When do you ever get housework done?

[chippytea33]

Two kids. One toddler, one tween. Tween spends time out of the house with friends etc but toddler is always with me, unless she's at nursery but then I'm at work.

My house is drowning in shit. Not just Christmas mess (although that has exacerbated it but it was bad before). I need a massive declutter and a deep clean. I need to pull stuff out of wardrobes and cupboards, sort them into donation/bin piles and then clean out the cupboards and the skirtings and the windows. In every single room of the house.

But I never get chance. I keep on top of basic cleaning by sticking her in front of the iPad for half an hour here or there but it's not long enough to get into any of the big stuff.

We have no help with childcare. The only option i have is to book leave on a day she's at nursery but I barely have any leave as it is and don't want to spend it cleaning.

I can't be the only one who struggles with this. How do other people cope?

I just used to clean with them there! Mine are three years apart and I don’t remember struggling to keep the house clean at all really, but I am a minimalist so there’s very little tidying needed. You just need a good routine, and to split it into little jobs you can do whilst the toddler plays.

The way we did it was DH would declutter DD’s wardrobe whilst I took DC’s to swimming and then I’d clear DS’s wardrobe whilst DH did bath and bedtime - tag team.

Make it easy, in each room have two rubbish bags sitting in the corner, one for charity/vinted one for rubbish. Open the wardrobe, spot something you need to get rid of, in the bag.
Finding hours on end can be tricky, finding some moments can add up and be easier.

Crack on with children there. I have 4 children, work full time. I will admit I like perfection so my house is always immaculate.

I achieve this by everything having a place, I have zero clutter and minimalistic approach. I have an entire cupboard with shoe racks and coat pegs for all jackets and shoes. Clothing in all rooms including children’s is organised into tops/tshirts, leggings, then jeans etc children’s rooms all are organised and have a place they have always known where things go. Kitchen I only have what I need on counter zero clutter and cupboards/drawers all have certain things.

I clean every single day before work, deep cleans like cleaning skirting boards, lights etc done at weekend. I do dump runs every few months and go through all clothing to donate to charity or sell when done.

I was at the dump on Friday so zero Christmas rubbish now.

I think people’s biggest issue is they have crazy amounts of crap and clutter I could not and would not live like that. When I moved here 3.5 years ago, its a 5 bedroom house I was fully unpacked in one day.

But declutter, clean every day, bathroom can do in the evening. Deeper cleans every weekend and your house will be perfect and easy to maintain. Must add no babysitters ever even had our oldest on our wedding night and honeymoon. Your toddler can follow you around while you do it no problem I had 3 under 3 who’d follow me still got eveyrthing done.

We just do it as we go along. Breakfast gets tidied up as we go, same for other meals. A set of toys don't come out until other ones are put away. I'm really laid back about cleaning tbh, but I hate having to do daily "big cleans" where the house is a tip (two kids, two large dogs, and several cats as well as me and DH). So DH and I just crack on as we go, and tbh I don't even feel like I'm tidying up because it's just bread put away, a few toys picked up, a mop ran over the floor. A big clean (everything pulled out) is usually once a week. The kids help or just play around it.

We do have a cluttered house; it's big but we have a lot of stuff. I don't care if it's perfect or there's a bit of mud, but I don't want to have to spend my night or day off scrubbing and tidying up the day's mess. I'm far too lazy!

We did it today. Two people and we have just sat down. All traces of Christmas gone. It's very early for us, would usually wait till after NYE but other half is back to work Thursday and feels weird to still be decorated. Just waiting on the floors to dry.

I've seen some tiktoks on the lines if, don't put it there, put it away and that's working great for us too.

You need the Dana K White podcast or her book. It's called A Slob Comes Clean (the book is Decluttering at the speed of life).

She has a system for doing it little and often and it really works - the only thing you need to figure out ahead of time is a place that you can drop off assorted donations (or failing that a couple of easy drop locations for specific things). The biggest problem with decluttering is failing to actually get the stuff out of your house because you're thinking oh I'll put those on vinted/give it to X/I need to donate it to that specific thing which is a pain so I'll never actually do it.

Honestly changed my life! I have always been messy and disorganised. I am still messy and disorganised but my house isn't drowning in clutter any more. (Well, this side of Christmas it is but I don't feel worried about it).

I am following because I'm in the same position with 2 and 4 years old. I spend so much time in tidying up after them and doing laundry and working full time on but enough sleep that the bigger cleaning and tidying just doesn't get done.

I don’t is the long and short of it. It’s desperate bursts when they are in bed and it’s just all got too much, quick wins (sorting the recycling out, dusting etc.) otherwise it’s one of us taking a day off work whilst they are at school/nursery to do it, or one person taking them out at the weekend so the other can clean (but that’s a bit much to ask of the one with the kids as they are completely outnumbered and outgunned to be frank). I can sometimes get the toddler into nursery an extra day if they have capacity ad hoc and that helps. The bulk of my housework is done when they are in bed though, which also means I don’t get to hoover half as much as I would like.

Try not to compare with others though. Some people have higher needs children than others. Those with children that are able to play nicely alone with just a few toys will never understand.

I normally wait for my husband to be at work all day and the kids off so I've got no school run then spend all day tackling the clothes mountains. This isn't to say my husband does naff all, he's quite good at basic tidying and washing up just not the laundry mountains

I would tackle a deep declutter on a weekend where dh would take the kids out so I could get on with it.

Decluttering is almost pointless though id you don't also have a system for managing everything new that comes into the house, and good storage that makes sense to you and your family.

So declutter one day, work on the storage and system another day.

Or room by room in the evenings. Once it's done you shouldn't need to do it again for a good while.

Do it as you go along when the kids are there. For example, if the kids are playing in their room you do that room while they are in there. We have a lot of stuff but we try to keep things tidy by just putting stuff away as we go along, e.g. DD should put away things she’s not playing with if she wants to get more stuff out.

Also could you get your older child to help? Give them a bit of responsibility and maybe reward them for helping with the tidying.

Who is the “we” in “we have no help with childcare”? If you have a partner then surely they can look after the toddler sometimes? Or you clean once the toddler is in bed?

I used to do quite a bit as a SAHM with a toddler and a baby - it was done in small pieces. I never took a whole room apart. I’d do one cupboard or one drawer, or I’d just find twenty things to throw away and do that. Trying to do it as a massive project couldn’t be done, it had to be bite sized chunks. Sometimes the toddler or later preschooler “helped”. They definitely cleaned the skirting boards for me - handed them a damp cloth and off they went! Yes I then had to do it again but it kept them occupied.

I don’t have any childcare or family help nearby, but I was given advice a long time ago that said ‘if you want to feel like you’ve got more time as a mum, you must stop trying to do things WITHOUT your kids and find ways to do things WITH them instead’.

So for years I have roped the kids into, well, everything! When they were little they would unload the dishwasher while I cleaned the kitchen, or wipe the coffee table with a wet cloth while I hoovered the rug, etc. Initially you have to give them loads of instruction (and sometimes it would be quicker just to do it yourself!) but it’s worth the time investment to train them up.

Now they are tweens/early teens, they confidently know how to do things and can use all the household appliances like oven, dishwasher and washing machine so it’s really handy to be able to ask them to, say, pop a load of white washing on while I’m cooking dinner or pre-heat the oven and put the dinner on, if I am running late from work.

The thing I like is that not only do they learn loads about how to run a house/life, it means that my free time is truly free and I’m not running around trying to fill in with chores.
It also means we feel like a team; we are working together to keep the house nice and cook fun recipes!

For the record, I don’t ask them to do too much, and keep it all flexible (eg, if they are under the weather or revising for exams, I reduce their chores to almost zero so they aren’t overloaded). The way I explain it is that we all help and support each other.

I don't think people with non-clingy kids will get it, OP.

I basically used to take a day off work every now and then as annual leave. It's harder now I need my annual leave for school holidays. Now she's older, I can pay a film on or tell how how long I'll be, but she still likes to be with me a lot.

My 7 and 4 year old are getting used to tidying their own rooms and putting away. They're not perfect but they are definitely getting better. At least while they're tidying they're not sitting there, actively making it worse. Gamify it by turning it into a race or competition - who can put 10 items away the fastest.

I work from from home and partner works 7 day weeks/14 hours a day. It's a fricking nightmare at them moment, I'm not going to lie. I love my robot vaccuum though.

5 kids under 8, the house is always clean, even if it's got toys strewn about. I never tell the kids to pack up their toys because I want it tidy, I just tidy as we go and clean every night. The best thing is to reduce clutter

I get DD involved. She likes to wash up, she takes things to the washing machine. I chase her with the vacuum, and she gets things off the floor before the vacuum gets them. We sort together, she chooses what goes "to the babies" or what she keeps.

But the biggest thing is that DH does his part. He either takes DD while I do bigger jobs or he does them while I have her etc.

Do you have a partner who can take the kids out for a block of time?

I outsource it. Cleaner + professional home organiser.

Dilly Carter, the woman who works with Stacey Solomon on "Sort your life out", runs a course for women on becoming declutterers so loads are doing it now. You probably have one trained by her in your local area or nearest city.

They deal with how exactly to organise all toys, kitchen stuff etc, explain why it's best to do it that way, and bring all the containers and labels and such so you don't have to think about it/buy the wrong size/not buy enough. Then they sort all your stuff for you and it's done. Plus you get a second opinion on whether things are worth keeping or not instead of usual DH shrug.

Just get on with it. Honestly I wish I'd done that more as I now have a 6 year old who rarely entertains herself because she always had my attention and I'd do the housework on Saturdays when DH took her swimming

As Bertie Botts mentioned Dana K White.

YouTube, loads of free videos. 'Container concept' is a good one to start with.

she declutters, she doesn't pee around with pretty matching glass jars or get all anal sorting Lego by colour! She gets you clutter free without stress and without making it worse,

This is a great post and is how I've brought my kids up, the oldest three are teenagers and will load the dishwasher, cook or put a wash on if I need them to and it's just second nature to them now because they've been taught how since they were little. I also never paid them to do housework, we all live here so we all need to work together to keep the house going.

It's also proven very useful in the past few days as I've had food poisoning so they've had to fend for themselves a bit!

Taking annual leave for a big sort and deep clean is all you can do really. No ones ‘wants’ to take leave to clean, but you also don’t want a dirty, cluttered house – so there it is.

Where is your partner/husband in this equation?

I had a cleaner when my kids were very little. Now they are at school and I wfh Monday and Friday and spend an hour cleaning and tidying on each of those days from 8:30-9:30 while my DH takes the kids to school, before I start work. DH does all the laundry and bins daily.

I get mine involved, get them to do little jobs like taking laundry off the line, wiping down tables, putting stuff away.

We mainly use white vinegar to clean with so I don't mind giving the kids a spray bottle and a cloth. They usually turn it into a competition themselves to see who can clean something the quickest.