To ask how you did any housework when you had small children

[RosettaR]

I have twins who are 8 months and for various reasons not much support other than my husband who works full time. They have eczema so I really need to keep dust levels down and get rid of any mould. But even finding 5 minutes in a day to do some hoovering or dusting seems impossible. They are currently not napping without me or my husband there. They have moments of being quite chilled and happy to play but that gets taken up by basic things like washing and sterilising bottles, loading and unloading dish washer, and preparing all their meals. When am I supposed to hoover and dust? They are also not sleeping well at night so I can't face getting up an hour before them to get it done. After they go to bed is an option although recently we're not getting them down until 10 or so and by that point I'm knackered. I feel like I'm letting them down and they are suffering because of me. What am I supposed to do?

How's your routine with them? With my triplets, I'd do the school run, get home, feed them then use that little bit of time when they were settled to whip round. My standards had to drop a bit, but a quick hoover and damp dust made the place look OK.

Sleep training
Cleaner
Recruit your mum/dad/family/friends to come round and sit with the kids for half an hour or something whilst you blitz what's needed. There shouldn't be mould in your house anyway so it should just be a quick hoover and dust.

Well i didnt have twins which meant i had half the work and i still struggled.
I had a play pen and made use of bouncy chairs and slings.

Housework can wait, but if you really must then use a play pen?

I hardly did any dusting with each of mine😬

Good routine, strict nap time and a play pen.

I had one Velcro baby. I cut down to the bare minimum for cleaning, diverted some cash to a few hours cleaning a week and accepted that there would be times with housework was accompanied by a kind of infant Les Miserables soundtrack. It wasn't pleasant.

You need a baby jail aka a playpen or a travel cot. Pop them in, give them a load of toys, do as much as you can while they're happy not screaming the house in there.

Playpen

Twins are not the same as one baby. For a start you need to do everything twice, changing nappies alone must be having your eyes rolling.

With the hoovering get one of those machines as said above (not for Xmas, it ain’t a gift)

Two, get your oh yo watch them for an hour on his own and dust every few days if you want to.

Robot hoover, good deals on eufys on Amazon at the moment

You have 8 month old twins? You're a hero to even be thinking about housework.
My advice would be to try and get them napping independently and going to bed earlier. Easier said than done though.

I do little and often. Put DD in her jumparoo for 15 minutes and wash pots/hoover up.

Or when she naps I clean upstairs or do laundry.

Also hand baby to DH when he finishes work.

I'm very lucky that DD has slept through since 3 months. The occasional restless night due to ilness really throws me and I get very eey little done the next day!

I haven't had twins so can't speak for that experience, when I had just one baby I would do everything crammed into their nap (so I would get 20-45 mins free a day to cook/clean etc) then when I had second I discovered that baby could sit quite safely in bouncer, crying if needed, whilst I dealt with young toddler. Wish I'd realised that when I just had one and I could have achieved much more! I reduced my standards hugely but had to keep on top of dust and hoovering due to allergies; I also limited the space we used to minimise cleaning so we had effectively a 1 bed flat to live in and ignored the rest of the house. It's not easy, I know you have to keep on top of certain things but if there is anything you can let go and give yourself a bit of downtime then I would, you must be exhausted.

It was chaos.

A sling. And then an old fashioned play pen.

Agree with everyone else. Large playpen (if they're on the move), robot hoover and put it on every day, cleaner if you can afford, even if infrequent.

@MintJulia

A sling. And then an old fashioned play pen.

Two slings, it's twins!

Playpen! As large as you have room for, put a selection of toys inside, talk to them as you work

Baby jail and cocomelon on Netflix. Should give you at least half hour.

With great difficulty is the answer and really only at the weekend , when there were two of us.

Get them a playpen. Put them in there. Then vacuum . Or get a robot vacuum cleaner.

Be careful with twins in playpen!!!! My son used his sister as a step to climb out. Also only soft toys in playpen as a plastic brick can really hurt. In fact I only put one in at a time, if I needed to answer door or do something. Found it quite useful though for having a cup of coffee though, but it was the twins on the floor outside the playpen and me on a chair inside . That way they couldn't spill my cup.

I only have the one and I had such little time or energy to clean the flat that I hired a cleaner to come round once every two weeks. Is that a possibility for you?

My daughter is 2 months old, I put her in the room I'm cleaning either pop her in her DockATot (completely supervised, I watch her constantly and am no less than 5 metres from her at any time) or in a sling. I mainly clean while she's asleep, even if it's at night. Thankfully she loves the sound of the hoover so I can put her in a sling while I do it.

I don't know how I'd cope without our cleaner though, even just 3 hours a week helps do the bulk of things.

Robot vacuum
Sling (twin slings are a thing)
Cleaner / Homestart(?) to watch them
Sleep training

Sling (twin slings are a thing)

If they were preemies maybe but at eight months old , carrying twins around while trying to hoover , clean floors etc will be quite a workout.

Get them a playpen. Put them in there. Then vacuum

Absolutely this.

They’re at an age where they can play with each other and toys without you there. Get them used to playing in there whilst you are there and then start leaving the room for short periods of time.

What time does your DH come home?
Does he not take over childcare whilst you get the housework done?