow it strictly but it’s nice to provide a bit of structure and does keep on top of things.

Is the organised mum method where you concentrate on one room each day?

Def get a dishwasher if you're spending that much time washing up. Ours is on at least once every day while everyone is home and if we do baking etc it can be full again!

Life is too short

We have a dishwasher, a robot thing that cleans the floors (added advantage of making you tidy the floors first) and a cleaner every two weeks. It's still a mess usually, unless DD is at nursery and I'm at work!
I'd love the answer to that as well!

I do little jobs regularly (usually while DC’s are having screen time!). I then do little and often. Cordless dyson was my best ever buy, can whizz it round in 5 mins and makes such a huge difference to high traffic areas. Likewise handheld vax for whizzing up crumbs.
I don’t have a dishwasher either, instead I run a sink of piping hot bubbles (Use fairy, it is so much better) to chuck plates in then it basically just needs a quick wipe and rinse and leave to dry on the rack.
Little and often is the key!

When my daughter was about 9 months old I just couldn’t bear the washing up anymore! We two live in a small house with small kitchen and I measure up, got rid of the vegetable rack, and JUST managed to squeeze in a slimline dishwasher, with millimetres to spare. It has absolutely changed my life and given me my sanity back. When that’s on I can spend the time I’d usually be washing up giving the counters a wipe down / quick mop of floor etc. I also got a cleaner once a fortnight. We are not well off by any means but the 20 quid a fortnight I pay the cleaner is so worth it. She does all the hard floors and hoovering, deep clean of bathroom and kitchen. So even if I don’t get chance I know at least will be done every 2 weeks. Daughter now goes to nursery two mornings a week and I have recently been spending that time decluttering - a cupboard or a room at a time. Having less stuff makes life much less stressful and easier to keep clean / on top of things if there is space for things to go.

Also keep a spray cleaner and cloth in bathroom and kitchen for a quick wipe round.
5 minutes tidy ups are so motivating. 5 minutes in each room then move you to the next. Loads of storage for toys help too.
My standards are quite low though so my clean is probably below other people’s

I have a cleaner.
I tried to be organised and clean during lockdown when she wasn't available, the house was an absolute mess. Anyone who arrived without advance notice would be shocked.
So yes, it's a extra money but if you can stretch to it, it's well worth it.

Things have gone awry since lockdown (WFH, with all 3 kids) so I jae lowered my standards. A Lot!

I try to keep everything clear - tables, work surfaces, floors (so toys in toy baskets, clothes that kids just throw on floor in dirty laundry basket etc) and do as much as I can as I go along.

Between me and DP we do toilet / bathroom once a week, mop floors once a week, hoover whole house (have 30 carpeted stairs) once a week but I will go over the living room a few extra times. Bed linen changed once a week. Washing ever other day so it doesn't pile up. We tend to split the weekly jobs equally.

Our house is very lived in but I would never be embarrassed to receive guests. Anyone coming to my house knows our situation.

I have promised myself a one off professional deep clean when they go back in September!

I do have a dishwasher but rarely use it to be honest. I normally sit the kids down with an activity after breakfast or send them in the garden if the weather is nice I will then quickly wash and dry up the breakfast plates, put them away and do a wipe down of surfaces. I then join them. I do the same after lunch. I tend to hoover when dh is doing the bedtime routine so that my house is clean first thing in the morning. Whilst the kids are playing in one room upstairs I do a quick tidy up elsewhere. I wash the clothes on set days so I don't need to bother about drying, folding and putting clothes away everyday. I do the toilets everyday and give the shower a quick clean after I have a shower or dh does. I do dishes whilst I am cooking as I hate having a sink full of pots. I dust once a week but get the kids involved ( it actually takes longer this way but they have fun).

I think the key is being organised and doing little but often. I also recognise that my kids are nearly 3 and 4 so will play together and whilst I check up on them regularly I don't always get involved in their play. When they were younger I got them napping at the same time so I could do what I needed to.

I used Flylady to get me into a routine

I wouldn't be without my dishwasher so if you can fit one in I'd highly recommend it

Also, how old are your DCs? Get them involved young with age appropriate jobs. I find it much, much less mentally draining when I know I'm not doing absolutely everything.

You just set up a routine based on your desired level of cleanliness versus the messiness of the family. Having a dog makes things very hard to keep clean compared to a pet free home. My routine won’t be relevant to you as it is based around teen DCs and no pets.
If you need to hoover 2x or daily, build it in. Do for each task. Assign them to days. Then divide them up between you, DH and any children old enough to contribute.

I'm another follower of The Organised Mum method.

With 2 young DC our flat is never really "tidy", at least not forong, but everyday I clean a different area of the flat so whilst it might not be tidy it is clean and I know grime won't build up.

I sympathise with your dish dilema, we don't have a dishwasher either and I hate having dirty dishes on the side so sometimes I feel chained to the sink!

I have 5 children, a dog and a cat. I use a bullet journal to make a cleaning schedule, split in to daily/weekly/monthly/annual tasks so that everything is done on a particular day which means I'm not just spending all of my time cleaning and tidying. Each child has a job at tea time too, so that we're not left spending our evening sorting everything out and instead we all pitch in and we all get free time.

Also look at how much 'stuff' you have. Can it be streamlined? I've used Flylady in the past when I
Inly had a couple of children, and that worked well, and also Marie Kondo for the organisation side of things.

I’ve had to get a cleaner to do a deep clean once a week to keep it how I like it. I wipe the kitchen down and hoover after each meal so like three times a day but struggle to get chance to deep clean the bathrooms and do the blinds etc now my baby has turned into a walking toddler.

I have a toddler dd and another on the way. I tend to do a once a week proper clean of everything. So I'll spend one morning doing the living room, kitchen and bathroom (downstairs) and the next dust and polish upstairs and hoover upstairs rooms and the stairs and then change the beds. Dd is very messy so after dinner my partner will do bathtubs and I will tidy away toys and hoover living room and kitchen each night. And usually do a load of washing most days so it doesn't build up. Every now and then I will do a deep clean but I just don't have the time to do it every week and tbh I don't want to, I can't be bothered. Its unrealistic to have your house mrs hinch style clean every day

I’m often in the kitchen, so try to keep that clear and tidy when I’m in there. As for the rest of the house, whenever I enter a room I put a few bits away. Every now and again I’ll give surfaces a wipe but only clean 1 room at a time. I try to keep clutter minimal so easy to see what’s out of place and wipe down surfaces. My house is fairly presentable. Not as clean and tidy as when kids are at school, but it could be guest ready very quickly should we have guests (not an issue at the mo!)

Make beds as soon as you get up get/kids breakfast spray sink, toilet bath/shower while you go down stairs, run sink of water for washing up when everyones finished breakfast, coffee, put washing in if you have any go back up stairs clean bathroom, back down stairs tidy up kitchen from breakfast, wash up, go and polish surfaces then all you have to do is sort washing and hoover and mop, done. My house gets cleaned every day and it takes 30 mins max, stuff like windows and oven they just get done when they need doing.

Honestly? I think that if you have 2 dc, especially little dc that are in the house all day, then you will pretty much inevitably spend quite a long time keeping the place clean and tidy. It helps to be organised and reduce your clutter to a minimum but in my experience you just have to do it!

I used flylady when DC were small. It is a bit OTT but it helped establish routines that now mean I can keep my 4 bed house in pretty good shape in less than 30 mins per day.

What I would say is "train" DC early. Not to "help" but to know how to do these jobs properly. My sons have detailed step by step instructions for each room saved/task on their phones. An excellent investment in time that has been repaid a thousand times over and which my DILs will thank me for I haven't always made them do it but it's great to know they can chip in and do a proper job when I'm pushed for time.

We follow Organised mum method as well! Although I do tweak it a bit to suit us but it gives a really great framework to keep on top of everything without constantly cleaning or overlooking areas that then get really grubby.

For me the biggest impact was getting rid of the clutter, including furniture that was in the way, and having a home for everything that it goes back into every evening before I vacuum round. I don't have a dishwasher as we're renting and it's not possible to fit one and it may sound drastic but I got rid of all spare plates, cups, crockery etc so we only have one of each item. This limits what is possible to wash up. I also got rid of anything difficult to wash up like Tupperware that stained easily.

Having lots of stuff makes cleaning and tidying harder I think. The rooms in my house that have less things in like the lounge and our bedroom are a doddle to clean and tidy. My daughter has loads of bits of crap and it takes an age to sort her room. I sorted my kitchen and got rid of loads of excess stuff. I also tidy and wash up as I go. My house is always clean and tidy, I probably spend too much tine doing it but it keeps me sane. I have 3 children, although they are older, they’re still messy.

I have 4 kids and a dog, I work full time. Definitely get a dishwasher. Ours broke and we couldn’t afford to fix it for 6 months. The washing up took so much of my time, it was a revelation when we finally got it mended.

I have a cleaner that comes once a fortnight, so I don’t have to do any heavy cleaning of stairs etc. kids keep their own rooms tidy (Ha!) every evening I tidy kitchen, load dishwasher, put toys/shoes away, wipe surfaces and sweep floor/Hoover downstairs. I clean toilets and wipe antibac wipe around bathroom once a week. I can’t do any more than that. The clutter is killing me slowly

for me, the hardest part of the little and often method is actually doing it. what ends up happening is, like in your bathroom, I notice how bad it is and get stuck into a deep clean of that one area. Nothing else gets even lightly cleaned as it was meant to that day, according to the New! Schedule! I was meaning to start. Having deep cleaned that room or read, then I easily justify not following up with a little clean later in the week or the next week and soon enough, I have ended up back where I started.

If I can resist the impulse to completely resolve an issue, and stick to the little and often plan, then eventually the need for the deep clean is reduced to one particularly long session that isn't so involved and distracting from the schedule.

I had big plans for roping my teenager into the housekeeping more thoroughly when lockdown started. I totally did not do that. We deep cleaned the main bathroom the first week. I have tidied it and I have sent him in more often to tidy it, but the idea of regular cleaning has not actually been conveyed as I intended. Ditto his room. There is a pile of stuff to be sorted and organized that has been sitting on one side since the Weekend We Emptied His Room and Rearranged It In a More Grown Up Way. If we don't sort it all before school starts in August, it will be there until the next summer holidays, or lockdown, come round again.