Housework and the summer holidays

[callmehannahbaker]

I'm having a bit of a meltdown over my house.

DD is 7 and an only child, between doing things/needing to play with me/her being up 6am til 9pm and us still sleeping in the same bed (she still doesn't get to sleep alone), I've let my house turn into a shithole and don't know how to get it sorted.

So I not to drip feed, I've not worked for a long while due to major mental health problems. We were only able to move out alone together in October. DD is looked after, loved, played with, taken places, wears clean clothes, fed well and always clean.

It's just the house. She's currently in her playroom so I thought I'd get some cleaning/tidying done-I've done 2 loads of washing, taken out almost all of the rubbish and now sat down and cried.

Please give me advice on how to sort my house, I have a plumber coming tomorrow afternoon and literally every room other than the playroom and bathroom are awful.

Do you have sufficient storage? If not, that's where you need to start really- how can you put things away if there's nowhere for it to go? I'd break it up into stages. 1st get rid of any rubbish; give unwanted toys and clothes to charity or join a local Facebook sale group and give it away or sell it. Then sort and organise what you decide to keep so it can be easily accessed and put away. Do the same with kitchen stuff, toiletries you don't actually need/use and paperwork etc. This can take a long time to achieve obviously, so perhaps start with the aim of 1 drawer/box/cupboard a day or week. Get your dd to help. Perhaps you could do her room first and then she could (might?) be tempted to sleep in her own bed in a lovely tidy room?

It's hard to do but it's so worth it. Streamlining your possessions means that you enjoy your things more, you actually see them and use them. You can only keep what you have space to keep- for example, if you only have space for 1 bookshelf, you can't keep 100s of books.

Good luck! You'll get loads of good advice on here as well, mumsnet loves a good cleaning/organising thread!

We'll done on the two loads of washing and the rubbish. You've made a good start.
Check the housekeeping threads for advice but if I were you I'd
Explain to DD that you're busy and can't play with her for a while (if necessary)
Set a timer on your phone for 20 mins and tidy the sitting room. Anything that doesn't belong there just put it in the hall. Don't bring it to where it belongs, you'll only get sucked in to that room!
When the timer goes put on the kettle. Bring the bits and pieces to where they belong then sit down in your tidy sitting room with a cup of tea.
Then repeat with kitchen. Then bedroom. Then another cup of tea!

You can do this!!

Thank you-we have a big house for just the two of us really-so much storage-it's just I've left it all for 4 weeks and now everything seems too much!

The tea between rooms thing is an excellent idea! Thank you again.

First thing has to be the kitchen-got my big shop delivered yesterday and only put away the fridge/frozen stuff. The floor is covered in bags of tins/pasta/lentils etc. As well as pots I have no dishwasher and keep putting off doing them-I'm so ashamed. I need to get it done between today and tomorrow afternoon!

Good try with thinking DD will sleep in her nice tidy room (she has huge anxiety issues-most likely through being around me while I was extremely unwell) she will sleep earlier once the nights are darker/school starts but is not at a point of sleeping alone yet.

Be easy on yourself you've had health problems to cope with so it's understandable things can catch up on you.
I've put films on just so I can do housework while the kids are distracted.
But there is not much of the holidays left. So you will have more time when she goes back to school. My kids are trashing my house faster than I can tidy up and it's stressful so I'm taking them out as much as possible even to the park.

Some ideas

Turn the music up...Get your DD involved... She can help on some level...

or write a list...I enjoy ticking things off a list...

You can do it..Do a sink of dishes.

Also don't expect to resolve it in one day..Do half an hour twice a day..

Make sure the house is tidier when you go to bed than when you got up.

How did you get on OP?

I've managed to stay awake after DD went to sleep, 2 rooms fully done, got alarm set for 5 am to carry on

Had a huge blip though so now trying to not trashmyhead

You ok callme?

Give yourself a give big pat on the back..2 rooms fully done from don't know where to start is a fantastic achievement.

Hi, I am not good at housework. My DH works away so this summer I have made a list of jobs... so one thing per day e.g. today was floors, hoovering and mopping. Tomorrow is bathrooms.

I do these 'big' jobs after lunch. I take the kids to a park in the morning, then its home, eat lunch and then i insist they let me get on. They normally take just under an hour.

Also I do one load of laundry per day minimum (3 kids) and clean all kitchen worktops after I prepare each meal. Dishes straight in the dishwasher.

This all sounds easy to people who are good at this but I am not so I need an idiots guide!

Maybe a list on your fridge like mine would help?

Well done OP, I hope today is going well for you xx