My mum keeps cleaning my house

[FelicityElectricity]

I am in my mid thirties with a DH and two young DCs. When DS was born three years ago my mum helped out loads with housework and washing while we adjusted to life with a newborn. But now she can't seem to stop! When she visits she seems to find it hard to relax and does the washing and cleans everywhere which in some ways is lovely but it tends to be accompanied with little digs about how we do things or don't do things. Our house is 'lived in' and we don't obsess about the state of it but it isn't a hovel. My mum even bosses my DH about telling him the bins need emptying etc. how does she think we manage when she isn't here?
I am starting to feel like she is overstepping her boundaries in our house. I think she wants to feel needed but she just makes us feel incompetent at being adults with our own home. My mum is single BTW and we live a few hours away so when she comes to us she stays the night.
I'm not sure how to resolve it. I've tried making jokey comments about it but not sure those are getting through.

Next time you invite her (or she invites herself) over you need to add the proviso that she is NOT do do any cleaning or tidying while she is over. If she doesn't feel she can't do that, then she won't be able to come over. 'My house my rules, mum!'

If she agrees to this, then you need to remove from her hands whatever she picks up, direct her to the sofa, and tell her to sit down as she 'agreed to it'.

But then I actually pushed my DM out of my house years ago when she wanted to stay behind to tidy up - I had to leave after we had had a cuppa together at mine . She even complained to my neighbour - who was a friend of hers - that I wouldn't let her stay in my house to tidy up. But it worked .... (Course I would NEVER leave her with one of my keys.... I know she couldn't resist the opportunity to 'help').

The trick is never to leave them in your house on their own, and to physically (but gently ) manhandle them out of the room they are trying to tidy. A gentle but firm huggy arm around the shoulders always worked on my DM, and then I would put a cup of tea into her hands.

My parents always find something to do when they come to visit and it doesn't annoy me at all, MIL arriving and starting to clean is a different kettle of fish!

However if it got to the stage where my mum was annoying me with her cleaning I would just tell her. Can't you just say mum stop cleaning now you are driving me nuts?

I've tried joking with her about how obsessed she is with cleaning but it doesn't get through. I need to be more direct I think.