Household cleaning routines?

[UK mummy]

I am having difficulty keeping on top of housework and cleaning and am wondering if it would be good to have some kind of set cleaning routine?  I have 2 LOs (2 years and 4 months) and finding it a struggle to do even the essential daily things needed around the house (laundry, vaccuuming and keeping kitchen clean, for example), let alone things like cleaning the bathroom and doing things like sorting out laundry cupboards and sorting stains on the carpet and other things that I've been meaning to do for a while.  I am regularly up til gone 11 at night trying to finish laundry, etc.  It seems that is the only way that I can keep the house clean or spend less quality time with the kids (which I don't want to do).

Does anyone have any set daily/weekly household cleaning routines?  Would love to hear about them if so. Any tips on how to make things more managable would also would be appreciated.

Edited by UK mummy - 3/17/11 at 3:12pm

[luv my 2 sweeties]

I'm not a great one to advise on cleaning routines, although I have had some success with a number of different strategies.  (It's keeping up with them that always gets me!) 

But honestly, when I had L.O.'s the age of yours, I hired someone -- a local mother/daughter team, actually -- to come in once a month to do basic things, such as clean the kitchen, bathrooms, vacuum, dust, etc.  Nothing fancy, but even that much was a *huge* help.  Once a month was all I could afford; if I could have afforded weekly or bi-weekly I would have done it, but I couldn't.  Still, just knowing that once a month I would have a reasonably clean house took a lot of stress off me.  Trust me, we are no where near well-to-do, but it was worth tightening in some other areas to do this when I had a baby and a toddler.  After a year and a half or so, when the baby was a toddler and the older one a preschooler, things got a little easier and I felt I could no longer justify the expense, and I went back to managing on my own. 

So I guess that doesn't really answer your question, except to say that I'm not sure it's always *possible* to stay on top of housecleaning with 2 very small children!  I suppose it depends on the children -- if both of mine were like my oldest, I probably could have muddled through.  But my 2nd baby was very "high needs" and didn't sleep well (to put it mildly), so parenting both of them at the same time was really about all I could handle.  Hope you find a solution that works for you!

[UK mummy]

Thank you for replying, Luv my 2 sweeties.  I would love some to have a cleaner but we can't really afford it atm.  I agree, I don't think it is possible to ever stay on top of housework with two LOs (at least not for longer than an hour!) but I struggle to get anything properly accomplished anymore!

Anyone else have any suggestions?

[mamaUK]

a tip I have is to do at least one load of laundry and drying a day, b/c then I don't end up with great big mountain of laundry which is hard to catch up with. Also I have a quick hoover down stairs once a day and hoover bedrooms upstairs once a week (well my DH does actually at weekend while I am watching children) also I leave cleaning bathroom until weekend too so DH can keep children occupied. So bathroom once a week clean only ,but then I have two girls so toilet stays OK ;)

so what I do daily is:

hoover downstairs

one load laundry/drying

washing up/drying up dishes

cooking meals

another big tip is to have a tidying up basket at bottom of stairs, so anything that the kids leave lying around in the day can be tossed in there and put away at end of day. This idea has really worked for me.

Also having less clothes for people in household...helps keep on top of laundry!

I know this is not cleaning but i find another time saver is cooking twice amount of food, pop half in fridge and eating same thing two nights running..........OMG this saves me so much time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xxx

[PoetryLover]

Motivated Moms really helps me. Even when I can't do everything on the list, things don't get so bad that I can't handle them. Some days I only get to the basics. And what I don't get to, I let go until the next time it comes around.

Also, things were a lot easier to keep clean after I did a LOT of decluttering. I still have a ways to go, but I can see a major difference.

What I try to do no matter what:

a load of laundry a day and a load of diapers every other day

dishes

cooking meals

general picking up

When I had a 4 month old, I was very lucky to get to the basics. I'll be in your position soon, as I'm due in August and they will be 18 months apart. I expect it to be difficult. Don't be too hard on yourself.

[PoetryLover]

Ditto for cooking double batches. Also, I sometimes freeze leftovers. Also, Slow cookers ROCK. I have to buy a new one. One pot meals are also great. Some days I'll quickly throw together a chili or a big pot of soup, something I don't have to constantly monitor or that requires multiple steps. Then I can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing dinner is taken care of and can be reheated another night.
 

Originally Posted by mamaUK 

a tip I have is to do at least one load of laundry and drying a day, b/c then I don't end up with great big mountain of laundry which is hard to catch up with. Also I have a quick hoover down stairs once a day and hoover bedrooms upstairs once a week (well my DH does actually at weekend while I am watching children) also I leave cleaning bathroom until weekend too so DH can keep children occupied. So bathroom once a week clean only ,but then I have two girls so toilet stays OK ;)

so what I do daily is:

hoover downstairs

one load laundry/drying

washing up/drying up dishes

cooking meals

another big tip is to have a tidying up basket at bottom of stairs, so anything that the kids leave lying around in the day can be tossed in there and put away at end of day. This idea has really worked for me.

Also having less clothes for people in household...helps keep on top of laundry!

I know this is not cleaning but i find another time saver is cooking twice amount of food, pop half in fridge and eating same thing two nights running..........OMG this saves me so much time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xxx

[umsami]

What works best for me is having one main cleaning task to do each day (roughly)... in addition to laundry (which is almost every day with four kids ), cooking, and doing the dishes. I don't vacuum every day--it's probably 2x/week. I do sweep under the dinner table and the kitchen almost daily. (I miss a day here or there.)

Daily:
Wake-up, make breakfast, empty dishwasher (and then fill it after meals)
Wipe down kitchen, dining table, sweep both
Probably one load of laundry most days, fold, put away

When the kids are asleep, I usually do a 10 minute tidy of the living room


For more major tasks, you can have a schedule like this:

Monday Mop floors
Tuesday Vacuum and dust
Wednesday Clean out car (if you have one), wash sheets/linens
Thursday Clean bathroom(s)
Friday Clean kitchen
Saturday Vacuum and dust


Last Saturday was the first day that my boys (7 and 5) cleaned their bathroom (supervised). I'm hopeful that in a year or two they can take over unsupervised.

[K'sMama]

Right now I use Motivated Moms and find it helps and keeps me on track.  BUT, my kids are 5 and 2.  When I had a baby in the house I was in survival mode - the time I did have I spent with meals -healthy food was my top priority.  The rest got done when/if I had the time which was rarely (or when my parents/IL's werein town and would play with the kids).  Don't worry about the house work when your kids are tiny - take care of the baby, take care of yourself and the housework will be waiting for you when your kids are a little older.  I decided that I didn't care if guests thought my house was messy - most had young children too and I figured they'd understand...

[USAmma]

I just started this routine again after "taking a break" from it and going to nursing school. I'm also in the process of decluttering 2 years worth of stuff, as my dh was mostly in charge. ;-) When my kids were younger I used this same routine, but it took a lot longer. I was happy if I made it through the routine by the end of the day. It kept me going and it was so nice to have a clean house at least for a little while!

Take the kids to school, then start. I have a large picnic basket with a bottle of cleaning spray and some rags that I carry around with me. As I go to each area, I put things in the basket that belong in another area. I also dig through it and put things back in the area that belong there after picking it up from another area as I move through.

1. Kitchen: fill the sink with water and soak the dishes. Wipe the counters and stove, put things in the basket as needed, empty the dishwasher (if kids did not already do it before school). Then I put the soaked dishes in the dishwasher and all the stuff has mostly soaked off at that point. Start the dishwasher and move to the next area.

2. Dining room area: put things in basket as needed, wipe down table, put chairs in straight, move on.

3. Livingroom area: put things in basket as needed, and pull things out of basket as needed. Straighten slipcovers on sofas, clear off coffee table, put books away on shelves, put knitting back in baskets, put remotes in their basket and such. Clean parrot cage. Move on.

4. Laundry room: put shoes away if not already on the shoe rack, go through the basket as needed, start a load of laundry and move on.

5. Our room: Clear off bed and make it, do the basket thing, straighten our desks. I put all papers that are not mine on dh's desk to sort through. Move on.

6. Our bathroom: spray counters and mirrors, put back lotions and stuff where they belong after morning routine. Clean parrot cage (one of them is in our large master bathroom). Wipe down toilet, move on.

7. Kids bathroom: repeat from our bathroom except no parrot cage! 

8. Have coffee, take a shower, sweep floors (we have all tile in all the rooms). Steam mop as needed, about 3x a week.

9. Transfer clothes to dryer, sit down for a minute, listen to NPR, and plan dinner.

10. Take clothes out of the dryer, fold and hang and put away, or put the kids clothes on their beds to put away.

Enjoy the rest of the day until it's time for dinner prep. Steps 1-8 takes about 45 minutes. I am done by 9:45-10 with all of it.

Notice, I do two loads of dishes per day. Sometimes it's half full, but I use the energy saving cycle. It's just much easier to stay on top of dishes than to save them up until I have a full load. I really like Flylady.net's rule about having a clean kitchen sink. I wash the other dishes load after dinner.

I wash one load of laundry per day, too. Sometimes it's full, sometimes not quite. We have one hamper for me and the kids to share, so it's easy to just put them in and wash them. Dh does his own laundry. I immediately take the laundry out of the dryer and put it away so I am not left with 4-5 loads on the weekend and a huge pile to put away.

Notice too that I don't do the kids rooms. They have their play sets and stuff all set up and I don't want to mess with it. They are expected to put their stuff away off the floors on Saturdays, strip their bedding and wash it, and generally clean up including the floors. But during the week I leave them alone.

[skreader]

I see what you do:

"hoover downstairs

one load laundry/drying

washing up/drying up dishes

cooking meals"

But what does your partner do? In my home (our kids are in teens)

Morning

 I wake up and put away dishes from the night before and make kids lunches & put out cereal for kids & make tea and coffee.

My husband cuts up the fruit for our yoghurt, washes and prepares the lettuce for our lunch salads (we pack to work) hangs up the laundry washed the night before & does the breakfast dishes (he leaves for work ~ 30 minutes after me)

Afternoon

If we hung up laundry outside, one kids brings in while the other kid vacuums when they get from school.

Evening

 I usually make dinner (kids help and set table).

Kids do dishes 3 nights per week, me once per week, hubby once per week & we roll dice for Wednesday and often eat out once a week.

Fold laundry - usually whole family while watching the evening news.

DH puts in a load of  after supper (he usually hangs it the next morning).

So, I think if your partner can get more involved (e.g. laundry duties and dinner dishes and breakfast dishes) you will find your work easier.