To wonder if there’s any point to a cleaner with under 5s?

[summerstarts]

I’m trying to think of how to manage workload and a cleaner seems the obvious place to start but with two young children I’m not sure there’s any point. I’d have to tidy up before they came, and the house would be messed up again within a matter of hours.

I’d love to say it’ll be worth it but I’m not convinced the few hours of coming home to a tidy house are worth it!

Might be messy again quickly but the house will at least be clean and messy?

We’ve always had a cleaner. Yes, you have to tidy up but that’s not a bad thing and at least you know that it’s clean underneath. Cleaning bathrooms and kitchens with small children following you is no fun either.

This.

It will really help you to keep on top of things, but no your home is not going to look immaculate.

we have started back with a cleaner once a week again recently. Ours are 2 and 5, and I’d been avoiding it on the same basis. However it’s been great - yes it still gets messy/untidy but at least I know it’s clean underneath! I’d always said it was the tidying that bothered me and I actually quite enjoy the cleaning bit but I was finding it hard to carve out time to first tidy, then clean. We do the pre-cleaner tidy the night before and then I get to come home from work to an immaculate house which is blissful.

For us it means the reset button gets hit once a week and we’re then more motivated to tidy and keep on top of it. I’ve used some of the time it’s freed up to declutter which has helped make the tidying a less arduous process!

it helps that our cleaners are pretty good about doing little bits of tidying / extra bits I don’t ask for. Our utility was a dumping ground when they started which I told them not to worry about and to just leave it. I came home one week and they had tidied it all and cleaned it which was so lovely.

has also meant more time to do the deeper cleaning bits like carpet cleaning/cleaning out the fridge which I was struggling to get round to.

It is sooooo worth it.

If nothing else, it means that everything gets tidied up, put away etc at least once a week.

And then depending on what you agree with your cleaners, you might never have to fold and put away washing again. Or never have to change the bed linens etc.

I have a 3yo and a 2yo and we both work full-time. I've finally arranged a weekly cleaner starting next week and I cannot wait.

Yes, my house will always be messy but lately it's gotten so grubby too. It's just gotten away from me and I have no time to properly get on top of it!

It's never going to be a show house at this stage of our lives. I'll tidy as best I can the night before she comes, but she has three kids herself and said she knows what it's like and not to worry too much. She asked if I'd mind if she organised the toys a bit...I think I already love her 😅 I'm SO excited to come home from work on Tuesday!

Don’t know how to vote, as the options aren’t clear, but I definitely recommend a cleaner if you can afford it. We’ve had one since our two were very small and it has been amazing!

’Clean’ and ‘tidy’ are different things. Yes, you’ll have to run around manically once a week/fortnight but then you’ll have a clean and, very briefly, tidy house.

Why not get a housekeeper who tidies for you as well as cleans? Ours is a godsend.

Interesting as I find the cleaning can be done super quickly but not the tidying!

Worth it! As said before, a cleaner cleans: bathrooms, kitchens, floors… you can also ask them to strip and change the beds. The mess on top is just that - mess, and the toys and junk can be thrown into a toy box (your kid can walk they can help with this; make it a game)!

I find a cleaner super helpful. I found the house stays tidier because you know the cleaner will be coming (ours comes 3x a week). And at the very least they can focus on the deep clean stuff so that you don’t have to do it. I’m a big believer of buying back your time (so to speak) when the children are small and found a cleaner to be so helpful

Erm.... there has never been more point i do think you need

A. Decent storage solutions
B. To train your kids to tidy up (my 2 and 4 yr know they must tidy away toys before new ones come out. If they want to leave out toys overnight they ask and they put their own plates cutlery and cups in the dishwasher or sink)
C. regular declutters. i do about 2 bin bags per month

Our does 5 hrs and sometike does bed stripping and making.
I would give up a lot before the cleaner

definitely worth it. if the cleaner spends 4 hours doing kitchen, bathrooms and hoovering, that saves you 4 hours per week do to something more interesting. maybe even 6 hours per week because she can work faster and isn't distracted by the kids.

A cleaner won’t tidy for you. Maybe get done large tubs to put the kids stuff in and then pack it away once the cleaner has been. My cleaner focuses on bathrooms, bedrooms and vacuuming and I do the rest. You can clean the kitchen and living areas around your kids.

The problem is they do roam through the house rather. It isn’t just toys though. The house isn’t necessarily hugely untidy but it takes a lot of effort to keep it that way and I feel like I spend my life cleaning and tidying only to have to do it again in a matter of hours.

I think what I want is just an extended period where it stays clean and tidy but that’s probably just not family life!

My Mum had a cleaner when I was little. Mum didn't believe in chores, in her opinion a child's job was to play. When I started school, my Mum started a PGCE so she had a lot of work, Dad worked all week so the housework got a bit on top of them so they employed a cleaner of our rooms were tidy she would hoover them of not she left them. When we got older she didn't mind asking us to help out so we kept on top of it together and didn't need a cleaner.

Definitely get a cleaner. If the tidying part stresses you out, just hire them for the rooms that are easier to tidy e.g. bathroom, hallways, kitchen, dining room. Plus changing the bed linen.

The toy-heavy rooms they can leave, and you will have more energy to deal with those areas yourself once someone else is taking care of the other stuff.

You have to see it as what it is (2-3 hours of your time saved) rather than how long it lasts.

The house is going to have to be cleaned so it's either you/DH doing it or a cleaner.

Unless you feel that there's a synergy in cleaning as you tidy? This is the conclusion I drew recently, that the incremental time for me to clean as I tidied, was less than the number of hours I had to pay a cleaner to separately clean.

Your house probably isn't as clean as you think it is. How often do you clean the windows, radiators, skirting boards, bins, kitchen cabinets, hoover the edges? Having a cleaner makes it so much easier to keep on top of that stuff, it either frees up your time to do the bigger stuff or get the cleaner to do a deep clean a few times a year.

My cleaner has left to have a baby and I'm missing her so much!

The key is having systems to keeping the place tidy too, all toys away at the end of the night, dishwasher emptied, laundry laid away etc.

Yes, there probably is something in that!

@NameChangeScot I don’t know any cleaners who do that! Most of them want to whizz in and out asap so that while it’s superficially clean it isn’t like you’ve mentioned.

What I meant was you can either get the cleaner to do a deep clean a few times a year - usually an extra service, for example we get one while we're on holiday and before Xmas. Or if your house is generally kept on top of by the cleaner, then you should have more time to do those bigger jobs yourself.

At that stage I had a cleaner who tidied. She was worth every penny. You just need to find someone willing to do that, abd be realistic about what’s possible in the timeframe.

They will do as you ask OP as long as you pay for it. You could ask for deep cleaning of one room at a time and over weeks or monthly have a full once over. If you are OK with the daily or weekly quick cleans yourself. Your house will probably still be messy but a clean mess is better than a dirty one. The extra time could be spent on those tricky jobs only you can do like organising clothes or toys. Maybe spend time buying or finding storage solutions that lead to a less messy house

Then you should declutter. If tidying is taking too long then you have too much stuff

I love having a cleaner. Massive reduction in the mental load. House permanently "clean enough" (loos, floors etc.). We don't worry about people popping in unexpectedly. It might be messy (we have small children) but it's hygienic!