Any book recommendations on how to do this well?

[DeChRi]

I left my career 9 months ago to be home w/ my now 2yo and one due any day. I feel like I am a crappy SAHM, housekeeper, home manager, etc. Not awful...I get it done, but with much stress and no efficiancy. I am not Flylady material, lol. While I would not trade the time with my kids, I do miss wearing heels everyday and honestly, I miss our housekeeper.

I would love to really simplify our home, get back to the things in my childhood I remember (baking with my mom, gardening, etc, etc), but still maintain a well-oiled house. We entertain often due to the nature of DH's job, so I do have to keep my home at a certain level of presentable all the time.

Most the mom's in my area that SAHM are busy getting sitters to go shopping and such. I want to get back to my crunchiness and really nurture my kiddos like I was, but while maintaining some order in life.

Anyone have a good book recommend?

[bettyjones]

I hear you. It is tough. I work part-time- one thing I like about that is I feel good at it. Most days it is a lot harder to feel like you are good at mothering-even though it is so important.

Maybe try playdates w/ crafty or messy themes at a friend if the house needs to be neat.

[LoveLife]

Ditto to everything you just said, except that I've been doing this for 18 months!

Sorry, no advice, just comiserating...

[berry987]

I really like Absolutely Organized by Debbie Lillard. It looks like a fluff book with glossy photos, but she really has some good advice in there. It's not only for SAHMs...it's more about running a household efficiently, but I've found some really good tips.

[lyra1977]

I hear you about Flylady, she annoys me, but I am a very efficient and organized person by nature and I really like a lot of her advice. For example, decluttering makes it much easier to clean the house, and get your kids involved because then you can do double duty...get chores done and be an involved mom at the same time. One of the secrets of moms like me who *appear* to have the household management and cleaning all together is that we spend just as much time decluttering and organizing as we do cleaning. And the sick thing is that some of us (like me) enjoy the organizing, so we do it for fun during nap time. So there is a price to pay for being good at it (OCD?!).

[hopefulfaith]

The decluttering/organizing/simplifying subforum here really helped me a lot when I was trying to get my act together. You don't have to follow Flylady to hang out there - there are a lot of other good resources (and resourceful mamas with good plans/routines!).

[newbymom05]

I'm a homemaking/organizing book junkie. I've had good luck just doing a catalog search at my library for "homemaking" "housekeeping" "cleaning" "organization". Some books that I've found helpful are books by Don Aslett (corny, but helpful) and Karen Ehman. The Ehman books have a religious slant, but she's got some good organizing ideas for families and a good attitude in general about parenting and organizational/homemaking challenges. I also love Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts but that's more housekeeping than organization. Oh, and definitely the Decluttering Forum here--those ladies are inspirational!

[PoetryLover]

This isn't a book recommendation, but it might help you with the housekeeping part of your frustrations, leaving time for doing fun activities with your little one, as well as managing your home in other areas.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions....php?t=1219297

What I like about Motivated Moms is that I feel "done" cleaning and free to enjoy other activities without guilt. I noticed you said you don't feel efficient and MM makes me feel efficient when it comes to housework.

I hope you get lots of good book suggestions.

[aprons_and_acorns]

I agree with PoetryLover about Motivated Moms. I also like the daily printouts that I can check off as they are accomplished. It is a very nice thing to look at the whole day being checked off and leaves me feeling free to relax and carry on with fun things.

[DeChRi]

Sorry for the delayed check in, we had a baby Saturday.

Thank you all for the awesome suggestions. I really wish I had the art of "be gentle with yourself" down to a science, but I just dont run that way. I am this mix of no inherantly type A at all, but everything in my body strives to be, lol.

I will spend some time with all of the recommendations here!

[kittywitty]

Originally Posted by berry987

I really like Absolutely Organized by Debbie Lillard. It looks like a fluff book with glossy photos, but she really has some good advice in there. It's not only for SAHMs...it's more about running a household efficiently, but I've found some really good tips.

I actually do NOT recommend this book. Bad advice on scheduling baby's breastfeeding and such. Plus the advice was not very good-nothing I haven't seen a hundred other places.

I second motivated moms.

[LoveLife]

I'm going to look into the motivated mom's stuff. Feeling like I need to get my cleaning done in the mornings before we can go anywhere or do anything is really affecting me & DS. But if I don't do it in the morning it doesn't get done. As a result DS gets ignored all morning (he's independent enough to play with play dough, listen to his music and animals for a bit) but I'm not interacting with him hardly at all. By the time I'm done cleaning, etc, then we've got 1/2 hour-45 minutes before we need to eat lunch and put DS down for a nap, which is when I do homework. Then the afternoons we don't have much time because shortly after he wakes up I have to start dinner... And there we go again.

Ok, writing that out makes me feel like a terrible mom! I need help. Sorry OP, not trying to hijack. Its just been getting to me lately.

[PoetryLover]

Originally Posted by LoveLife

I'm going to look into the motivated mom's stuff. Feeling like I need to get my cleaning done in the mornings before we can go anywhere or do anything is really affecting me & DS. But if I don't do it in the morning it doesn't get done. As a result DS gets ignored all morning (he's independent enough to play with play dough, listen to his music and animals for a bit) but I'm not interacting with him hardly at all. By the time I'm done cleaning, etc, then we've got 1/2 hour-45 minutes before we need to eat lunch and put DS down for a nap, which is when I do homework. Then the afternoons we don't have much time because shortly after he wakes up I have to start dinner... And there we go again.

Ok, writing that out makes me feel like a terrible mom! I need help. Sorry OP, not trying to hijack. Its just been getting to me lately.

I would definitely try Motivated Moms. It's only $8, but you can print a sample page and try it for a couple weeks to make sure you like it. It's helping me A LOT. Seriously. I used to be in the mindset that if 1 room needed vacuuming, I had to vacuum them all, or that I had to clean the entire bathroom at once or clean out the entire refrigerator, dust every surface of every room, etc. Getting started was too overwhelming. Motivated Moms breaks chores down into manageable components. It gives you permission to vacuum one room, clean one refrigerator shelf or just scrub the toilet. I can almost always find time to do small tasks. And my home is improving greatly. Good luck!

[sarah1122]

There is a new book out called Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes....it is changing my life and the lives of my SAHM friends. I expect once the mommas on this site discover it that there will be discussions about it cropping up (if there aren't already).

Another book that helped me out tremendously was Momma Zen.


Good luck. I left a paced paced career 2 years ago to stay home with my now 19 month old son...and I'm only now starting to find my groove.

[Chicky2]

Originally Posted by sarah1122

There is a new book out called Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes....it is changing my life and the lives of my SAHM friends. I expect once the mommas on this site discover it that there will be discussions about it cropping up (if there aren't already).

There is. It's in this SAHP forum.

I am currently reading it, but we've also been living it for years now.

[Forgiven]

I know some people hate this book b/c of what she says regarding scheduling newborns. If you can, try to see past that... it's really less than 5 pages in the entire book.

Here's what I wrote on an earlier thread:

I just finished a really awesome book and I wanted to recommend it. It's called "Absolutely Organized: A Mom's Guide to a No-Stress Schedule and Clutter-Free Home" by Debbie Willard. I love that the book is just 191pgs and there are a lot of pictures so it's a very fast read. I just felt that she did a wonderful job explaining how to schedule your day so that you don't feel like your work is never done and that you can't keep up. She also gives great tips about how to be the manager of your household and how to schedule your days with the same attention you would if you worked outside of the home. There is a brief section on putting your baby on a schedule that gave me hesitation, but overall I really just loved this book!!!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...1809557/apf-20