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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask how you manage to get things done with small children

108 replies

JugsAndSoap · 01/01/2022 19:25

(Relatively lighthearted but genuine question)

I really am at a loss and I'm hoping someone else can help me see what I'm missing!

I have 2 little children (age 4 and 1), and both me and DH work. Big one is at nursery, little one isn't and we work our hours around so one of us has him all the time.

We just about manage the day-to-day stuff like keeping up with washing, cooking meals, cleaning the kitchen etc in between preschool/ work / dinner / bath/ bed routines. There are just enough hours in the day to keep our heads above water.

But I'm absolutely desperate to do those less regular things time-consuming things like clean the grout in my shower, paint the spare room, cut down the hedges in the back garden etc.

When do people do this stuff? Am I missing something? Am I destined to be wallpapering at 2am? Or are there ways to "make time" by being more efficient with the daily stuff so I can do the rest?

So as not to drip feed, we have absolutely no-one to take the kids (ever) so it all needs to be done with 2 tiddlers in tow.

OP posts:
ColourBeautiful · 01/01/2022 19:28

Lower standards!

Sounds like you are achieving a lot.

Keepitonthedownlow · 01/01/2022 19:28

Bump

Footnote · 01/01/2022 19:30

You do what you can at night and wait for the youngest to reach 2.5. It’s survival until then.

Footnote · 01/01/2022 19:31

Also pay for any help you can afford.

Santahatesbraisedcabbage · 01/01/2022 19:32

When I had a few small dc one night every week I stayed up til about 1am catching up on chores!!

SmallElephant · 01/01/2022 19:32

You are not missing anything OP. That's just how it is with young kids and no outside help.

Bunnycat101 · 01/01/2022 19:32

At that age I found big jobs so hard and often very stressful. I have a similar age gap and I think things are easier once the younger one is around 21/2. Those sorts of jobs are only really feasible if one person takes both kids and the other cracks on. You can’t really do something like hedges if you’re supposed to be watching a 1yo.

R0BYN · 01/01/2022 19:33

@SmallElephant

You are not missing anything OP. That's just how it is with young kids and no outside help.
This.
EatYourVegetables · 01/01/2022 19:34

When is that done? When the youngest reaches 3y and they learn to play / go to the toilet/ get drinks / snacks on their own.

LaTomatina · 01/01/2022 19:34

Eventually toddlers turn into children that you don't have to have your eye on permanently. So long as you don't have any more children, you will gradually be able to stuff again in a few years...

soughsigh · 01/01/2022 19:34

I would get in a decorator for the spare room and someone to do the hedge at the back if you can afford it. Having a 1yo underfoot all the time sounds intense, I assuming you are doing compressed hours, which won't help.

You're doing awesome. I have a 3yo and a 3mo so this is a vision of our future (although baby will go to nursery full time when she is 1 and I go back to work).

somethingobscure · 01/01/2022 19:37

I know what you mean OP. My answer is I just don't get anything done. Even wrapping Christmas presents I had to do over the course of multiple evenings as it was just impossible!

Dozer · 01/01/2022 19:37

Think a key issue is that you have no childcare for DC2.

If you want to do basic ‘project’ stuff, eg garden, DIY, one of you can do that on a weekend day while the other parents.

allfurcoatnoknickers · 01/01/2022 19:40

I pay someone else to do it Grin I have a cleaner who comes once a month to deep clean my home and do stuff like the oven and the grout. Then we just light clean after ourselves to keep on top of stuff.

Roses1221 · 01/01/2022 19:41

I have a 4yo and 1yo too and have given up on trying to achieve anything much when they’re around! I can sometimes manage jobs when the youngest sleeps in the afternoon, but often have to use this time to do activities with the older one which are banned when the little one is around (slime, glitter, Lego…) or to just give some 1:1 time

ISaidDontLickTheBin · 01/01/2022 19:43

Ours are almost 4 and 18 months but are both in nursery. Sometimes we both take an odd day of annual leave to get a load of jobs done while they are at nursery.

Or more often, one of us takes DC out for a few hours at the weekend and the other stays home and does jobs.

Or sometimes if it's absolutely a 2 person job, they just have to watch more TV than is ideal with us checking in on them a lot.

We never do any of it at night!

Ohpulltheotherone · 01/01/2022 19:48

Basically you don’t.

Or you take half day / day annual leave occasionally or flexi is even better if you have it. And you power through those little jobs that never get done.

Or you do it late at night, which is a killer if you’ve got work the next day.

But realistically it’ll be a couple years before you can leave the youngest to play for a while on their own and even then you’re not getting more than half an hour here and there to get shit done.

We don’t have any child care but I do have mine in school & nursery so I squeeze jobs in between leaving work and picking them up. It’s really hard. Our house is an absolute shit hole occasionally.

Xmasiscancelledagain · 01/01/2022 19:49

Do you both work full time? We did similar when the DC were little but I worked part time. I also had the same days off work as DH. So there were two full days that DH and I were both home. One did jobs, one took the kids out.

Alternatively get outside help in the form of a decorator, handyman or a childminder for DC2.

Just with cleaning the grout, just throw some bleach on it and leave it for a get hours. Then rinse it off.

MrsKDB · 01/01/2022 19:49

We didn’t do anything to our house until our youngest was 6. Very basic cleaning once in a while, no decorating or diy. Also had no one near to take either of them. It’s very different with older children, for now you just keep swimming.

underneaththeash · 01/01/2022 19:53

Put the 1 year old in nursery?

TempName01 · 01/01/2022 19:54

Put the youngest in a highchair in whichever room you are working in, give them a bag of rice cakes and put Peppa pig or something on

CheshireDing · 01/01/2022 19:57

Yep , as others have said you can’t get the extra jobs done.

We both work and have small children, our hallway desperately needs painting and we have a Gardner once a month for the hedges etc.

The only way to get the extras done is to take time off work when dc are at nursery.

Allthesefolks · 01/01/2022 20:02

I have no idea, I have a 5 yo and a (very demanding) 1.5 yo, we both work with limited childcare outside of that. We have a cleaner and keep on top of laundry and everyday chores but there’s load of big jobs I’d love to do like sorting out cupboards, garden things etc. that I struggle to get time for.

I keep seeing all these amazingly decorated houses on IG but I’ve realised I’m going to have the wait until the youngest is a few years older to get there.

Abouttimemum · 01/01/2022 20:04

I just have one aged 2 and I’d agree that once the younger one grows slightly it will get better. Our DS ‘helps’ with whatever we’re doing. He likes to be involved so we give him his little part to do and then we crack on as quickly as possible.

Today we cleaned up the garden for a couple of hours (leaves and moss etc) and he mainly watered the non existent plants and put gravel in a carrier bag.

Your time will come! Until then divide and conquer. When he was tiny One of us used to take him out for a couple of hours now and again while the other did a ‘big’ job.

Aspidistra1 · 01/01/2022 20:05

I went away and did the parenting for a weekend whilst DH did a load of those jobs. Unfortunately we chose the hottest weekend of the year so he ended up getting up at 6am to do the painting. I was hoping to give him a bit of a break as he works more part time than I do so does more parenting.