How do you manage housework and childcare balance with a full-time job?

[michalsasasx]

I'm a working mum struggling to find a balance between my full-time job, housework, and taking care of the kids. It often feels like there's not enough time in the day, and I end up feeling overwhelmed. How do other working mums manage it all? Do you have any tips or routines that make things easier? I'd love to hear how you handle everything without burning out!

Routine and teamwork.
We both work f/t, I do 2 days in the office and 3 days wfh. DH could be anywhere as he has a portfolio of customers that he visits at their business premises. 2 primary age kids. We do not have pets so that makes things a bit easier.

Childcare - office days we use the school’s wraparound care both breakfast club and after school. On my Wfh days I drop them off at as soon as the doors open at 8:40 so I am back home and logged on for 9. We are lucky that my mum collects them from school and stays until I log off at 5.

Both children have enough uniform and PE kit that I don’t need to do their laundry more than once a week.
Each child has their own laundry basket in their bedroom and has been trained to put their dirty washing in there when they get ready for bed. I wash a week’s worth of uniform on a Friday evening and iron it on a Sunday.
Kids lunchboxes and school bags are always prepped the night before to make mornings less stressful.
Food shopping for the week ahead delivered on a Sunday, use Ocado so missing items or substitutes are rare.
I don’t have a cleaner, but if my dishwasher, tumble drier or robot hoover broke, I would replace in a heartbeat.

Single parent here.
I'll let you into my secrets

• takeaways
• insomnia
• crying in secret
• those cleaning wipe things that don't biodegrade for 20000 years
• eating cheese toasties a lot of the time
• play dates in other peoples houses
• guilt
• shame
• wine

Blitz housework at the weekend and do minimal during the week (just dishwasher and quick pick up of toys etc).

Nursery then after school club & holiday club, with some annual leave.

both work Monday-Friday, 9-5, sometimes a bit more.

it’s relentless and we’re always exhausted and our standards are lower than they used to be.

Single parent for the last decade. I have a cleaner every other week for three hours. Kitchen is cleaned after use, bathrooms rinsed after a bath or shower. I clean the sinks and shove something down the loos now and then during the week.

Robot vacuum on the ground floor.

It’s good enough for me to invite an unexpected guest in at any time.

DC now old enough to pitch in but I bet we don’t spend more than ten minutes a day on cleaning between us all.

I've limited the kids hobbies to things they can a)do at school b) walk to c) do together. That used to be the straw that broke my back, doing above helped.
I do school email admin whilst Sat at their swimming lessons, as with their clubs/schools I get approx 30 emails/whatsapps a week to plow through. I screenshot as I go and then dh and I have a whatssapp group for each child and I add the screenshot to that, e.g. child 1 and 2 flu jab 20th sept permission filled in, child 3 swimming gala 21st Sept 3.30pm need to sort lift back. Then husband and I tick them when we act on them.

I have dropped all my hobbies apart from YouTube workouts and biannual Weekends away.

I add things to my Amazon basket as soon as I think of them e.g. worldbookday costume, it acts as my to do list, then I can click buy if the deadline approaches and I haven't had time to buy elsewhere/at supermarket.

I have a pressure cooker and batch cook 2 big stews a week, we alternate and eat over the week. I batch cook a giant pasta salad on Sunday evening for 4 ppls packed lunches all week to save time in mornings. I take one big tupperware with my work salads into work 4the week rather than wasting morning time decanting into individual tupperware each morning

I was a full time working single parent when my DC were small. Top tips were/are:
Cleaner 2 hours a week
When DC were little I had an amazing childminder who fed them a proper dinner
On nights they didn’t go to the childminder they often had school dinner and a snacky tea.
Now thot they’re too old for a childminder we meal plan and make pretty simple meals on week nights
Again, when they were little I had all sorts of lift share arrangements for the various clubs- Brownies etc
Generally lower your household standards and realise you can’t do it all!

Pre-set the washing machine to come on overnight so it’s finished just before I wake up & hang out in the morning.

Decluttered massively so there isn’t much to tidy.

Weekly cleaner.

Don’t iron.

Weekly food delivery & meal plan with at least 2 meals per week batch cooked & one meal quick (or stuff on toast).

Spend 45 mins on a Sunday prepping/chopping food for the week and putting into Tupperwares with labels. First person home grabs that day’s one and starts cooking.

15 min blitz after kids’ bedtime to tidy up, pack bags for the following day etc.

Subscribe and save from Amazon of things like laundry tablets, dishwasher tablets, toilet paper subscription, cat food & litter.

Two early nights per week otherwise I’m exhausted and makes me feel worse!

Getting food shop delivered and having a cleaner.

I’m also decluttering and our house is so much easier to live in. The mess the boys generate seems more superficial somehow.

I don’t batch cook, but I’ve got a tried and tested set of easy-to-prep meals that I can knock up in no time.

DH does the school run, washes up, dog walks, washes his own clothes. Intentionally works shifts that give him days off in the week to run errands, life admin like car to garage, boiler service etc. It’s give and take to make family life work.

We got a cleaner for 3 hours a week after dc2. Both working full time, it was too much to try and fit it all in.

She is worth every penny. She does a little bit of ironing too, which helps chip away at the mountain. It forces us to keep on top of the tidying over the week which helps keep us in check too.

@FernGullyLunchbox1994 💐for you, have some 🍰too

Lower standards, decluttering constantly, mix of opportunistic cleaning (cleaning bathroom while DCs are in the bath, wash on while WFH and having a break, hoover a room before school run etc), and blitzing house for an hour on a weekend. Lower standards some more. Panic clean if visitors expected.

DH (disabled) works PT and I have worked nights/weekends/long shifts opposite DH. Now DC have school/nursery I work more normal hours and grandparents have helped with childcare. It is really tough!

Me too! I end up resenting visitors, 😂 how dare they want to come and see us a force me to do a proper clean!!