To ask you to teach me how to be a responsible adult / parent

[Secretagent0077]

Name change for this…

Not sure where to start here….

I’m 36 years old and have come to the realisation that I have no fecking clue how to actually be an adult…..

DH & I have been together for 10 years, have always lived a pretty “relaxed” lifestyle.

We have no debts, both have good jobs.
We pay all of our bills but that’s about as far as our financial responsibilities stretch.

After bills are paid, we have always been big spenders.

We had our first DC 19 months ago.

I went back to work part time, DC goes to nursery.

I’m like a headless chicken…

I do nursery drop off DH does pick up.

DH leaves earlier than me to get to work so he isn’t part of our morning routine.
I leave the house most days a sweaty, stressed mess.

I just cannot find a balance of being able to have a coffee, get myself showered, get DC ready and actually leave the house on time.

I don’t seem to have the time to keep on top of general house work.

I get two days off during the week and they’re
spent at toddler classes with DC or we make plans with our mum/baby friends.

On the days I do stay in I do things with DC and during nap time I just feel too knackered to clean, so I spend the hour (sometimes two) drinking tea and on my phone (or I often read)

When it comes to the weekend I hate staying in,
so I’m always keen to get us all out of the house which again means there’s no time for housework.

Come Sunday night there’s 3/4 loads of washing to be done!
Obviously DC’s is prioritised so mine is usually drying on a Monday morning and I put my clothes on seconds before leaving the house for work.

My car is staring to become a mess, and i can’t actually remember the last time my clothes were in the drawers / wardrobe.

I’ve started to live on takeaways (DC eats a meal at nursery 3 nights) and we have never fed DC takeaway even when we eat them.

I don’t get home from work until 6pm, I get an hour with DC before the bedtime routine starts and then I just don’t feel like cooking.

I have my shopping delivered twice a week and most of the time I end up cancelling the delivery because I haven’t been able to sit and plan my meals so don’t know what to order.

I end up calling to the supermarket each day instead.

I have no clue how other people adult or be a parent and make it look so bloody easy.

I’m proper failing… 😩

Hi OP, just wanted to say that I think it's cool that you read a lot. I'd rather meet a well-read mum at a baby class than someone with an immaculate kitchen. (But I also agree that a cleaner is a worthwhile investment.)

Make it as easy as possible by getting a dryer, a dishwasher and a cleaner.
Always run a sink of soapy hot water while you’re preparing food and then dump any non dishwasher stuff into the sink whilst prepping and you also wipe up as you go.
Put a load of washing on every morning or at least every other.
Your little one will be easier to leave for short periods while you do bits.
Don’t relax till you’re sorted!

To add to my post, I personally have realised that my expectations for life are too high. I put this down partly to having a childhood where I never had to do chores and got to enjoy myself all the time.
I expect weekends to be fun from start to finish and I expect my days off to be filled with friends and enriching activities. Where's the time for chores? I don't factor them in. My mind refuses to factor things in that I don't want to do.
So for example if a class kids birthday is coming up, getting a card and present is a chore. Rather than plan in some time to go and get it, I just panic and end up frantically finding one last minute.
My mind refuses to plan monotonous stuff so it doesn't get done until it REALLY needs doing. I have certain boundaries, so I always make sure my kids are fed, looked after and at school on time, but anything that can be let slip does get let slip.
I love staying up late and I regret it every morning and anything admin related gets heavily procrastinated. I can handle short chores like putting a wash on or bleaching the toilet, but under no circumstances will I ever clean the inside of a car!!

Why….? hmm

He enjoys having a cuddle. He’s still breastfeeding. He feeds to sleep on me and then I put him down.

I think pp means whilst you have a shower, not that you can't breastfeed them to sleep at an older age.

What is DH doing whilst you're doing bath and bed routine? When does he eat

And why can't you do chores whilst he's awake?

You definitely need to get into the habit of doing tasks as they crop up..put car through car wash on way home from work&keep a bag in the glovebox for gathering up crap from floor&wipes you can do the interior with&put into said bag(i also have a dutpan&brush under my seat)..hate my mum-cab being filthy
Laundry-far easier on a nightly basis.Can you just get a shop delivered &use the same list every week so just adjust the list,not the items&who cares about takeaway-you're not being monitored by the food police! its my particular joy-having a job that provides enough money for a lovely Thai or Indian that i simply couldnt/wouldnt spend the time&effort on replicating at home..pretty much everything else you can do online.
Ive raised2on my own in &had no family support due to emigrating/partner moving back to uk wen dc were toddlers.Even make some charts if it helps get you into a more streamlined routine.Good luck🙂

A few small changes would really help here. Making lunch in the evening before, getting up very slightly earlier to shower and putting on washing before classes on your days off would make a big difference. Also, 3 hours to wind down in the evening is frankly unsustainable. You're going to have to limit that. I also think two showers is taking a lot of extra time, and both doing bath/bed is a luxury. With 2 toddlers we only both do bath if they are very tired and need sorting extra quickly.

I'm not great at keeping up with all the housework, but it can be more manageable than you have it at the moment.

As has already been mentioned, start The Organised Mum Method. A bit everyday will help you keep on top of things.

I’d start by changing my bedtime, then make a list of things that need to change and change one thing per 2 weeks. It’s really a case of changing your day to day life and making these things a habit.
I think it would also help to devote one of your days off work for one month to doing a deep clean, meal planning, decluttering.
Then get yourself a little reward

You sound a bit lazy tbh. Nobody needs to do baby classes and see friends every day. Time to grow up and prioritise a clean and healthy house.

I’m sorry but single parents with multiple children work full time and still manage to get housework done.

I do think you’re being a bit easy on yourself. You can batch cook and do multiple wash loads with your 19MO.

A household w 2 parents and one child is not hard work, sorry. I did it and although the early years were not fun, it was totally doable and I was working 4 long days a week. Who cares about a dirty car, just leave it. Buy simple boring food (filled pasta, ready made fish pies, stuff you just put in the oven w veg). Get a cleaner as it appears you can afford it. Do your clothes washes on your days off. Yes it is boring. But once they are 4+ it gets much easier and you can get your life back a bit.

Same issues here- we swap things- so one does dinner, whilst the other does bath. Then we eat after bed and go to bed- in bed by 9 on a weekday, that extra hour is so necessary!

I think your routine is sweet and has worked up to now, but it needs to change to reflect new needs.

Did the need to put him in his cot come when he became mobile? That's fine for a crawling baby but it can't last much longer. DS is getting older, he needs to learn to play independently alongside you rather than having your full active attention all the time he's awake. He also needs to learn than stuff needs to happen to run a household. The concepts of needing to clean floors, wash clothes, cook food etc are not too big for him to start to understand. Obviously he needs to he kept safe etc but there's little reason why he can't play on the bathroom / kitchen floor/high chair while you do jobs if they are sufficiently toddler proofed, he doesn't have to be confined to a cot.

Secondly I don't think you've addressed what the other adult in the house does all evening. It doesn't take 2 of you to bath & read to DS. This should be alternated and the other be doing housework & making dinner to be ready at 8pm.

See I disagree that the OP needs to reduce her evening chillout time or start getting up at 5 am. I imagine relaxing in the evening and getting a good chunk of sleep are keeping her going.

I think the key is to make better use of the days off and organise a few things better. And just do things that absolutely need to be done.

I think that with your additional info, googling organisational strategies for adults with ADHD and PDA could help.

I don't have those conditions but two family members do and I have learnt such useful stuff about executive functioning from trying to help them. Some of it's to do with having a more helpful internal script. Reframe the laundry as 'great, I can have that ready to hang up on my return' rather than 'grr the universe is imposing laundry on me'.

I also grew up without any chores to do, but it didn't turn me into a procrastinator. Procrastinators essentially punish themselves - being a sweaty mess on arrival at work every day isn't fun and takeaways every night make you fat!

TOMM! I've been banging on about it a lot lately but it has actually changed our lives.

DD has a little Henry hoover that she follows me around with when I hoover. She also likes being given her own cloth to wipe things with, etc. But mostly I just make sure she's set up with toys or doing crafts as the kitchen table or something and get on with it. If you and your husband do a 20-min round of cleaning/tidying after your child is in bed (or he does some while you are doing bedtime) you will get loads done. Two people going fully at it for 20 mins can achieve a lot.

But yes, do check out The Organised Mum Method. We have a thread running in the Housekeeping forum at the moment about it and quite a few of us are just starting out and doing the boot camp/decluttering, etc.

Oh and I don't do any housework after DD is asleep. That's my time. We do slow cooker or batch meals a lot on busy days, we do our 30 min daily clean, both of us, at the end of the work day and just before dinner. Have dinner, everything into dishwasher, DD to bed, DH might wipe the kitchen surfaces down while I'm getting DD to sleep, and when I come down that's it.

Laundry every day is a game-changer I think and we also implemented the 'no taking laundry out if it's not going to be put away' rule, as otherwise you end up with mountains of clothes dumped somewhere. I put the dishwasher on after dinner and then it gets unloaded in the morning while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil, and just loaded again throughout day when we use stuff.

It's a cliche but staying on top of stuff really is much less work than the blitz/build-up pattern. We don't do anything at weekends except the basics: laundry, dishwasher, wiping kitchen down when we use it, a quick toilet or bathroom wipe when one of us goes for a wee, and maybe a v quick hoover of the main living areas. No more than 15-20 mins, because there's nothing to 'catch up' on. No more three hours on a Saturday trying to get through five piles of laundry or doing a week's worth of cleaning build-up.

We lived for years in this blitz/build-up mentality and it's awful and was really affecting my mental health, and I felt disorganised just because not only was everything a mess, but some days I was reluctant to get out of bed because I didn't want to deal with it, and then everything just takes longer because you have to root around to find stuff, there's crap everywhere, etc.

I feel you!!

Also I have a very clingy, spirited 3yr old who I struggle to do jobs around even now, it was almost impossible at the age your DC is. I think people don't understand what it's like to have a child that will just scream the entire time you're trying to do a job, it's not always as simple as just telling them to go and play.

My advice...

Is there any way you or DH could change working patterns slightly to make things easier? You mentioned DH WFH could he put in a formal flexible working request to do more of this? Seriously think about your options and what would make your life easier and it's worth asking, if you don't ask you don't get. I've been WFH ever since the pandemic began and it has made a HUGE difference to my exhaustion levels, my mental health and our ability to keep a tidier/cleaner/more organised home and do laundry and eat better meals etc. It's been life changing tbh honestly.

At your DC's age my DH still often back carried her in the Little Life carrier, this sometimes included whilst doing chores, might be worth a try if either of you can manage it physically? Also we did and do get her involved in some things e.g. putting laundry in/out of machine, dusting, cooking - she would/will sometimes play on the kitchen floor with pots and pans and her play food or sometimes I'd give her some dry pasta or whatever to play with, DH used to take her out with him to take the bins out, she will draw with chalk in the yard whilst I'm hanging washing out, will come on a quick food shop to the supermarket and sit in the trolley etc.

If you can stop washing your hair every day that will save you a lot of time. You need to 'train' your hair to go longer between washes. Even just do every other day with dry shampoo in between will help save you time! Batiste is great.

What do you do on your work lunch breaks? Even when I was office based I would often do an online shop during my break, telephone calls to arrange appts or book appts online, pop the local shop to buy anything urgent etc.

When you're at toddler groups with DC can you pop in the supermarket on the way home to buy whatever urgent bits you need to make tea with that night or whatever? I've always let my DD pick an item of fruit whilst we are in the shop which she's enjoyed and we often have that with our lunch or for dessert after tea etc.

You’ve mentioned washing pots.

One of the best decisions I made was to lose a cupboard in my (tiny) kitchen and put a dishwasher in. Cost £200 including getting it plumbed in and has made a huge difference to how big a task it feels to keep the kitchen civilised.

[quote Secretagent0077]@MoiraRose4

I’m in bed by 10pm 90% of the time

So when do you get time to watch TV or wind down?[/quote]
The thing is there's is no such thing as winding down unless you are getting enough sleep and getting the to-do list done.

There's no shortcut, you have to be really disciplined at first with a routine that makes sure all the things you need to get done, get done. Eventually once you're on top of it, windows of time will open up and you can start getting genuine free time, not just time when you're 'winding down' but really just putting things off.

You just deal with it! At the minute you prioritise socialising in your 'free' time but it isn't really free is it?
You have 1 child and work part time so everything you have said is just excuses. If you want to spend time socialising instead of getting stuff done it doesn't matter to anyone but you....you are the one then rushing around trying to fit stuff in that could easily have been done .
Maybe drop half a day going out and get mist of what can be done then., most people clean and tidy around young children as best they can.
With regards to your shower, just get up earlier, 6am is not exactly the crack of dawn....my alarm has gone off at 4.50 on a work day since I had my eldest 15 years ago.
It's all about priorities and what they are to you.

DS2 is 15 months, he crawls around the bathroom floor while I shower.

While I hoover he chases me with it.

While he's in his chair eating a snack I clean the kitchen worktops and cupboard fronts.

Laundry on as soon as I walk downstairs on a morning.

Some great ideas and tips here OP. Hope it helps you (its helped me)