To think the daily routine is impossible. Disgusting house

[ComeOnNowww]

I want help! People's tips. I don't understand how people manage. I live in a fairly large old house.

This is my weekday routine

7am wake
7.30 - 8.30 getting kids ready for school (primary)
8.30 - 9.30 rush to office or back home to wfh.
9.30 - 5 work my arse off. Back to back meetings
5.30 pick up kids from after school
6 - 7 dinner
7 - 8 bath, bed
8 - 9 constantly put kids back to bed. Feel like tearing my hair out
9 - 9.30 basic tidy, dishwasher, check uniforms
9.30 - 10.30 try to do bits but in all honesty drink a wine and watch telly

My house is disgusting. I mean real mess. - my bathrooms are gross, dust everywhere. Im sprinting to stay still. Just about keep the show on the road but dusting, hoovering, proper cleans so hard to do

At the weekend, i do what i can. But all boys - primary school - and theyre so hyper. If I dont take them out they're out of control

What are other women doing? I dont know how womens homes look normal when they have young kids and work FT. My house is bad enough so id be embarrassed to let somone pop round. No parents. Husband MIA.

Practical tips? I feel like im missing something.

Cleaner. Deep clean first then four hours per week. £20 pr. It's saved me

I saw this woman once, pushing beautiful pram with a buggy board and a little girl in a beret hat, all dressed up smiling sweetly as her mother pushed her along. I just thought ‘you are having a very different experience of motherhood than me’

My sister has two boys and I completely understand where you are coming from, some children are a lot more work than others, won’t help, take every minute of your time and are just ‘high needs’ just surviving this is all you need to do, get a cleaner as a once off of you can’t afford it all the time but accept you have a lot on your plate and you are doing it solo. I admire you.

I had to get a work from home job and my lunch break is a write off. It is spent cleaning, doing laundry and admin. Means I can relax in the evenings. I would be the same as you if I worked in an office!

Declutter your stuff and the kids' stuff.

Have baskets in every room that you can dump random stuff into to access the floor to mop/hoover. If no one claims the stuff in the next month or so then it obviously wasn't that important and can be chucked/donated.

Keeping floors clear means you can get a robot hoover/mop.

Get a timer, set it for 15 minutes every day and blitz through as much cleaning as you can. Start with 10 minutes first if you're feeling overwhelmed.

Clean with your kids. They're still little so I get that they won't be much help, but clean while they're around and can see you doing it. Invite them to join you. Most kids want to spend time with their parents so there's a good chance they'll want to join in at some point even just for short bursts.

Think of small, specific tasks they can do - empty cutlery from dish washer, hang up clean socks on the washing line, spray the cleaning solution on a surface before you wipe it down (I use diluted vinegar so it's safe for kids to be around).

Make cooking/cleaning a fun, interactive activity where you and the kids spend time together. You don't always have to join them in their activities, they can also join you in yours.

If you put the effort into 'training' your kids now it will really pay off in a few years.

I recommend the book 'Hunt, gather, parent', it gave me loads of great ideas on how to raise happy, helpful kids.

Then of course it's also important to manage your expectations. Having a show home while working full time with 2 kids simply isn't achievable for the vast majority of us. You don't want to spend all your time thinking you should be doing more. That's where I find the 15 minute timer is useful. You clean for 15 minutes and then can stop guilt free.

Good luck.

All I can say to you OP is solidarity. I feel similar and I have a fully functioning husband who pulls his weight, so the position you are in is completely understandable.

I'm hoping to get a cleaner soon just to come and do the bathrooms and floors once a week. Then at least I know those are clean. Our bathrooms are awful, not helped by no one else 'seeing' the mess and me frequently losing my cool over it. Things like toilets just left dirty, used toilet rolls not put in the bin etc etc.

I can thoroughly recommend a cordless hoover. I got one from Bosch with two batteries, it was a couple of hundred pounds but has been a game changer for me, so much easier to just whizz it around.

And selling stuff on Vinted is great but actually it means you still have it hanging around the house, and then you have to find time to wrap/post etc. I have a big, large plastic box for things which I definitely want to sell but have recently started just giving stuff to charity. Yes the money would be nice but my sanity is more important.

Lastly, just want to say that you're not wrong for allowing yourself some time in the day. Otherwise, you will burn out and then that's no good to anyone. So enjoy that wine and telly, you need it. 💐

£320 a month on a cleaner is far too much for most though, I would say.

Get a cleaner

Actually, just thought, when my daughter was younger, we had a plastic box in the bathroom and all her bath toys etc would be thrown into that. It didnt look as nice as them all being neatly sorted and lined up but it was quick and easy to keep the bath clear and the bathroom neat.

Now we have a big lidded box in the living room for her. Although she is 15, sometimes it just isn't worth the arguments so anything she leaves out, gets thrown into the box. Not sorted or tidied, literally just swept into it. Keeps everything tidy. She moans about it but I'm not running around after her and nor am I living surrounded by beads and scraps of paper and other random stuff that she is "too tired" to put away.

Maybe having boxes in each room to do this would help with your house?

And, a cordless vacuum for quick jobs. We have a Henry but I can't be bothered getting him out just to deal with a spilt packet of crisps on the sofa so I use the cordless for that. I think it is classed as a car vacuum.

Well done to you for keeping everything else together. 🙌It's great that you take them out at the weekend - so much more important and will be memorable for them, rather than if you just focused on keeping a clean house.
Ooh maybe one tip could be to run a dust cloth over the bathroom while they're in the bath? (If they're still of that age when you're in the room with them - sorry I haven't read the whole thread.)

I really struggle too and wonder the same, I have 3 primary aged children and a husband who does way more than his share but it's like trying to bail out water on the titanic with a shot glass. We work from home, but even then we are paid to do our jobs not do house jobs/clean, and a cleaner wouldn't work if we are both in the house trying to work besides, they only clean too, they don't tidy, do washing, put clothes away and the million other jobs that need doing, the actual cleaning bit is the easy part I find, the house isn't dirty it's more stuff everywhere for us! Our children have multiple activities every night too so we don't even have time in the evening to catch up, we are literally drowning! Weekends are the same, activities, parties and actually trying to see friends and family, shopping or having the odd family day out. It's intense. I honestly don't know how people with busy ft jobs and multiple children do it? There just aren't enough hours in a week to do everything and clean and tidy the house!

When is the lazy lumo leaving? Why can’t he clean up his house? I’d tell him I’ve invited his family the weekend for dinner, see if it’ll shift him. In all seriousness I would drag him off the sofa.

I don't think anyone CAN realistically do it all and have much of a life of their own when working those hours with kids of that age. If possible I'd cut my hours and / or pay for a cleaner. I would definitely do without luxuries to achieve a better life/work balance.

One problem might be that you are naturally more of a night owl so are acting against your natural rhythm which really doesn’t help. It means that suggestions like getting up at 6 are really not easy. You really do need your down time hour but maybe have a 15 minute burst of activity between then and bed.
Suspect that the issue is tidiness rather than manky dirty and cleaning is infinitely easier when there is less clutter so tackle stuff first. Listing things brings it’s own work so concentrate on getting stuff out of the house.
You need bin bags and boxes of some sort. Pick a room and start with it. Everything that shouldn’t be in that room either goes in the bin, in a box to go upstairs or a box of stuff that needs to be considered. Nice boxes for the last category mean that they can sit out till sorted and used later as needed. Then a session of putting the stuff away where it belongs. At some point you may need to tidy storage if you can’t fit any more in, but tidying rooms is more satisfying as it is more visible.
If you can then at the weekend task your husband with taking the kids out to take thing to the charity shop and tip (energetic children love throwing things into the the big skips at the tip) then he can take them to the park/swimming/whatever and for lunch.
I would try to get as much done before you split as possible so that as you clear areas you can get a cleaner etc while there are still two incomes coming in.
Not a fast process but worth plugging away at.

Just get a cleaner. Even 2 hours a week would make a difference

Yes, exactly this. We both work full time, plus overtime. 3 kids. So in reality I know that’s why the house looks shit.

I do wonder how other people seem to keep such a tidy place. But there is always a reason. Some people work from home for example, so the time i’d save on not commuting I could have hoovered/washed up/cleaned bathrooms etc etc

Cleaner once a fortnight for sure, in between, robo vacs are absolute game changers. One for each floor. Its amazing how much better the house looks when the floors are clean. Amazon prime day is on right now and has some good deals on them. If you're not a member you can do a free month trial and get the deals

Wipes for the bathrooms, quick wipe round when you've finished, or while the kids are in the bath. Flash dust magnet for everywhere else, there's no need to do it all in one go, just flick round one room a day for five minutes or so and you'll see a huge difference. Clean as you go in the kitchen.

How arent you having screaming rows with your lazy arse of a husband every evening?

tell him to get off his lazy arse and do some bloody work! Stop being nice!!!

It’s really tough OP, you have my sympathies. What will happen with custody when you divorce, will the children stay with him sometimes? This might give you an opportunity to get some things done around the house. And there will be one less person making mess. You could also consider downsizing to a more manageable house after the divorce perhaps.

Posting for the tips. Baby twins and a 2 year old. My house is rank and we are constantly in a cycle of absolute mess, big clean, slow return to mess and the mess stress until we find some time to do it and even then it’s one room! There is no time!

I do the basics in the evening if I have enough energy. I regularly invite people round on a Saturday afternoon which gives me the incentive to do a bit more proper cleaning on a Friday night Saturday morning. I could do with a cleaner but I begrudge the money and never found them that effective

Sorry for your useless husband.
My too tip is to ask the children to tidy or clean something after dinner and before dessert- you can only have dessert once you have tidied X Y and Z- works a charm for my 3 and 4 year old however all the toys are jumbled in the ikea trofasts we have but you can’t have everything. It looks tidy from the outside.
We also have a robot vacuum and i tell them the robot is going on in half an hour if it’s not picked up off the floor the robot will eat it.

Single parent here. Working full time.
I clean little and often.

saturday mornings do a deeper clean while they play.
bath time- clean the bathroom whilst they are in the bath then clean the bath and shower as they are in bed
sweep every day- only takes a few minutes
wash up and clean kitchen whilst cooking dinner

The little wins go a long way.

Put your foot down with your husband. He either pulls his weight or he gets out.

Practical tips? I feel like im missing something.

Stop posting on mumsnet and use the time for housework? 😛

I remember Laura Anderson posting highly cultivated / edited videos about her scanty time for skin care, now she is a mother.

I thought: maybe cut back on the video editing and social media empire, Laura, and you would have ample time for skincare 🙄

I'd focus on (1) better bedtime routine and (2) ruthless decluttering. Mostly, my house is pretty neat and tidy because everything belongs somewhere

If / when you separate, will you move to a smaller house? That might be more manageable ie fewer rooms to clean

You have three hours between getting home and the kids going to sleep - what about cleaning the kitchen whilst you are already in the kitchen with dinner on/supervising the kids eating. Cleaning bathrooms whilst they are in the bath, or pottering in and out tidying/cleaning bedrooms. If they are in and out between 8 & 9, could you stay upstairs and clean/tidy in between?

If they are up a lot, it could be that they are not tired enough for bed at 8 - you might get more peace letting them play downstairs in the living room until 9 and getting some chores down upstairs? Then blitz downstairs after they are in bed. Some children just don't need a lot of sleep - my 13 month old only averages 11 hours in 24.