to wonder if there is a mimum standard of housework to be done each day

[ben10isgr8]

I am just being nosey really .

I am aware everyone has different time, responsibilities, capabilities etc but is there a generally agreed minimum expectation of what should be done daily?

I have ds (3yr 6mo)and dd (15mo) DH works m-f 06:30 till 19:00 and I work one 13hr shift at the weekend.

For various reasons I like my house to be tidy...I don't mean totally gleaming palace like...just tidy!.

Every day I get up tidy the beds and see to the childrens breakfast, get them washed and dressed then leave them playing about while I empty/fill the dishwasher, (just got one and I am very overexcited about it so had to fit it in somewhere)sort washing, read mail and watch The Wright Stuff

By the time that is done, (with stops to sort out squabbles, get toys, wipe noses, change poo nappies etc) It is time to make lunch 11:00 so they are fed and tidied again by 12:00 ready to take ds to nursery at 12:30.

Then it's home to settle dd for nap and I get my lunch then spend the 1 hr remaining before I wake dd up to collect ds watching CSI/ reading a book/ going on MN or something I want to do

After school activity depends on what needs done, e.g shopping, tidy the house, change beds, updating a topic on MN . The kids have a snack then play outside/ do arts and crafts etc while I get stuff done.

At 17:00ish I cook our dinner and they play while I sort the kitchen and cook dh dinner. When dh comes home he plays with the kids then has dinner and catches up with email while I tidy the toys and get the kids ready for bed.

20:00 the kids go to bed and I load the dishwasher, tidy the books, clothes etc then we sit with a cuppa T and catch up.

Cleaning wise I spend my days keeping on top of things so the house stays relatively tidy and over two afternoons I do a full clean: dusting cellings and skirtings, washing fingerprints off doors, (lot's of glass doors) and windows, change beds, thorough bathroom clean, brush and wash floors.

This week I haven't been feeling well, (bad cold) so haven't bothered with the big clean and holy crap my floors look minging, (which makes my house look dirty despite the frequent tidying), and I feel really guilty...and feel guilty for feeling guilty.

Do you try for a daily minimum or just go with the flow? Am I a crazy ott person or just average? and Why do I feel so guilty when my house isn't clean?

We moved into our house five years ago. Neither of us has ever removed a cobweb. But as neither of us spend any time on the ceiling I can't see it matters.

Dishwasher - once a day, or when full
Laundry - once a day, or when DS has no clean bibs
Bathroom - when we have guests
Hoovering - DP, once a week
Dusting - when I can see it move in the breeze from the hoover
Kitchen - rough once over each day, floor mopped once a week

We are all in rude health, and no-one has so far stopped visiting due to embarrassing filth. I regard both as a triumph.

Scientific support for anyone who doesn't make the beds

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4181629.stm

Thing is, I don't care if my house is untidy, and don't see why I should. Housework, more than the absolute minimum to keep rats and smells down (and have clean clothes) is something that is only worth doing if you actually like the end result. Whereas I really don't think it;s as important as having the time to do other things.

After reading all the posts...some of them had me PMSL...I re-read mine and it sounds like my life is very scheduled and cleaning orientated which it really isn't.

Weekdays tend to follow more of a routine than weekends and what happens in reality is that day to day tasks (which are inbuilt in me and mothing to do with expectations from DH) are spread over a whole day with constant interruptions / breaks to play, visit friends, play dates etc. I don't stay in until all work is done and if we have plans or visitors everything is left till the next day IYSWIM.

As ppers have said I like to keep on top of things so it never becomes too messy.

At weekends the clothes get washed and house is kept tidy but nothing else gets done because we have one day as a family and it is spent visiting grandparents, swimming etc.

On my work day DH deals with the kids and house. Today he did washing, brushed and mopped the minging floors, washed the skirtings and loaded the dishwasher.

I hate ironing and tend to wash and put away our clothes but iron DC things weekly (ish). Dh irons our clothes at the weekend.

I am organised, (house clutter free, wardrobes tidy, toys in boxes etc)because my dad was in the RAF and constant packing etc has made it a habit.

I like my house tidy because my dad was heart lazy and wouldn't lift a finger while my mum worked all hours so couldn't tidy and our house was filthy, (4 people and 11 cats in a 3 bed flat phew!). I couldn't bring friends to visit because I was ashamed. Mum started paying me to clean the house and help with march out clean when we moved , (white glove test etc) so it also is now a habit.

Pre kids my house was immaculate and I thought I worked hard the 2 hours per week it took to clean it from top to bottom. Ahh how stupid I was then. I have let my excessively high standard slide now...huge step for me.

I hate the feeling of living in a dirty house because of those two reasons. That is just me though!

I get annoyed with myself because of feeling guilty/uncomfortable with the mess and would love to say it isn't important, life is too short but I need to tidy!

I am in the middle of changing this, really...

Have started using flylady because I too grew up in a messy, filthy house where I couldn't have anyone over.. and because I find being organised hard at work too, which is far more problematic than at home. So going to use matleave to try and retrain myself and get into the habits of using lists/keeping things ticking over before I have a bigger, messier child to take care of! Otherwise the place will totally disintegrate!

mrsbean78 - I think that's an interesting point. I grew up in a clean, tidy, organised home and it certainly taught me useful organisational skills that serve me well in life in general, in particular at work.

My DD's class teachers always remark on how organised she is - and are well aware that she must live in an organised home.

MY DP and I both do the cleaning and washing- he is in charge of laundry (about 5 loads a week) He irons things as soon as they are dry before he goes to work/ when he comes home -as he works shifts.

I hoover daily, dust weekly and no dishes/ things on surfaces/ things out of lace before we go to bed- I ensure the house is spotless before he comes home from work and he cleans up after we eat our evening meal and puts everything away

I love my house and enjoy cleaning it

I wish that my parents (I typed "my mother" but why?) had taught me housekeeping. My mother loathed housekeeping and cooking, and although we were well fed with a clean enough home, she hated it so much that I think she felt she was doing me a favour by not burdening me with the same expectations.

But I am domestic to the core, the thing I find hardest about having a young clingy child is my inability to clean, and I had to teach myself everything.

I'll teach all my kids household skills. My in-laws taught my husband, and although that should be the norm, it's not - so I'm grateful to them.

I seem to spend my life doing laundry but the ironing pile still manages to nearly hit the ceiling on a regular basis. Possibly because I'm far keener on throwing clothes in the washing machine than ironing the end result.

Other than that, I do things as and when I see that they need doing. The kitchen floor tends to get swept almost every day, the washing up gets done by DH every day, and the sitting room is tidied of toys every evening. That's about it for regular daily chores.

There are occasions when the table hasn't been wiped and the sticky bits make me feel slightly ashamed, but really those times are few and far between. (the feeling ashamed bit, that is.)

But all of you who spend so much time on housework, think of how much free time you'd have if you didn't!

I think if you relax your standards life will be a lot more enjoyable.

Low standards doesn't mean more enjoyment in my book! Without needing to be a housework obsessive, I enjoy living in a clean, tidy, organised home. It makes a relaxing and comfortable contrast with the mess of the outside world .

I have been reading this thread with interest as I have always felt I was extremely slack in the cleaning department and am constantly ashamed that my house is not 'good enough'. I particularly hate that I don't to get enough time to clean (dust and vacuum) the upstairs as often as I would like.

I have 3 dcs (8, 6 and 15 months) and my routine changes day to day and week to week, depending on what I have on, but generally it involves:

• Cleaning the bathroom every morning after everyone has made a mess with toothpaste and soap etc.
• Cleaning the toilet and sink in the downstairs toilet room every morning and the toilet again regularly throughout the day as and when it needs it.
• Vacuuming the whole of the downstairs every day or more often if someone is visiting. (I have three dogs, carpet in living room and quarry tiles everywhere else).
• Washing up what seems like a million times a day (no dishwasher).
• Cleaning the kitchen (sink and drainer, surfaces, fridge-freezer door, oven door, hob, wipe kettle etc) every day. Then keeping on top of it (wiping surfaces etc) as the day goes on.
• Doing 1-2 loads of washing/drying/putting away a day, depending on how much there is. Unfortunately, I am having to hot wash my poor little old lady dog's bed every morning at the moment, as she is ill and has started wetting at night and at the same time my eldest is waiting for a coeliac test and because he is on gluten for the test he is currently wetting the bed almost every night, so I have a load of his bedding to wash every day as well (any my washing machine broke down yesterday - aaargh!).
• I loathe ironing with a passion, so only iron things that really need it (uniforms, pe kits, cotton items etc) and then only as and when their needed rather than having an ironing pile.
• I tend to dust the living room 2-3 times a week and the bedrooms once a week if I get chance .
• We all air our beds every morning when we get up.
• Then before I collect boys from school, I make their beds, put pjs, dressing gowns and favourite cuddly on their pillows and lay out their after school clothes at the foot of the bed and whip around their room putting everything that's out of place in a pile for them to put away when they come home.

By bedtime our bed is usually covered in several piles of things I have taken upstairs to be sorted/put away and then not had enough time to deal with. Depending on what the piles consist of, they either get sorted then or put on the chest of drawers so I can collapse get into bed.

That said, today I am doing very little other than a quick whizz around as I have given myself permission to rest as it is the first day the boys are back at school after a manic week involving both of their birthday parties. Hence, being on MN at 10.30 in the morning. (I have already vacuumed downstairs, done the bathroom and toilet, washed-up and done a quick clean of the kitchen though, as well as starting my new exercise regime with a walk around the block after the school run.)

I'm 37 weeks pregnant so am doing the BARE minimum right now. Every day I MUST:

• clean cat litter tray (I know pregnant and all but the hosue stinks every morning but that's another thread)
• hoover kitchen floor as the cats have spat cat food all over it in the night, I do these two things the minute I get up
• empty and reload dishwasher (will leave it for DP to empty when he gets in)
• do at least one washing and either put it out or hang it up to dry
• make beds
• tidy living room and hoover if I am up to it (cat hairs)
• tidy round kitchen (DP will wash the floor every second day at present)
• clean dining table at least 3 times a day and the highchair

Moosemama - you're SLACK?? Good grief. I think I dust upstairs maybe once every six months.

My mum also loathed housework, and had a cleaner from the moment she got married. It think it was also a kind of feminist thing: she didn't see why she should do it when my dad didn't, so they both paid for a cleaner.

Maybe that's why I've never had it drilled into me that my duty is to keep a nice tidy house. I suppose when I was young it all seemed to just magically happen without any visible effort!

My eyes just don't seem to work like all you tidy types. Wherever I go mess seems to accumulate, which I don't notice, until one day the scales fall from my eyes and I start scrubbing the seal of the dishwasher, or ridding the lampshades of cobwebs.

Must drive my relatively clean and tidy DP mad.

Oh and the solution to the ironing pile? Don't do it. My DP irons his work shirts, everything else doesn't get done. Once a month I might iron something just before I put it on. But I suppose this will change when DS gets to school age and refuses to go to school in a crumpled shirt.

But I like ironed stuff!!!

aH see, despite my tidy ways, I am not an ironer.

I iron DS's school shirts. That's it.

If DH wants his shirts ironed he can do it. I hate doing it, stuff looks fine after you have been wearing it for half an hour.

OP, you and your DH work less than us and we get more done and even so, my mother thinks my house is minging.

DH works 8-7 mon fri and sat/sun afternoons. I work 9-5 mon fri.

I have a 26 month old dd who wakes 6am and goes to bed at 11pm (regardless of what we do, terrible sleeper, really hyperactive, never get 2 mins to myself...)

before work - make beds, tidy bathroom, put washing on, make breakfasts, hang up some washing, hoover, maybe wash floors, declutter, wash breakfast dishes, shower, dry/straighten hair, dress me and dd, do make up, open windows for fresh air

after work - go to shops, pick up dd, prepare dinner, cook dinner, wash dishes, clean kitchen, hoover again, do more laundry, hang up laundry, do some ironing (or send it to ironing company seeing as dd always in the way which is not safe), bathe dd, play with dd, wash floors, dust, clean sticky doors, remove crayon from walls, rearrange furniture (getting walls painted), build furniture (for dd's room)

and that was all today, by myself.

Just reading this thread is making me feel slutty.

We don't do much cleaning. Growing up, my Mum had a fridge magnet that said "Quiet now cobwebs, dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep". I've always remembered it.

DH and I share all the housework 50/50 (He's in full-time paid work, 9am - 5/6pm; I'm at home with dd, 15mo, full-time, plus some freelance work at weekends).

• Every morning we make our bed (straighten duvet), unload the dishwasher in kitchen.

• By the end of every day, we make sure the kitchen surfaces are clean and the dishwasher is on. Toys in living room tidied away.

• I put a wash on about 2-3 times a week. If it's bleak winter, I use the tumble dryer, rest of the year, hang it in the garden. Or I sometimes leave the clothes wet in the washing machine for a day forgetful emoticon

• DH hoovers downstairs every other day, and mops twice a week, including cleaning sofas, rugs, chairs etc (we have a dog)

• Bedding and towels washed once a week.

• Bathrooms get done about once a month . Upstairs gets hoovered and mopped about once a month too.

• Windows, once every year, or two?

• I clean the kitchen cupboards every couple of weeks. Mirrors around the house maybe a bit less often. Never seen a cobweb here, don't own a duster.

We live in a new house (overseas) which has tiled floors downstairs and wooden upstairs, white walls throughout, very light and airy. Somehow the house does a sneaky job of looking deceptively clean - our guests always comment on how sparkling it is. Thank you house!

(Disclaimer. I would like more cleaning done, in an ideal world. We used to live in Africa, and had full-time house staff. They cleaned every inch from top to bottom, daily. And cleaned up after our house parties. Shame it was wasted on me and DH, as it was pre-kids).

This is as good a thread as any to ask:

Howwwwwww do you all get so much done with awake toddlers about the place? Mine will happily play outside while I hang out washing, and I can get her interested in a few chores if I let her 'help', but that's it. I can't load and unload the dishwasher because she'll grab glasses and break them, I can't wash up by hand because she'll grab my legs and whine and cry, if I walk out of the room she's in she tends to panic so tidying is really difficult, she pulls things off shelves as fast as I put them back on, and if I try and wash floors she'll try and drink the soapy water.

Do I just have a particularly clingy 16 month old? I'm reading all this stuff about how much you get done with children the same age as mine, and feeling a bit hopeless. It doesn't help that she only naps on a lap or in the car, so no real break during the day.

moosemama, while you're whipping round the house tidying beds and washing a million dishes, what is your 15 month old doing? I can't help feeling like I'm missing something.

Tortoise - I can't do anything with my toddler in the day either.

That's why DH and I split it all between us in the evening, once she's gone to bed. And why we don't do that much to start with. Oh, and I might - at the most - load the dishwasher while she's having an afternoon nap, but that time is sacred 'me' time!

I prefer it this way - I get to concentrate on my day job, which is looking after dd, and it ensures an even split of housework in the evenings (I'm talking about half an hour before we go to bed though - it really doesn't eat into mine and DH's evening time either).

I love this thread - has actually made me go and do some housework - although not nearly as much as some of you !

Scottishmummyofone - do you really wash floors twice a day ???

scottishmummy - I'm curious, what do you do with DD when doing all that? Maybe you're lucky she still can't move, but there's no way I can get anything done with DS (2) running around taking things out of cupboards/hanging onto my legs/wailing etc!

Tortoise, I am lucky, as I have a very cooperative, not very whiney 15 month old. She is happy to sit in her high chair with some toys or her favourite a piece of paper and some chunky drawing pencils while I do the kitchen/dishes etc. We also do a lot of singing songs while I work in there and I spend a lot of time jumping about and being daft whilst doing the dishes etc to entertain her.

She can't go on the floor in the kitchen because we have three dogs and I am a firm believer that babies and dogs don't mix, so as when I'm doing housework and can't be watching her 100% of the time she has to be ... er ... contained. The two bigger dogs spend much of their time outside, but my oldest dog is terminally ill and I would be concerned not only about her reaction to dd possibly harassing her, but also about her need for quiet and security at this stage of her life.

Dd has a toybox and bookshelves in the living room and we have a tiny house, so although there is a gate between the kitchen and living room, I am only a couple of feet away from her when in the kitchen and she is happy to play on her own sometimes.

I also tend to do a bit, then stop and play with her or read a book then do a bit more. She also has a two hour nap in the middle of the day, which is a godsend and I tend to get all of the things I would find difficult with her around then.

She also has a strange obsession with clothes, particularly hats, so when I am sorting the washing I give her a little pile of her own to screw up fold.

When I'm tidying or putting clothes away upstairs I put some toys in her cot and again we tend to sing songs as I go along. We don't have a stairgate upstairs at the moment as her brothers broke it, so I daren't let her free range up there until we have a new one.

I know it probably sounds like a do a lot, but honestly I don't. I spend a lot of time, reading, singing and playing with dd and we go for walks together etc. I find that things just have to be done in bite sized chunks rather than huge intensive cleaning sessions. I suppose after 3 dcs it has just become habit for me.

Oh yes, she can move - boy can she move! She's been walking since the week of her first birthday and is shockingly fast when she makes up her mind to go. Is been quite a surprise for us, as both her brothers walked early but were positively lazy by comparison.