How can I get a tidy house when at the moment it is riddled with nappies and bloody toys! HELP!

[Nbg]

Its driving me loopy.

I cannot for the life of me seem to get on top of it all.

Yes its a bit hard atm as ds2 is only 8 weeks, ds1 is 18 months and dd is 4
but
I need to have a tidy house.
If anyone saw it now they would walk out straight away.

How can I do it.
Cleaner is not an option as we are stoney broke.

Help me before I drown in nappies, wipes and plastic crap.

Have you tried the Fly lady thread? She has some good idea's.

But honestly the best thing is not to dispair, as when you are dispairing you arn't 'doing'.

So stand in the living room, and LOOK, don't see the mess see one part, break it down into do-able jobs. Shove the toys into one corner or into their box. Nappies (dry ones) can go behind the sofa or somewhere else. Put the nappy bucket in the bathroom, behind the door. Pick up all the clothes and shove them in the machine.
Walk around with a bin bag and throw everything that can go, it's amazing how much mess a few magazines scattered around can make. Shove the books back on their shelf.
As I said break it down into small jobs and STICK TO THAT ONE JOB, don't get distracted. Each job will take a maximum of 20 minutes, every 2nd or 3rd job make yourself a cuppa and congratulate yourself on a job well done.

I need ideas.

How do you all do it?

I keep thinking about fly lady but the emails would annoy me. Plus I cant do with that shiny sink malarky

A box in every room to fling in toys - I use the paper boxes the nappies come in, ikea boxes and a basket

Storage, storage, storage.

Big faux leather boxes, baskets etc

I like storage with lids, you can chuck stuff in there, pop on the lid, and you don't have to see all of the crap in there.

Have a look in cheapy shops for storage.

The same applies to the kitchen.
Whilst you are waiting for the kettle to boil, load or unload the dishwasher. When you are winding baby, wander around and pick up and put away, the rocking motion will help him.
As said previously break everything down into easily do-able jobs, and do them. Don't procrastinate, but also don't blow it up into a humoungeous job that needs the house knocking down and starting again.

Um...I don't think you can have a tidy house with an 8wk old an 18mo and a 4yo. Nor should you.
You may be able to have a "marginally less messy" house, or a "vaguely organised chaos" house.

You could try the FLY idea of setting a timer and just doing 15 minutes of tidying, all in one room/area of room.

Storage...whether it is wicker basket, cardboard boxes or plastic crates, in corner of each room, for flinging "stuff" into, so at least you can see the floor.

Oh yes we certainly need more storage.

We have a real issue with clutter. Everything gets piled on and then its a ridiculous mess.

I like the 15 minute idea, although in that time ds1 will have destroyed something

I am messy by nature and can't quite cope with "a place for everything and everything in it's place" unless those places are really easy to throw things into ( so an open topped box rather than one with a lid, and shelves/drawers for paperwork rather than expanding files and certainly not individual 'wallets' with flippy flaps that add an extra second to the process...)

15 minutes of flinging things in wicker baskets. That'll do me.

One box by the door in the main rooms for stuff that belongs "not in here" - prevents you trekking into kitchen with a spoon, only to be distracted by the washing up etc.

That sounds a bit like me Tigana

I would turn a corner of your home into a play zone with some big buckets and a play mat etc to put toys in. Then, when playing is over, get dc's to help you with 5 mins of dumping everything into the buckets in the play zone (good term, eh?).

I do this and frankly I don't care if the toys are organised or not, I just dump them back into their buckets and get the OFF MY FLOOR . The house looks remarkably improved with toys all out of the road.

seriously look at flylady. i have done it without the e mails and while i do the washing up every night i dont think it would classify as shiny.

i like the ethos that it does not take a day to tidy a house which has taken year/months to get that messy

i still have loads of crap everywhere but slowly it is looking better.

i am very messy by nature and i think i rejected the whole idea of tidying too much as it seems so grown up but then i realised its not really fair on my children to be living in squalor so i am on my third week and i feel so much better about my house

Nbg, you first have to decide where things are generally going to live, then put the storage into those rooms so you have place to put them.

For nappy changes, decide where it is going to be done. Put the change mat, nappy paraphenalia and nappy bin all within easy reach. When nappy is off, wrap up and put into bin immediately. Quick wipe, tidy. Replenish regularly.

For toys, lots of boxes. But still cannot keep it under control. We have boxes in the rooms and more boxes in the loft and try to rotate the toys.

As we have an upstairs and downstairs, sometimes you won't have time to bring things up or down. I just leave them at the top or bottom, until I next have to do the stairs and take the lot with me - this includes washing, toys, things that need replenishing.

Only once you have a reasonably tidy house, then can you even think about cleaning.

The reason I dislike mess is because I HATE losing things or wasting time searching for them - my bugbear.