To think I’m not lazy/a shit housekeeper but would like your opinions please

[Amialazymum]

So I have a lot of jokey comments from my husband and his mum and dad (mum mainly!) about how bad my housekeeping is. They do praise my parenting and we all get on well, I do think they genuinely mean them as jokes although I think MIL maybe does mean them a bit as well but it’s Ok. However I am wondering if I should be trying to do a bit more.

I work 3 days a week. On my two days where I’m not in work I try to do some laundry (mostly putting it away) in the morning when I get up with ds. We go to groups in the morning and then out to the park. Lately I’ve been going to a supermarket for lunch as kids eat free and to be honest it’s one less thing to do housework wise. Toddler has been refusing to nap but does still need it and the only way I can do this is in the car! I nip in and out of the house and do quick tasks like empty dishwasher and so on as DS sleeps on the drive but I can’t do anything major.

He has tea at around 5, bed at 7 after a bath and books at about 6. This is the time when I should be doing house stuff and I’m guessing this is where most people do it? But I’m so tired!

I am only really scratching the surface and I need to do things like organise properly cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms, hoovering and so on. Just wondering how others manage?

You can keep arguing if you like @LolaSmiles but I’m afraid it doesn’t change the fact that being home more on my days off will increase the housework I have to do, not decrease it.

I'm not arguing.

I'm telling you that when you ask for advice on how people manage, posters are going to reply sharing how they manage. 🤷‍♀️

You're not the first person to work part time with a toddler and you won't be the last.

Telling posters you're not after advice after starting a thread specifically asking how people manage is entirely up to you.

So you've sat your husband down and told him he needs to pull his weight a lot more, yes?

You have 4 days where you're not out working, surely one of you can take the toddler while the other does the housework?

Nothing to add to the comments about the silly husband here.

But LOL at the idea of tidying with a toddler who actually needs a nap.

If you want to you can @LolaSmiles but equally I can explain that it won’t work. I have no idea why we can’t just say fair enough and move on, but apparently we can’t!

Here's a suggestion:

Stay home one day and let your toddler go hog wild.

Pick up absolutely nothing after him.
Don't clean up after he eats. Don't wipe him down either.
Leave everything where it falls.

When your H gets home and sees the wreckage he may understand how hard you have to run just to stay in place, and that getting ahead is not a reasonable goal just now.

Certainly that was my experience of life with toddlers.

They do seem like very full on days! I have a DS six months younger and it’s basically impossible to be a good cleaner with a toddler running rampant around BUT I’m managing in some ways to section off pretty much every room with a stair gate to contain devastation to a room at a time.

Zero idea why you would be so patronising to a stranger who is actually trying to help you. And with good advice too.

Just because your 2 year old creates mess when he plays, which is obvo fine, I'll inform you that many don't. Both mine would play with blocks for hours. One bag. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with how yours clearly plays either. What is wrong is to assume someone who is trying to help you knows your child creates mess.

I would be informing them you're not a housekeeper, you work and look after your child. You seem to do an awful lot with him which is great so hats off to you! I work 3 days a week and probably get more done but I don't leave the house for 4 hours every day either, certainly not in winter.

If you want to you can @LolaSmiles but equally I can explain that it won’t work. I have no idea why we can’t just say fair enough and move on, but apparently we can’t!
That's fine. You're obviously the first person to have a toddler, and nothing any other person has to offer will work.

I don't know why you'd start a thread asking how other people manage if you've absolutely no interest in considering suggestions and want to keep saying that nothing will work, but that's ok. It's up to you.

arethereanyleftatall
Even if they do create mess, and mine certainly did, there's ways around it. I certainly feel very lucky mums around me shared their little life hacks.

One mum I knew suggested a pack and play for when I needed to get things done in the house. I put some toys in that could easily be put back in a Kallax box in under 2 minutes and then had some time to do chores.

A few mums suggested The Organised Mum Method, which was a game changer. I found 30minutes was too long in one go when mine were little, but 2 x 15 minutes in the pack and play was workable.

Another great piece of advice a parent shared with me when I was tearing my hair out about mess from toddlers playing was only giving them access to the number of toys I was happy having on the floor. Their logic was if I was getting annoyed at having 20 minutes tidying looking for lots of pieces, the problem wasn't my toddler, it was me for making it available in the first place. I reduced what they had available in our living room, introduced a toy rotation and it meant my living room could be tidy within 10 minutes.

It's the age of your child thats all. Creates havoc, gets all their toys out, doesnt naomi, needs constant supervision. Babies are easier as they are less mobile and they sleep more, older kids are easier because you can leave them doing an activity like lego or colouring for a bit without worrying they are eating bits of lego or drawing on the walls. I remember my mum looking after my hard work toddler at around that age (after having a first 'easy' child) for about an hour and coming back and she was completely frazzled, my toddler would literally just run around climbing on things and emptying things, the place was a tip.

At this age, looking after a toddler is a full time job in itself. So you need to be asking how to do the housework when you're both effectively working full time. So the answer is a mix of let your standards drop / blitz it with your husband in the evenings / do an hour or so each at the weekends when the other has the toddler / get a cleaner

Also I think your MiL is out of order actually, it's not really 'funny' it's just rude, always, to comment on the state of someone elses home unless you're complimenting them, even for family. So I would say something like 'yes you keep saying that, can I ask why?' Or 'toddler is so full on I dont get chance, it would be great if you wanted to have him an afternoon a week so I could get stuff done'.

Joke back "feel free to help ".
On rough days dh was told to put up or shut up. As long as dc is fed warm happy and healthy who cares.

Ans with the age your toddler is, it's actually easier going to work than looking after them...so your husband should be doing half the housework.

You should do as much as you can while toddler is around, but your primary focus during those two days is childcare. Then the remaining housework should be split 50:50 with your DH.

I suggest getting DH to take a week off work and have sole responsibility for toddler and housework during that time. Lets see what he thinks is actually realistic to achieve with a toddler after that. (You'll need to give it a week because a pristine house and happy child is much easier to do for 1 day than for 5...)

Next time your MIL makes a joke, just curtly tell her that you don’t find actually this funny and you’re an overworked, exhausted mother of young children and maybe she should have house trained her son better.

Just wondering how others manage?

Thought I'd answer this bit for you, I have a bit of a system/routine (sometimes I just absolutely wing it and hope for the best) but I was just wondering if this would be something that could work for you?

On the weekends I set aside a couple of hours where I get as much stuff done as I can, for each room I will: vacuum, move clutter/tidy, wipe down dust etc. I gather all of the laundry, get as many loads as I can done, clean all the kitchen- basically have a mini spring clean 🤣

Days I'm at home with toddler, I use meal times to my advantage, because he eats slower than me etc, so whilst he's finishing his food, I will do the washing up, drying up and putting away, I do any laundry that needs doing or sit and fold it whilst I can still see him eat.

I often go out to supermarket cafes etc too for lunch, but I will walk, he will usually fall asleep in the pram on the way home, so once we get home, I put him in the living room & I have some time to get any housework that need doing done.

I use my slow cooker for most evening meals, so I prep this in the mornings and then there's less for me to do later on in the day.

Once we've had food, the little one will have a play, then it's bath time and bed time, every week night, I always put aside 15-20 mins for any smaller jobs that need doing.

I also limit his playing space, so I have baby gates etc, just so that his toys are in one area with him and it's not a full house of his chaos 🤣 and I don't have all of his toys out at once, I have some put away and then every few weeks rotate them.

Of course, things don't always go to plan and I do have weeks where my house looks like a shit hole, but having my little things in place etc makes it a lot easier to manage.

I also try and get some small jobs done just 'as and when', so like the toilet & sink for example, if I notice that needs a clean, when I go for my bed time wee I will wipe it all down, put some bleach in the toilet and leave the bleach until the morning, takes me about 2 mins to do but if I'm there I might as well do it.

& I also had a huge clear out last summer, and again a few weeks ago, I get annoyed at having too much stuff, the more there is in the house the more there is for me to clean 🤣 so I don't have many ornaments etc, it's very minimal, but that's only to make the workload of the house easier for me.

Hope this helps somehow.

But don't beat yourself up over any of it, nobody has a perfect house 24/7.
Xx

There are 2 of you home at weekends so surely one of you takes the child and one does housework and split it so it's 50/50.

Well, this is ‘traditional’. Yuk.

"He has tea at around 5, bed at 7 after a bath and books at about 6. This is the time when I should be doing house stuff and I’m guessing this is where most people do it? But I’m so tired!"

No @Amialazymum - this is not when you should be doing it all. It's really important for the child's developmement to talk with them at mealtimes, read books with them and make sure they don't drown in the bath.

Don't beat yourself up.

fwiw I had 4 children under 6 and some days it was easier (and lovely) to be out and about with them. However, we also had a very relaxed home life involving naps/rests after lunch, snack times and pottering about together as I cleaned up. If toys scattered all over is a problem, have small toy baskets in the rooms you are in-you can control this as he is only 2! In the end, its your decision whether to carry on spending so much time out of the house, if you do, then there will be less time to catch up with stuff that needs doing. So divide it between you, and pay for a cleaner if necessary.

Then stop worrying about the housework. Let your DH worry about it seeing as he is so pre-occupied with it!

Sometimes on threads like this I wonder if the core problem in all this is too many toys.

I remember when mine were this age (they’re two years apart, which was full on) I felt like I was drowning in a sea of noisy, beeping, ring-toning, yapping plastic. All given to the kids by well meaning friends and relatives as presents. Only a minority of it was more than a two-minute wonder. I used to see how it happened - DD would pull out every single toy from her box, play with it for about 30 seconds, get fed up, pull out another one (or sometimes several at once), get bored again, repeat, until 15 minutes later you couldn’t see the floor. At least she didn’t destroy the toys like some of my friends’ kids used to.

It took a while, but eventually I worked out that the toys that got her attention most were the simplest and least gimmicky. Cardboard boxes and a sheet over the kitchen table. Possibly play kitchenware. Ignore all the know-alls on here OP, you’re doing fine.