Overwhelmed with housework!

[tigereyes10]

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this! It's not really for advice, more just to get it off my chest!
I'm so overwhelmed with adulting. I work five days a week, drop the kids off at breakfast club, go to work..finish work and go pick the kids (7&10) straight up from after school club, then walk home...then it's time to cook tea, clear up that mess, listen to them read, get them to do homework, bath time every other day. Then before I know it it's time to put them to bed, and all I want to do at that point is scroll my phone/watch some TV and then go to sleep myself..then at the weekends my step daughter comes so it's usually a full on weekend with three kids and a dog.
Since I upped my hours at work, I feel like I'm losing my mind at home! I love my job, I love working more..I just feel like everything is slipping at home! How do people manage to work five days a week, be present for their kids after work & still have a clean house?
When I get in this mood, it's like I'm hyper aware of every little mark and its overwhelming. The whole house could do with a fresh paint, carpets all need replacing as it's an old rented house and i dread to think when these carpets were laid!
I know the advice is little and often, set 15 minutes timers, do one room a day etc etc...but I can't seem to do it without getting myself so overwhelmed and stressed out. Today I've deep cleaned the dining room, which now looks much better - but it took me hours and the rest of the house now seems even messier than before! How do you all do it 😭

Ps. Before anyone says it - I have an incredibly supportive partner who helps out a lot! He's already told me this weekend he will do anything I ask around the house to lighten the load 🙏

People don't do it.

People who have young children, work full time and have dogs don't have show homes. Their houses are generally messy, even unclean.

You are probably hyper aware of every mark and minor defect; things that visitors to your house wouldn't even notice.

But social media likes us all to believe that everyone is living Mrs Hinch stylee.

Rubbish!!

people with dogs,young children and work full time do have clean tidy houses!

Well I only work part time and I struggle. But you have got a few things that make life harder for yourself. I for instance would never have a dog at this point in my life as I don’t have the band width for the extra daily chores. Can you drop your hours, get a cleaner, pay a dog walker, get a tutor. All the usual stuff really: Outsource jobs or drop your hours. Monday can do it all and be happy.

Well imo this part of the issue, why do you have tell him what to do to lighten the load? Why can’t he just look around, see what needs doing and just do it? Him doing that all the time would really help! That and outsourcing stuff, get a cleaner in, get a decorator in to paint for you etc. but it’s not cheap!

Why do you need to ask him to clean his own house?

What exactly is he doing while you're dropping off and picking up kids, cooking, clearing up, listening to them read, supervising homework, bathing them?

Well imo this part of the issue, why do you have tell him what to do to lighten the load? Why can’t he just look around, see what needs doing and just do it?

Well yes exactly. You're still carrying the mental load of looking and listing what needs doing.

Both of you sit down and make a list:
Monday - dp cooks, then dusts downstairs and puts kids to bed, you clear up after tea and listen to them read.
Tuesday - you cook, clean bathroom and take them to bed, dp clear up after tea and does reading homework
etc
Saturday - he vacuums throughout and you do washing and drying.
Sunday - he changes beds and you do food shopping

At 7 and 10 the children can help with the chores. We had a daily list, a weekly list and a monthly list of what needed doing. Everyone had tasks ie tidy room and put washing in basket, make bed, tidy toys away daily. For DH and it was things like hoover x,y,z room, mop floors in x,y,z, dust x, y or z, put washing on etc. Some days we worked opposite hours and this was the only solution we could come up with to know what needed done and what the other person had done without trying to work it out. Tasks were done they were ticked off the list. We had a weekend rotation for bed changing, wiping skirting boards, cleaning/tidying cupboards and jobs that didn’t need done every day. Once we got into the swing of it things were easier until we could afford a cleaner. It did feel like running on a hamster wheel for a few years though so I get where you’re coming from.

I also work full time, long days with DD aged 10 in school.

I have a cleaner. Life changing.

And I'm also extremely tidy and clutter free by nature which helps a lot. I clean and tidy as I go and have got DD into these habits too.

I don't need to "ask" him to clean the house, he is out of the house from 8am-6pm five days a week, and to be fair to him he does drop the kids to breakfast club daily..I shouldn't have added that into my personal list! When he gets home, he often washes the dishes..cleans up my cooking mess..will do washing etc. He also cooks when he's home in time. He's genuinely very helpful...it's just there's that much stuff that needs doing daily, we've fallen behind and things have built up. When I say he's helpful, I'm not just being naive...I divorced a man who did NOTHING around the house while I drowned in life, so I'm very aware that he's a good guy that helps me as much as he can.

The mental load of looking and listing things is my fault though because what I think needs cleaning, he doesn't even see. & It's not because he's blind or lazy - its because when I get in these overwhelmed moods, I'm hyper aware and see things that probably nobody else would bat an eyelid at.. But the rota/list you mentioned might be a fab idea, thank you! X

I do need to start asking the kids to help out more, they're good little cleaners once they get going 🤣 they also don't have aging backs so can do my skirting boards much easier haha. Will get sorted on some lists! Thank you. X

What does your cleaner actually do when she's there? I was looking on Facebook at some local cleaners and they post reels - the houses all look clean before they begin 🤣 they'd have a right shock if they saw my skirting boards!

Get a cleaner and make it clear with pictures what the state of the place in. It can be a deep clean first over a day or more then weekly or every other week afterwards.
You can approach them and explain. They will either charge accordingly or turn it down.

My issue is I need someone to have the kids so I can tidy up so a cleaner has a chance to actually clean. I feel I need half a day a week to tidy first.

OP - but you are still carrying the menatl load here. He will do anything you ask - so you still have to think of it all? Perhaps he could start sharing the thinking too.

However, as others have said, when you work full time and have young children, you are unlikely to have a perfectly tidy and clean house. If you can temporarily lower your standards that will help :)

I have a toddler at nursery so they are out of the house most of the day. I wfh mainly and my husband is out 0700-1800 (pick up the toddler on the way home). Therefore nobody is really making a mess during the day. House gets cleaned once a week, sheets changed Monday morning, I cook, my husband washes up and we have a robo hoover for any midweek hoovering which I stick on when I’m in a meeting.

We have a cleaner who does 2hrs a week and neither of us do any cleaning outside of that. One of us could easily do this ourselves in the evening or weekend but we are lazy.

On the weekend we are out most of the day, so again no mess.

We both have zero stress when it comes to housework. We do an online shop so don’t even have to bother to go out shopping.

We don’t have a messy or unclean house!

Makes sense. I think being a sahm means we're here making the mess all day!

Get a cleaner

DH and I both work FT, we have 2 DC, 6 and 9 and a dog. We do a big clean every Saturday, house gets done top to bottom. We do laundry daily but even still we never seem to get to the bottom of the basket. We're getting ready to move and have been decluttering which has been an eye opener. All the pictures, ornaments etc are currently packed away and cleaning is so much easier. I'm tempted to become a minimalist in the next house.

By Friday the house is messy, we tidy kitchen whenever it's used and I always make the beds every morning but I'd only say it's tidy for a small snippet of time. My house isn't permanently a show home, no idea how anyone manages that if they work FT, have DC and pets.

Get a cleaner
Get a robot vacuum that you can set going when you get home
Put laundry on a timer so that it finishes in time for you/DH to hang it before work
Clean kitchen as you cook wherever possible
Clean bathroom after/as you use it

Get good storage so it's easy to tidy up.

tigereyes10 she mops the floors, vacuums, changes the beds, wipes and dusts all surfaces, cleans the bathrooms, even puts a load in the machine. If she has time she does some ironing otherwise I outsource that too.

Get a cleaner. There are only so many hours in the day and you can’t do it all.

I could never work full time and do everything else with kids, cooking, pets, housework etc. I struggle with part-time working and doing all this plus self care and exercise.

But then I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD in the last year. I’ve started medication and now everything is a lot easier (and I’m still in a relatively small dose - I’m currently titrating up). I just needed a bit more dopamine and norepinephrine. Overwhelm is less, and I can actually initiate tasks where before I couldn’t as I didn’t have enough neurotransmitters or executive function. I desperately wanted to tidy and felt awful about not being able (my house was never too bad, but ADHD makes you your own worst critic).

Ignore those that say it’s possible it might be for some people, but lots of reasons can impact overwhelm from housework including illness, hormones, work stress, sleep, partners, neurodiversity etc.

'Anything you ask round the house' is not particularly helpful. Is he blind? Can't he see mess and what needs to be done. First thing you need to do it divide up all chores 50/50 so you take some off your mental load. Then maybe install a 10 minute tidy up before bath for everyone so the house is in an ok shape at the end of the day and you can relax.

I asked my show home friend how she has such a clean and tidy home, and she said "Because I'm always cleaning and tidying". Ha, simple eh. Another friend told me she hoovers her entire downstairs every evening. She has a very helpful husband and biddable children. My house is a riot right now. And my brain is struggling to focus on on just one thing at a time today. Hard to see how any one thing will actually make a difference. You are not alone!