Constantly cleaning and the house is still a mess !!

[duvetstar]

I'm so fed up. It's literally a constant battle.

How do you manage ?

I have two DC 1 and a half and 3 and a half and of course they make a mess with their toys. Which is annoying. I'm always picking up toys after them. If I don't do it throughout the day, it's completely overwhelming. They do tidy their toys away at night time, but of course I need to help.

The kitchen is my biggest issue really. Just keeping it clutter free and tidy is a constant battle. It feels like Groundhog Day. To stay on top of it I'm pretty much constantly tidying stuff away and cleaning it.

Like today, I'm going to have to clean after breakfast. It's an absolute mess already because my lovely husband is obsessed with giving my children cereal. I never give them cereal as it makes a massive mess. Especially because he gives them stuff like rice crispies and coco pops without milk and they just throw it around. So this is now all over the kitchen. I'm pretty furious. He does it every Saturday. I tend to give them toast and sandwiches and fruit or eggs, never cereal. Especially the little one makes a mess, so I give him stuff that doesn't make a mess, to make my life easier.

But in any case. So now I'll clean after breakfast, then I'll need to clean up the mess after lunch and then again after dinner. In between doing laundry and putting it away etc. every day is the same shit. Thankfully I have cleaners once a week who clean bathrooms and that kind of stuff, but to stay on top of it I still need to hoover every day and wash the floors in between their visits at least once. It's constant and I don't even feel like my house is that clean.

How do people manage without feeling like they're just constantly cleaning ?

It is normal though - my kids are older much older but I still found myself cleaning the kitchen table yesterday and then half an hour later it was dirty again… I have failed to train anyone else to notice or tidy it up.

but on the whole it gets easier as the kids grow up

There you go.

The kids are normal.
The domestic tasks are normal.

Your husband is the problem.

Have you tried having a conversation where you say 'you are seriously pissing me off'?

A dish washer if you haven’t got one is great as it’s basically somewhere to store dirty plates out of sight! You could make the lunches up at breakfast (pack up style, my dc love this ) that cuts out one lot of clearing up.
Make dinner easier, eat out at a supermarket cafe once a week, if they have hot dinner at nursery or school just do bean on toast or sausage sandwich with fruit/salad/veg whatever they prefer on the side. Or batch cook. There’s no way I’m cooking something like spag Bol from scratch with all the clearing up and time it takes. I either batch cook, buy a ready meal or don’t bother !

It’s it just a wipe and maybe a hoover or dust pan and brush, how bad is it that it’s exhausting? How much cereal is he giving them?

Yes, same for all of us! We all had more time pre kids.

The issue appears to be your husband doesn't do a fair share.

When the DCs were small rather than using high chairs we put them on a messy mat on the floor in a seat with a clip on tray. That greatly reduced the blast radius of food being dropped and how much needed cleaning.

Also get a hand held battery vacuum. Then it's just a couple of minutes to run around with it rather than needing to haul out a big mains one and plug it in each time.

It sounds like the cereal has tipped you over the edge today.
Tell your dh that he needs to clean it up if he gives it to them.

It is tiring and with dc that young, it's hard to get a break.

Will your dh take them out for a bit or stay in while you go out? Do you get a lie in? It's really important to find slots to 'recharge' yourself.

Unfortunately op this is life with small children.
Chin up op it does get better; eventually they leave home.

Clearing up cereal is less effort than cleaning pans and chopping boards.

I've also found that children's chairs with longer legs, like IKEA's Ingolf children's chair, has helped reduce their mess, as they're at the right height for the table (my DDs are 2 and 3).

Could you stop buying cereals? Plus coco pops etc are full of sugar. Tell DH you’re going on an unprocessed food drive.

Have you got a suction bowl for your toddler?

I also think trays are the under-appreciated heroes of the kitchen world, especially those with a slightly grippy base. You can carry things back and forth to the table on a tray, or serve food on a tray and the mess is more contained.

It is relentless! Have a Google of the organised mum method, that has really helped me stay on top of things.

Yeah it's that and H has pissed me off in other ways too.

I hate Saturdays. I just feel like he swans around the house going wherever he wants and doing what he wants and I need to excuse myself for leaving the room.

He just wonders upstairs for ages having long showers or whatever else he does up there whereas I stay with the children and barely get time to go to the loo.

We both work hard, but I feel like I work hard and I also have the main bulk of the responsibly at home because my H's job is so labour intensive and mine is ( on the surface ) not as labour intensive and he also makes more money than me. I make good money as well, but he makes more. I'm trying to build my career back up after two mat leaves quite close together and it takes time to get to where I want to be.

1. dh gives cereal dh jl must clean up after.
2. lower expectations. It's not fair on anyone including yourself to try and maintain pre dc standards. Tidying up etc comes with time with dc and play is incredibly important.

Housework is sure tedious but you could think of quick fixes to some of the issues. For example:

If the cereal is an issue don't buy it, or if your husband does, hide it.

Don't put the toys away throughout the day. Just have boxes / cupboard you can put them all into at the end of the day. Unless you have visitors does it matter? I kept most toys in the kid's bedrooms and had a limited number downstairs at a time when they were that age (I mean plenty to play with but having everything available can be overwhelming).

At weekends I found it easier to take them out for part of the day - mostly to the park (we are lucky we have a lot of parks near us so I didn't die of boredom having to go to the same one all the time). Got them to walk / scooter/ bike there as much as possible. All the time out means no mess accumulating at home.

Don't worry, this phase will pass all too soon, though it doesnt feel like it at the time. Each phase has its own stresses of course, but at least things gradually get easier - depending on what they get up to as teens, of course.....

3 year old here. No cleaner.

food- we eat every meal, every snack at table in kitchen. He has silicone washable mat and bib kept at his space. Uses stokke trip trapp as toddler chair, it’s fully wipeable. Chair, mat, bib are washed straight away after food, floor wiped if needed. Dh or I don’t leave kitchen until it’s done (takes a few mins max). So it’s never a chore to do later on.

Toys - all toys in living room fit in one ottoman and two baskets that’s live under sofa (duplo and brio in baskets). If it doesn’t fit in ottoman it either gets put in high cupboard in his room ie extra puzzles and I just rotate 1-2 into ottoman at a time max. I regularly sort through though and donate anything outgrow, duplicate or not played with much.
He has to help tidy it away before we go out, before lunch, and before bed. So it gets several quick toy tidies most days. Baskets make it easy

I hear you! Mine are at primary school and it’s still the same. Just add in school stuff and work. I was off yesterday. Didn’t get what I needed to do done but did give the house a good tidy but not a proper clean for half term. As soon as we were home from school there was stuff everywhere. You kind of have to think it’s just for a few years and you will miss it. I know it doesn’t feel like it now.

Regarding Saturdays - could you set a time where he has to have the kids for a couple of hrs by himself while you get to do something?
A regular slot every week

Honestly, you just need to let it give a little.

Your DCs will remember the times you spent playing with them, they will also remember you cleaning and getting stressed about it. Which would you prefer?

I found I had less food to clear up off the floor when we got a dog 😂

I've given up now and while one of us baths them the other hoovers downstairs and clean sup so it's reset for the morning. It pisses me off during the day but I just wear sliders so I can't feel the crumbs etc on the floor. I appreciate I'm speaking from a two parent family though and not everyone has this option.

I get it. I cried the other night because I felt like I couldn't stay on top of it all. I remember when I was a single parent to my eldest disgusted, I used to clean my house on a Saturday morning and that was it. I would do two loads of washing that morning and we were done. Nowadays it's constant.

As I'm serving I'm washing up each pot straight after. That's how I manage it so it doesn't come too over whelming. So after we've eaten all that's left is plates and cutlery. Breakfast usually give a pre baked crossiant or something convenient. Lunch if making sandwiches I always shake the crumbs over the sink. Then use like a tea towel and make the sarnies on that. Then sake the crumbs off. Key is preventing mess. So tin foil on baking trays.
Honestly prevention is key. I have friends which give convenient foods so they don't actually have to clean up. I'm not one of those but I will every now and again.
I would have a deep clean and prepare how you want your "new" kitchen environment to be. So it's a fresh start.

But prevention is key! Hope this helps

I have a clean and tidy home butt in order to achieve that sometimes you need to sacrifice hourly cleanliness for overall cleanliness.

Sometimes I fuck the breakfast and lunch dishes and the tidying up time and instead i clean the oven or the fridge or declutter a cupboard or a different big job because I know I'll do all the dishes by the end of the day. The next day i just clean/tidy as I normally would.

But if you never get to the big stuff you will live in daily chaos forever.

And when the big jobs are done, you have to use discipline to clean them again before they need cleaning. I learnt this the hard way.

I used to think I could skip cleaning the bathroom because it still looked clean, but you know what it's like, a week goes by and it suddenly looks terrible and then someone ends up ill or something else unexpected happens and then you're suddenly a month behind and everything feels filthy at once and you're all knackered and grumpy and it feels overwhelming again.

It's so easy to clean when you just spend 10 minutes wiping it down regularly so you dont need elbow grease and a dedicated hour or more just to get back to normal.

Just starting it in the evening whe the kids are in bed with a podcast or your favourite film on the ipad and bluetooth headphones is a game changer X

Just to send a hug. Not wanting to project but when I was feeling g overwhelmed in general, house mess used to make want to cry. It was like a physical representation of my overwhelmedness

Thank you

I feel you OP. It is hard and relentless.
Be ruthless in taking time out for yourself. Just do it and tell your husband you are going out.

Once I realised my husband was doing all the jobs like mowing the lawn etc (which he could take hours with, away from the kids funnily enough...) I told him I would swap jobs - and he could do meals and house that day, and I would do the garden. So I started mowing the lawn and he got the relentless grind in the house. Also, if you have any outside space - to have a break from clearing up, we used to do a lot of random outdoor picnics, just in the garden in all seasons. Doesn't matter if food gets dropped or drinks get spilt.

Also, I did oven meals wrapped in foil a lot so all the mess could just go in the bin.

But mostly, this is about your value. Don't believe the bullshit about it being important that he earns more than you. Do what you need to do, and don't feel guilty about it.