Please share tips and tricks -- seem to spend ALL my time cooking, cleaning since becoming a parent

[PinkPeonies22]

OK I also spend a lot of time looking after my baby of course. But since becoming a mother, I seem to spend a crazy amount of time preparing meals, cleaning up meals, cleaning the house, and then it's time to go again ahead of the next meal. I am also lucky I have a husband does lots around the house. I'm still on mat leave, and wondering how on earth I will manage when I return to work. Please share your tips and tricks for juggling everything so you don't feel you're on a perpetual treadmill of meal prep and housework?

TOMM method, google it.
Robot hoover.
Don’t iron.
Slow cooker, even better if you make twice as much for the next day.

Cleaning up the high chair is a nightmare. it gets better eventually.

@Sucessinthenewyear thank you so much! I had never heard of TOMM method and have just started reading. Thank you. I also love your other tips... don't get me started on cleaning the high chair 😂😅😆

What are you preparing? Even as a baby, I very rarely ‘cooked’ at lunch time for DS. He had really simple things like a cream cheese and cucumber bagel, toast with avocado, a jacket potato, some vegetable pancakes straight out of the fridge…DH and I also take it in turns to batch cook evening meals that see us for a few days. It gets a bit samey but far easier than cooking every day and it means less food gets wasted.

It’ll get better as he gets older as he’ll gradually make less and less mess at meals times. I barely had to do much beyond a quick sweep up from 18 ish months onwards.

I go out! Less mess that way! I don't let my DC get loads and loads of toys out at once, we tidy before lunch and then again before dinner. Hoover gets run round the downstairs pretty much daily but takes about 10 minutes tops. Me and DH split a bigger clean at the weekend. Lower standards helps too!

Have to agree with PP - breakfast and lunch are really simple meals and then for dinner I either do something that's easy to prep and cook or have something that I've saved from the night before or something batch cooked. I've done pasta tonight so I did double - we ate half, one quarter got portioned up and is in the freezer, the other quarter is for DCs dinner on Monday night.

Thank you for your replies. I totally agree about trying to 'cook once eat twice' (or more) to save time, I just don't seem to manage to plan the right quantities. I think we could also simplify lunches. I will make an effort to be smarter about these things!

There’s a lot less cooking/cleaning once they are at childcare and you’re back at work. So don’t bother worrying about that honestly!

Batch cook! whatever you have for dinner, do extra so that baby/toddler can have some for lunch the next day. At least then you’re only hearing it up.

dishwasher?

3 washing baskets - darks, whites, colours. That way you can just grab a load and shove it in the washing machine without having to sort through it each time

if you plan on putting the washing machine on in the morning, load it in the night before

I don’t even own an iron

i try to clean and tidy as I go that way I’ve not got to do a big clean and it takes no time at all

in the nicer weather eat in the garden, it’s easier to clean the high chair too as you can just hose it down or pour water over it

go out for picnic’s or eat at the park. let baby have lunch in the buggy or high chair at a cafe

I give my bathroom a proper clean once a week but I wipe down the bath and sink with a micro fibre cloth (no spray) whenever I use it. Takes 20 seconds and it Keeps it shiny and looks clean.

Toy rotation!!! Have 2 boxes of toys, one for the baby to play with and put the other away then swap them each week. Mainly so the baby never gets bored

slow cooker
meals that you’ve batch cooked

honestly you will spend your life cleaning if you’re not careful. Kids want our time not an immaculate home.