Cleaning Expectations

[Tapandshine]

I often see memes on social media about how our children don't care if our houses are clean and it's more important to play with them.
I absolutely agree that it's important to prioritize play. However, I was a child who grew up in an unclean house. My mother and father never cleaned and I was embarrassed to have friends over. In my teens, my boyfriend used to clean my bedroom whenever he came over which was very embarrassing-I never had a clue where to start.
As an adult who juggles work and looking after young DCs, I have employed a cleaner for 2 years. Obviously, with Covid, I am now having to clean my own house.
Both DH and I are juggling working from home and childcare (v young DCs). I have scheduled in cleaning the house once a week, every week.
We live in a fairly large house- 3 double bedrooms, a box room, 2 bathrooms, downstairs toilet, 1 large reception room/dining room, 2 smaller reception rooms, kitchen and utility room.
I am cleaning upstairs myself every Saturday afternoon whilst DH occupies the DCs, then after the DCs are in bed, DH and I are tackling the downstairs together.
We are doing a full clean each week. I spend 1.5 hours upstairs (includes tidying) and we do just over 1.5 hours between us downstairs (includes tidying). Also there is more to clean due to messy fingerprints on windows, door frames etc because we're all at home together.
DH is clearly feeling resentful of my cleaning expectations and says that he "doesn't notice dust" and that "dusting is a completely waste of time." He is only having help me clean once a week downstairs only. I am doing the rest, but have to admit I am fairly exhausted afterwards.
When I speak to other parents, they're not putting aside 3-4 hours for cleaning each week now that the kids are at home and have said they are "coping with the mess." I am doing the same for most of the week but really love that full house clean feeling and going downstairs on a Monday morning with the house smelling and looking so lovely and clean is such a great feeling. I also don't want to live in a filthy house ever again.
DH however seems pissed off that I'm expecting him to contribute to the weekly full house clean especially in the evenings when he wants to put his feet up (so do I).

I have tried the OMM but it's not for me as finding small pockets of time is much harder than finding a chunk of time with my DCs.
What do you think of my cleaning expectations? Too much?
My concern is that doing it in smaller bursts will result in me having to do it all in the evenings and having zero time to myself.
What does everyone else do?

I don't think your standards are unreasonable - you sound similar to me. But at the same time we're not in a normal situation so it stands to reason that you need to either relax your expectations, or be prepared to spend more time cleaning.

Normally our cleaner comes once a week for 3 hours (similar sized house), so in order to get that nice 'entire house sparkling' feeling, I'd have to spend that amount of time PLUS normal tidying / decluttering, and laundry etc.

At the moment I'm scheduling a weekly burst of about an hour for a deep clean of the bathrooms, and about half an hour for hoovering, but the rest I just do as needed whenever it makes sense to. We're similar in that OH doesn't see dirt which means most things fall to me, but I try to delegate doable tasks to him and the kids.

I have to say I don't clean as much as that but it doesn't seem an unreasonable amount.

We have a robohoover, so that keeps the floors relatively clean, but I probably spend at least a couple of hours a week dusting, cleaning the bathrooms including putting bleach in toilets every other day and mopping the floors. My house is smaller and I have fairly low standards so I can easily see how it would take 4-5 hrs per week keeping it decent with young DCs.

I'd hate however to do a concentrated block of cleaning for 1.5 hrs at a time of someone else's choosing and would probably moan about it. Therefore I think your choices are a) your DH has specific tasks to do but it's up to him when he does them - downside is means you won't get that overall sparkly once a week feel upside is less moaning or b) you continue as you are and don't listen to him.

As our cleaner is out of action for now I've been doing the bathroom on a Monday, Kitchen as I go. Dusting key areas daily, other rooms weekly. Vacuuming every day without fail.

It is more exhausting than having a cleaner, I daily make my 10k step count from that plus children. But it's fine really, I can't wait to not have to do it but also it's made me realise how many areas were actually not being cleaned well too!

@Raindropsandspaceships you're doing really well to vacuum every day! I am following youngest DC around with a dust-pan and brush after meal times! 👎