Let’s be honest, having kids means your house will have mess. It doesn’t matter how organised or pedantic you are at keeping your house clean, if you have little people, they will want to litter the joint with toys, food and crap. So how do you keep your house clean when you have little children?
The first thing you need to do is breathe in and breathe out. If mess stresses you out, you may need to lower your expectations and remember the season you’re in. Little kids like to explore so they will create mess and you will need to let any feelings of bitterness towards your kids and their activities go. Your house isn’t a display home and no one is going to come and take pictures of your house and plaster them on Instagram or Pinterest. Sometimes we can feel inadequate at the state of our home but a home is a safe haven that is meant to be lived in and enjoyed. And when enjoyed well, it will create mess.
The next thing to do is work out when you will clean your house. For me, I opted to do a clean once a week and I schedule Fridays to be my cleaning day. Of course if the toddler has stepped in dog poo outside and has decided to leave a trail in the house, I will clean that up straight away. But the normal mess of living can be sorted out once a week.
Speaking of dogs, invest in one. And call him or her Hoover because they will lick those floors clean for you when your toddler decides to throw their food.
Enslist help from your partner to make cleaning a team effort, not a stay-at-home mum it’s your job to keep the house clean effort. For me, having my husband help out makes cleaning the house so much easier (duh). It also helps me keep calm too. When I clean the house during nap times, I go hell for leather trying to clean as much as possible in a short time frame, yet getting my husband to help means I can stay relaxed and the house gets cleaned just as well.
If you can afford to pay a cleaner, do it. To stretch the dollars further, hire a cleaner fortnightly. Cleaners allow you to focus more time on your family which is important when you have little children.
Having a place for everything is important when maintaining a house. Storage for toys, craft and dvds helps keep clutter building up in your home. The washing basket cleaning trick is a great tip if you’re wanting to clean the house in a short time frame. A house feels cleaner if it is kept tidy.
When you are wrangling an infant who can’t quite sit or is crawling and wants to press the buttons on the vacuum cleaner while you clean, set them up in a spot where they are safe and can’t crawl/move out. With all three of my girls, I have used our swing or walker to entertain while I have vacuumed. If they screamed blue murder because I was occupied, I would get out the Baby Bjorn and wear my bub while I vacuumed and washed the floor. It would be a lot of effort but the house would be clean and I would have exercised and worked up a sweat.
Keep swifters and floor cleaning wipes on hand to make minor cleans if the house is starting to turn a bit feral. A clean house helps keep a clear mind I think.
How do you tackle house cleaning when you’re home with little kids? Do you have any tips to add?
Skye Stowe ð
Kristy Northridge
Robot vacuum cleaner and a “wandering basket” in every room. As the day goes on anything that is out of place just gets thrown in the basket and they all get emptied each day. Oh and limit what they can get to. Limit their toys and only have a small amount of clothes in their wardrobe so they don’t pull every thing out. Store everything else somewhere else. Purge often. And get rid of those little things that you didn’t intentionally bring into the house. Pictures from daycare, McDonald’s toys etc etc. If it doesn’t have a place in your home it cannot stay.
Clean when they are in bed. Let them make memories, make a mess, clean rooms they are not in such as the kitchen, change sheets etc. Then do the living room once they are in bed. I have a 2 year old and a 8 month old. Our living room is a toy obstacle course. But my girls are having fun and always smiling. That’s what matters ð you can clean when they want to go out with their friends. They are not young for long.