AIBU to wonder how working parents do it? Tips from anyone who's got their sh*t together gratefully received!!

[MsFrog]

I've got two DC, 11 months and 3 years. I went back to work 7 weeks ago. My husband works full time, I'm three days. He's great around the house, everything is 50:50.

We are on the brink - every day feels like a stressy mess, especially tea times. We both just work, look after the kids, tidy etc all the time. Feels like firefighting to avoid the house descending into a toy-ridden pit with no clean clothes in sight and ready meals galore!

How do people do it when both partners work? I'm only part time and it still feels undoable! Is this just life with young kids and I'm BU unreasonable to expect much time to relax? The kids aren't the best sleepers, so that doesn't help, but still.

Any practical tips on how to make the weeks easier? Or do we just accept this for now, and reassure ourselves we aren't doing anything wrong?

Organisation! Slow cookers, batch cooking, there’s less housework if you’re all out, get everything for everyone ready the night before. I’ve seven kids, work part time and DH works full-time, it does get easier when sleep improves. Set washing machine and dryer in timers for first thing in morning, never go to bed without kitchen being ready for next day. Rotas etc are good to reduce the feeling of constantly putting out fires. Oh and promote healthy independence so hooks at child height etc, my two year old can put her coat on her hook and gloves/wellies/bag in “her” box under the stairs.

What childcare are they in OP? On your non working days do you have them both at hold with you?

Outsource as much as possible. Get a cleaner. Use frozen mash.

@GrannyBattleaxe

Organisation! Slow cookers, batch cooking, there’s less housework if you’re all out, get everything for everyone ready the night before. I’ve seven kids, work part time and DH works full-time, it does get easier when sleep improves. Set washing machine and dryer in timers for first thing in morning, never go to bed without kitchen being ready for next day. Rotas etc are good to reduce the feeling of constantly putting out fires. Oh and promote healthy independence so hooks at child height etc, my two year old can put her coat on her hook and gloves/wellies/bag in “her” box under the stairs.

SEVEN!!?! Oh my goodness, there was me about to offer sage advice with only two, but I'll bow out now 😂

Slightly different as I'm a lone parent to one 7 year old child but I work full time Monday to Friday 9-5

My day starts at 6am. This allows me to have a listen to the news and a quiet coffee , feed the dog and cat before my tiny human wakes up at 7am. Then it's breakfast and I wash the breakfast dishes and leave them in the drainer. We leave the house at 8:20 am.

We then return home at 5:30pm I cook tea, do homework and play with DS. He goes to bed at 8pm but must put his toys in the toy box in the living room before going up. I then run the hoover over the living room and finish tidying up, quickly wash all the dinner dishes, clean the kitchen and then I sit down about 9-10 and go to bed.

It's not the best, but my house is always clean and I do get some down time.

For the meals I meal plan and leftovers are eaten the next day so I don't need to cook everyday. I had 2 under 2 at one point and this kept me sane. I would also try to batch cook at the weekend so when you or your oh are tired you just defrost in the microwave. Days where I am at work are usually easy meals so a jacket potato, macaroni cheese and garlic bread, dhal and rice for example basically anything that takes the least prep time.

I only do laundry on my days off because I hate seeing clothes around the house needing picked up and folded away. It means I do 2 loads a day on my day off but I put one one whilst the kids are having breakfast and another whilst they are eating dinner.

On working days my dh would run the hoover around whilst I got the kids dinner ready and fed them. He would then bath the kids and I'd get one to bed and him the other. I would iron a weeks worth of clothes for each kid and hang them up so I didn't need to iron everyday. Nursery or school bags packed the night before and placed by the door so ready to go in the morning.

My dh would normally do a deeper clean at the weekend. We make full use of out dishwasher and use the clothes dryer when needed. We also have a family calendar up in the kitchen so all appointments, school events go straight on there and in the shared Google calendar.

I am lucky in that the kids have big bedrooms so I keep their toys in their rooms and that is where we play. I've tried with a play box or just one toy in the living room but found that would descend into chaos and it was just another room to clean.

For me the key is being organised, I won't start a job I can't finish and do things as I go so will often clean rhe kitchen whilst I make a cup of tea. You've got a dh who is a team player, consider getting a cleaner in one a week if that would help and just accept that they are still young yet. My older two are 4 and 5 years old and it is much easier now, even with a 14 week old baby.

Cleaner
Slow cooker
Letting go of the need to be SO tidy - utterly pointless with kids

Make sure you have decent childcare, a decent cleaner every week, each get a “lie in day” at the weekend........ oh and lower your standards 😉

If you have the money, get a cleaner. Honestly it will be the best money you’ve ever doesnt.

Otherwise unfortunately it is just firefighting for the first years, certainly till they’re at school. Mine are 7 and 4 (youngest just started school) and it’s only since Sept I’ve felt I’ve got it together.

And as @GrannyBattleaxe says, you need to be organised. Meal planning, get bags and clothes ready the night before, etc.

My house was messy and probably a bit dirty too when my DD was little. Am on top of everything now she is older. Luckily none of us really cared at the time.

Oooo thanks for all the quick replies. Doing bedtime, but coming back to look properly. Those who say a cleaner, how often and what do you have them do?

I'm wondering why you are struggling on only 3 days. I did 3 days for 15 years and it was fine. I was very organised, but had plenty of time to get all housework and cooking done. Which bits are you finding hard?

I study full time now, DH works full time although self employed (and is flexible with his jobs) we have 4dc all under 7 and two dogs. When we cook I always make bigger batches to freeze for the week/days there is little time. Laundry is sorted every evening whilst they play in the tub. Also getting the kids to put all dirty clothes in there, load goes on overnight and either put in dryer that morning or on the line. Cleaning is a shared one, I blitz stuff one morning before study, DH hoovers, dusts etc as the week goes on. Kids have been taught to put toys away when finished playing, I spent a while organising storage for this. Declutter massively, more stuff = more work. Shopping list written as we go, meal plan accordingly each week. Kids are independent and bought up from an early age to dress, shoes, put stuff away, fold clothes, empty bag, put shoes away etc. I always have uniform ready the night before or stuff if out for the day, it works most of the time, illness can throw a spanner in the works though and it’s tough when their young and your sleep deprived.

My cleaner comes once a week for 3 hours (4 bed house), costs £12 per hour.

She cleans everything! She’ll do extra jobs if I ask her to (washing skirting boards, cleaning kitchen cupboards) and has offered to make the beds up if I leave clean bedding out for her.

Oh forgot to say Sunday afternoon is the big clean. So change bedding, bleach the bathroom, vacuum upstairs.

Washing I'm lucky I have a washer dryer and there's only two of us so I do a load every other day overnight. Wake up to dry clothes.

@Oblomov21

I'm wondering why you are struggling on only 3 days. I did 3 days for 15 years and it was fine. I was very organised, but had plenty of time to get all housework and cooking done. Which bits are you finding hard?

This is what's making me feel crap. I have the kids the other two days, and the house is needing a lot of DIY at weekends, so I have them in tow most of the weekend often. It's hard to get stuff done with them, between meals, bottles, naps and entertaining them, I can barely get an errand run a day.

But then I see other people saying it's fine and start thinking this is a failing of me. Especially when some people have SEVEN children!

Ruthlessly sack off anything that is not business critical. No baking stuff for playgroup. No Christmas cards to people you haven’t seen in ages. Start with the bare minimum to keep you clean, healthy and fed, and build it up from there. Online shop and meal plan (it may be dull but we went through a phase of if it’s Monday it’s pasta, if it’s Tuesday it’s oven chips etc…)as it requires only thinking once during the week. Cleaner if you can afford it. Enough clothes so you only have to wash once per person per week.

We have a cleaner for 2hrs a week. She hoovers and mops all downstairs floors, cleans kitchen from top to bottom and all bathrooms.

DIY is extremely difficult with young children. It means your weekends are effectively work -you’re either painting walls/fitting bathroom or doing all the childcare/cooking so your partner can do DIY.
The house renovations when our kids were young nearly did us in - and I put my foot down and said that we were outsourcing it rather than waiting 18 months for us to get around to it.

As we have had more children we have found that the answer was to get much better organised combined with lowering our standards in some areas. Think of it as a survival strategy to get you through years of child raising. Do what you need to do. Any little perfectionist habits have had to go by the wayside for me.

Organisation, good systems in the house, clear communication, good cooperation, declutter on an ongoing basis and cook big pots of food on a Sunday to get through the week.

What's changed for me recently is making sure I don't hang around at my mums when I pick the kids up. Make sure the kids are sitting down for dinner on time and generally everything else runs on time too. (Obviously not every time!)

Routines.
lower standards.
have a morning routine so you have everything laid out the night before and breakfast dishes are washed/in dishwasher before you walk out the door.
Repertoire of quick meals for tea.
Lounge/toys are tidied away before bath/bedtime. your child is not too young to start helping.
One parent does bedtime; the other clears away dinner dishes and does anything else desperately needed. and puts a load of washing on, to hang up later to dry overnight. Sit down and relax once DC are in bed. You need to give yourself a break.

Saturday morning blitz housework. When the DC were older, one of us took them swimming while the other did the housework. We took it in turns.

Single mum to an 8 year-old and work full time

As others have said, batch cook or get a slow cooker. You can literally do one big meal in it. Always make double and freeze one half.

Packed lunches...either do stuff like pasta that you cam make a big batch off and just potion up or make sandwiches at a weekend and freeze, just take out at night before you go to bed.

Cleaning rota so you each do 1 or 2 jobs a night so weekends can be more relaxed

declutter as it helps keep the place tidy

If you have a delay timer on your washing machine set it so it finishes as you get in, chuck in the dryer over night

Online shop...saves me days of my life through the year (and keeps me on budget)

But honestly my best advice...in 10 years time the kids won't remember if the floors were mopped daily, if the bed sheets were ironed, if donner was always freshly cooked and on the table when they got in from school. They will remember the time you spent with them. Don't stress if the washing basket occasionally overflows or you haven't deep cleaned the bathroom this week.

Childcare
Cleaner
Cutting yourself a bit of slack on the domestic front
Don’t sweat the small stuff and don’t waste time on extracurricular stuff unless you or your child really want to
Don’t beat yourself up about screen time: it can be the difference between being able to work and not

I’m a working lone parent and you have to prioritise. Ultimately if you have to do it you will do it

"and the house is needing a lot of DIY at weekends, so I have them in tow most of the weekend often."

Ahh, well that's a slightly different issue then.

I can completely relate op. I live with dd 10 and dh and I honestly cant make life work. Both me and dh work full time within our own company and we teach dd ourselves from home. I used to be on the ball but then the pandemic started and everything went out the window.

A few months ago I read about TOMM on here and honestly it's a game changer. I bought the books and we have stuck to it. My house has been uncluttered and it's so clean. I bought a robot hoover over a year ago but didn't program it. It's now programmed to do it's own thing. Definitely a slow cooker is like winning the euros. I batch cook easy meals so we can just heat up during the week. I would love a cleaner but live really rural and can't get one for love nor money so I could have cried when I discovered TOMM. I am really lucky that dh is a keeper and everything is split 50/50 with us. Your post has minded me to buy a 2022 calendar so I can write all our daily bits on it and also direct debits on it. I couldn't live without my dishwasher.

Please try not to feel bad about yourself life is hard enough. I am sure you are doing your best 💐 ( I need to take this onboard also)