DH thinks i’m being unreasonable with my expectations for 4 year old,AIBU?

[Maddie2019]

So my 4 year old seems to love making a mess. I don’t think it’s cute or funny, not when I spend ages in a day cleaning up after him at multiple times!

We have just moved in a house and he now has his own playroom downstairs where he can keep all his toys and do play dough, kinetic sand etc.

I came home today with the house full of all the toys, kinetic sand in the new carpet etc. Yesterday his uncle came over (6 years old) and no joke, they took all the clothes out the drawers, bedding all off, every toy emptied and I made them tidy all
the mess they had made.

I have no shame in saying that I will make him tidy up his mess, of course I will help but I also think they need to learn early on that once they’re finished with one game it needs to be tidied away.

DH hasn’t helped saying i’m too harsh and he’s just a child which has made me doubt myself!

What age do you make your kids tidy up their mess? (toys, play dough etc)?

You definitely need to set boundaries with your kid! They need to tidy up. And they need to know that playdough/sand/crayons/wtv stay confined in a chosen place. (Not like my 2 yo drew on the walls and the door and under the table and on the window.........)

With my kids (2.4 and 3.10) I do toy rotation. I have 5 bags of toys stored away and in the morning one gets placed in the living room (no playroom here). Before DH, MIL and FIL arrive the kids have to dump those toys back in the bag. They have another 2 boxes that live in the living room, one with books, other with selected toys.

Easy to tidy up. If they made a big mess (even with fewer toys...) they have to tidy up one category: books in the box! Or train set in the bag! I do the rest but it only takes 5/10min max :)

You buy sand (or play doh) and it’s going to get stamped into the carpet. Felt ripped pens - will go on the walls. Lego will be spread all over the floor.

That’s kids. It’s how they operate. Page 97 of the kids playbook I think.

Your DH thinks you are being unreasonable to get kids to help tidy up the mess they've made, does he?

Who does he think is going to do it then - the Tidy-up Fairy?

Is he going to pitch in and do it when he gets home? Thought not. In which case, he can butt out.

There's a little girl (aged around 8) at my children's school who is in the year below one of her uncles, and another one often gets wheeled along in his pram on the school run. He's about 1 by now.

YANBU. I have a 4 year old and he's not allowed to make what I call, 'mindless mess' eg just pulling out toys and not playing with them or emptying a box of Lego on the floor and not playing with it. If he makes a mess while actually playing then fine but he clears it up before moving into the next thing.

He's in reception and they have to tidy at school and the same is expected at home. Fortunately he's quite a naturally tidy child so it's not much of a battle to get him to tidy up but I think it's really important.

He's getting quite good now, he'll take empty plates and put them in the sink in the kitchen when he's finished eating and will put any rubbish eg a crisp packets in the bin in the kitchen rather than just leave it out.

It's good for them to take responsibility and do a bit of age appropriate tidying up. Hopefully his future housemates or partner will benefit too!

I wouldn't allow that kid of mess in the first place ( I know you didn't because you weren't there) so YANBU to make them tidy it.

*His uncle sounds like a right dick imo, I'd be calling and giving him a piece of my mind.

His uncle's six!*

😂 Brilliant!

My 2 and 4 yo have to tidy up their toys but I do help them, I think it can seem quite daunting for small children if there is stuff everywhere so saying "time to tidy up, come on I'll help you" makes it seem more manageable.

Play doh, paint and kinetic sand etc are kept well out of reach in this house. Things like that are only played with under adult supervision. Each to their own but giving a 4 and 6 yo free reign with kinetic sand is asking for trouble imo.

@SerenityNowwwww

You buy sand (or play doh) and it’s going to get stamped into the carpet. Felt ripped pens - will go on the walls. Lego will be spread all over the floor.

That’s kids. It’s how they operate. Page 97 of the kids playbook I think.

Maybe if there are no consequences to their behaviour. I have a 3 year old who has never squashed playdoh into the carpet or drawn on the walls. None of my friends with 3 year old's have done this either.

I don't know what's funnier, the picture of a grown man running around the house emptying drawers and stopping beds while throwing toys about, or the though of the op phoning up a six year old to call him a dick and give him a mouthful about the mess 😂

My kids have "tidied" since they could grasp objects.
We used to swoop them round over the floor to grab a block or stacking cup, then "fly" to the toy box to put them away. Same with dirty clothes. They put them in the laundry basket from about 6 months.
Yes, it probably took longer in the early days than doing it myself, but that wasn't the point.
In short: YANBU to expect kids to assist in tidying up after themselves (but Sand and playdoh would never be unsupervised, even for 30 seconds).

FrugiFan - it all kids, but they do experiment. My sister ran nurseries and it seemed pretty much to norm. She explained that they were just ‘experiencing the world’.

DS only ever ‘posted’ things into god knows where (watch, new bottle of perfume, credit card) when he was little but my niece did draw in my hall wall.

YANBU - of course they should clear it up. If you don't start now they will never do it.

Thanks all, it’s nice to know i’m not being OTT. I’m going to speak to DH properly tonight and hopefully get him on the same page which should be easier!

I wouldn’t expect my DD to keep her toys tidy without prompting, but she knows she isn’t allowed to get another pot of play dough out of the cupboard without putting the current colour away. She wants me to help with it (even though I know she could do it alone), likewise with putting away dinosaurs etc, but she does her fair share. She doesn’t for my DH as she knows he won’t enforce it!

Unsupervised access to kinetic sand sounds like it will often end badly, I’d stick that on a top shelf if I were you, because even a well-trained kid that loves tidying up is going to have the occasional lapse! (My DD is waaaaaay waaaay off being “well-trainer” in this respect, work in progress!)

I would suggest that messy stuff maybe be higher up generally..... I keep play dough/paints craft stuff in a cupboard that DD can reach so she can get out what she wants because she isn’t the kind to get too much out and knows not to touch paint without an adult. But I really regretted this when we had my DHs godson to stay (with his parents), and he is a year younger than DD and squirted paint all over the carpet in an unsupervised moment... (they wouldn’t have it in reach in their house, so it hadn’t occurred to them that something like that would be readily accessible). So if you’re going to have visitors, keep messy things high!

I’d only allow access to sand, play doh etc supervised until he can be trusted. And of course he should clear up his toys, that’s just a good life skill to learn.

I had my children start helping to put their toys away when they were 2, obviously with me doing most of it, but I would guide them to "help mummy" and try to make it fun. For example, I asked them to collect anything blue, then red, etc.