right next on list of things to ask MN calling those with house pride,spotless houses a la anthea domestic goddess stylee

[Piffle]

how the deck do you do it?
I aspire but
Tell me your entire schedule from dawn to dusk
I have school run and 18mth old (2hr daily sleep) to consider
Have large 4bed modern house 2 bathrooms 1more WC
Struggle with
Too Much Stuff
Tell me your rules and methods please

Surely it depends on the child though. DD has got quite a lot of toys (by my standards) but only plays with a few of them at a go. As long as we're not forcing her to play with things when she wants to do something else I can't see that it matters. And in the end she wants to play with mummy and daddy's toys (mobile phone etc) or random pieces of dirt anyway, so that seems fine to me.

moondog loving your post I'm not sure you meant to imply that by now your children and at least tri-lingual while children with toys are left struggling with basic language!

I give a lot of talks to mother and baby groups and it is my mission to tell them that not spending ££££££ in Toys RUs does not make you a crap negligent mother. One of the things I do is take in a basket of normal household stuff and reassure them that it is fine (nay,actually even better) than the stuff they feel pressurised into buying.

I remember when my dd was about 4 months a (pretty rough) girl from my babygroup insisting on taking me to Woolworths to show me the toy section.

Anyway, I digress.

It is certainly something you do with your PFB, you buy all the plastic shite you can afford then bin it all. When DC2 comes along, they get nothing! Simple things like blocks and cups are great but all that VTech shit and plastic singing tat which you hear ringing in your ears in your sleep are a waste of money. Give them a hammer me good old Dad says. They will spend hours with it!

Better still, spend hours out of doors with them. Keeps the house tidy and they play with sticks nad stones.That's another good thing about being at work. House stays tidy when empty. i often feed my kids outside too.

Our parents would play for hours with a spinning top and then go off all day at the age of 6 to play in the woods with their siblings/friends. How times have changed.

Good tip moondog. In fact, I may move everything outside then the house can look immaculate at all times.

I once read a tip about feeding yer kids maked in the bath to cut down on cleaning and seriously considered it. (Was mad and post natal obv.)

Oh, another good tip, these should be tips of the week! You should have seen the mess DD2 made of my gorgeous Amtico floor today with 2 blackberries. It looked like a massacre. Her Ikea highchair will never recover.

I feed dd in the bath all the time! It's the only way to stop her throwing paddies (and she's 4!) You have to clean the bath every single time tho

Only one rule - DO NOT GO TO BED UNTIL EVERY ROOM IS BOTH CLEAN AND TIDY. It's easy once you get into the groove.

yeah appreciate all this loads.
Right ruthless declutter ahoy.

behind every immaculate house lies a vey dull person

I have the same size house and rooms as you Piffle and same circumstances.
2 year old, 9 month old and dd just started school.

I have absolutely no routine at all but I have 2 newish procedures in place to help me a bit more.

The washing - it doesn't get split into colour piles anymore. Whatever gets mucky throughout the day goes straight into the machine and then when the kids are bathed, their clothes go in too and the machine goes on.
I leave it overnight and then either hang it out in the morning (weather permitting) or dry it in the house.

A big problem we have is little bits of toys and stuff coming down stairs from dd and ds1's rooms.
We have 1 toy box downstairs and I know what goes in it.
So I have a little wicker basket thing that sits at the bottom of the stairs and anything that is meant to go up, gets thrown in it and is taken up whenever I go upstairs.

I know they're only 2 little things, but they can help.

Once the boys went back to school I decluttered their room and found it liberating!

There was a bag for the charity shop, 3 bags for the bin and a bag for the PTA room at school of old toys that the boys were not interested in anymore.

Any old tat just went out and they have still not missed any of it.

Yesterday I went through all their old clothes and put them in a pile for bags to school which is a company who come and collect all the old clothes and give money to the school.

The school do this 4 times a year and we make about £200 each time and is soooo much easier than a jumble sale.

actually yes our school does that too
No issue with washing get it dried folded but putting it away I'm slack at.so will sort that
Need to have one big ironing session a week too

Ds1 is 14 and mess spreader need to contain him to his large room more.
Am clearing out dumping dining room atm
Better indeed

NBG, do you put lights in with darks then?

Piff - box of toys that you take up every evening and "swop" toys every night for toys to take down for the morning = constant turnover of toys to play with, tidied up every evening and toy free living rooms downstairs for you when they are in bed.

Otherwise I'm with Moondog's plan. Have to say gets harder with teenagers (who are bigger, messier and don't go to bed at 7.30).

Oh yes, the putting clothes away is a crapper.
I hate that job.

Pecka, yes I throw everything in.
Wash on a 50 cycle. Jobs a good un.

We dont even own a laundry basket.

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Does not everything end up a bit sludgey looking, NBG?

how much time a day do you all spend doing this stuff?
I work part time, 4 days a week and have school kids whogo to bed 8, 8.30pm but I can't seem to want to spend my hard-earned wine free time ruthlessly cleaning and tidying

Question to those of you who tidy up every room every night before bed: do you clear away children's games-in-progress?

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I'm for gggs plan and mds
Some toys downstairs
And toys taken up every night or as we are focusing on sorting dining room with bespoke floor to ceiling storage soon then toys around house will get taken back there
Am sorting through madly -dp eyeballing me with suspicion and ds1 looking worried
Have liberated tons of bedding not reqd will freecycle or charity shop.
Have tons of nice outgrown dds and ds1s shoesand clothes to flog/donate

It is working
The toy cull is hard though will do stage1 - broken/lost bits or outgrown/unused.
Am washing all coats and bedding today
Thing is ds1 threw up exorcist style on Friday night in living room and hall
Have cleaned re cleaned and still essence of vomit remains
I feel tainted

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