Keeping House with Small Children - HELP!

[lobster]

Ok, mamas, I need your tips and tricks.

HOW on EARTH is a mama supposed to keep the house clean with three children aged 3.5 and under?

When I had just two, we managed very well. Sometimes our house was messy, but a quick tidy up (ie. ten mins or less) could get everything looking good again.

Now I have the new baby, the toddler, and the preschooler. For the last month, our house has looked like a tornado swept through! My entire day is consumed with diaper changing, laundry, meal preparation (breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack - UGH!). Not to mention homeschool group twice a week and gymnastics. And it takes us over an hour to get the heck out of the house on time - I am only one woman and I have only two hands, but three children to manage!

I'm finding that by the end of the day, I am totally exhausted and cannot muster enough energy to clean the house at 9pm. So it gets messier, and messier, until I can't stand it anymore and DH and I do a half-arsed tidy job that serves to make things more livable for the next hour or so before the kids trash the house again.

I really, REALLY appreciate a nice tidy home, and I'm getting quite stressed out about the state of things around here. Any advice on keeping house with three small children is greatly appreciated!!

[happydance]

Mine are 7, 5, and 2.5 and I dont know. (I suspect its mostly the 2.5 that prevents me from accomplishing anything though. If I send her to play with the older 2, she hits them and is generally a terror...if she is with me...still pretty much a handful. Wont go in the Beco.

I am really struggling with this as well.

[Katie T]

It is hard when they are so young. Can you have them help you pick up so someone can vacuum once a day? My two youngest help pick up toys every evening so I can run the vacuum. I found putting the baby in the sling to get things done was a life saver.

I would try to have easy snacks with min. cleanup. Like cheese and crackers or pretzels and fresh fruit (banana, grapes cut) I like a clean house as well and while I don't have 3 young of my own (my oldest is 10 as you can see in my siggy) but I always had a daycare kid around from morning till night so I kinda (not the lack of sleep of multiple kids waking in the night though) understand.

I also found if we limited the toys so there weren't so many to pick up helped a ton! I kept out what they actually played with and put the rest in the basement to bring up when they get tired of the others. A yr later they are still down there lol.

Good luck, it is frusterating but cut yourself some slack like you said you are one woman.

[Adamsmama]

With a new baby it is very hard! Don't be too hard on yourself. I've been there -- even recently not being able to keep everything clean and my kids are a little older than yours. For me, Motivated Moms has helped a ton. Having my kids responsible for a few things (making their beds -- which I definately have to "help" with) or cleaning their toys up. One of my sons likes to color and cut out pictures and leaves a mess on the floor -- he has to clean it up. They have to put their dishes in the sink.

I tell my kids when I'm cleaning and they either have to clean, too, or sit and play quietly.

Sometimes I have to have a quick cleaning at night (my kids are in bed by 7pm) so DH and I can clean up after they are in bed if need be. Also the weekends are sometimes used for cleaning if it was a particularly bad week.

ETA: Decluttering has been one of the best tools for us to keep a cleaner house. I got rid of clothes, junk drawer items, old items that weren't used, too many toys, too many kids clothes got put away/given away.

[karika]

My parenting partner does most the tidying around here so I am not qualified to give advice, lol... I do laundry (well sort of, I frequently do not get around to putting it away before he does), and most of the cooking. the first things that came to mind is spend as much time outside (in the shade) in the yard that you can for now (we keep all our outdoor toys in a large box and dump it out then make a game of picking them all up for the box when we are done). When you are inside, have one room that you all hang out in, so the rest of the house stays tidy at least and they can help you (not really, but it will help them learn about cleaning up) pick up the chosen playroom. Have your partner watch the children in the given playroom whenever he is home (maybe save a favorite dvd to watch in that time) he may have to stand and hold the littlest one for it to work, or you may have to wear baby in a sling while you clean. I say let your partner do all the cleaning for now anyway, you have your hands, emotions and mental capacities full just from taking care of kids IMO. If everyone has eaten and has clothes to wear (even if they are in the basket instead of the drawer) consider it a good day and try not to let it stress you, this time is short...

[lobster]

Thank you for the input! We do need to spend more time outside in the yard

I have been decluttering like crazy since about mid-March when the nesting instinct took over like mad. In the past few weeks I've donated three garbage bags full of clothing, two shopping bags full of toys, a bag full of books, and some outgrown winter wear -- I didn't even realise that we had so much STUFF around!! And still it seems that there is laundry everywhere, toys everywhere. Argh! I suppose it doesn't help that our home is tiny and we have our family of five sharing two small bedrooms, no bathroom storage space, a small kitchen with minimal shelf space, etc.

Maybe I just need to look at the small things I DO accomplish each day, and be happy about that, instead of stressing about all the things that DIDN'T get done. Easier said than done, for me it will take some work!!

[wendyland]

Mine are spaced farther apart, but just having one little one makes it hard. I try to keep them occupied. My youngest loves moon sand. I put a high chair on the deck, right outside the door of my kitchen with a plastic table cloth under it. I can still see and hear her as I'm cleaning the kitchen. I clean the bathroom when she takes a bath.

To keep my middle daughter busy when she was smaller, I used to give her a water bottle and a towel. She'd spray the heck out of the appliances and cabinets and wipe them down.

Now that they're older, we have big cleanup times where we all get involved, including my husband (the biggest mess maker).