If you have small children AND a clean house, how?

[Hopefully]

I mean actual logistics. Do your kids help? Do they watch tv? Do you do it while they're at nursery/school or whatever? Do you let them whine at your ankles?

Ds1 is 3 and will 'help' for a while, but not long enough to get everything done. DS2 (8 months) will watch for a while then whine/sob I give up.

My current technique is to live in a shit pot then put the tv on for a couple of hours a week and get everything done, but I'm not really loving of as a long term plan as (a) I hate dcs watching too much tv and (b) we live in a bit of a pigsty until it gets so bad that I give in and put the tv on again.

Do you have a routine? A good strategy? We can't afford a cleaner...

Help!

I have a 2 yo DD and a 6 mo DS.

On a good day what I do is this, Get up at 6am, shower and dress.

Empty dishwasher, Chuck food into slowcooker, Have breakfast whilst doing a bit of MNing and watching the news.

Children get up, feed them then let them play in the living room while I make beds, hang up wet washing,put away dry washing. That's me done for the daytime bar putting dishes into dishwasher.

After dinner, The tv goes on and I wipe down the kitchen and chuck all toys back in the toy boxes. Put a load of washing in the machine and put the dishwasher on.
Bathroom gets wiped down/tidied when the children are in the bath.
When the children are in bed I do half an hour of admin stuff, bill payments, online shopping.

Then It's my time.
DH hoovers most days and together we give the house good clean and change the beds at the weekend (1 hour max)

The house is messy during the day if we are in all day but who cares, I feel I do enough as it is and am not doing any more than that.

tethersend - apologies. I may have given the wrong impression when I said dining room. In reality, it was a garage converted without planning permission in a rented semi and benefiting from an open sewer running under the laminate floorboards.

We only found that out after 2 years when the surveyor condemned the house as unfit to live in.

Jingle no that's one of the ones that takes longer

Only teasing, MB

tethersend - no offence taken.

Wow, loads of replies, thanks! Just starting to read through them all now...

Great idea to clean bathroom while they're in the bath - especially as I can pass that responsibility to DH who does bathtime.

pursang fab idea to fake it! Might set up an emergency bowl under the sink for exactly that purpose.

Think I will buy everyone slippers for Christmas, then I can instigate no shoes in the house - we are lazy about this and it really shows

We are in the midst of a massive declutter ATM, good to know that will help. DCs already have fewer toys than all their friends!

I would love to do washing up etc while they eat, but our house has a separate dining room (which I hate, planning on open plan house when we move on the spring), and kitchen is round a corner, so can't watch them and wash up.

I visited a friend last week with two DCs the same age, a DH who works long hours, no cleaner and a house that is infinitely cleaner and tidier than mine. And she finds time to play with her children etc.

I like to think she's surviving on about 14 minutes' sleep every night.

Child cages and blinkers so you can't see the mess.

I was actually much tidier when ds was little than I am now he is 10.

I had wicker baskets for toys - so they could just be dumped in but still looked nice - encouraged ds to put his toys away from the age of about 18months - 2yrs.

Little and often is the key I found, no good leaving it all until it gets on top of you.

De clutter OFTEN!