Parenting and Housework.
My friend Jessie and I were asking each other one day about how we find time to do housework. We talked about how it's moved from doing housework to have a nice, clean and lovely home, to only doing housework for necessary, and cleanliness reasons, because of lack of time. Because it has to be done sometimes, and it has to be squeezed into minutes of the day that don't really exist most of the time, we were talking about tricks to get it done more easily.
Here are some things we talked about:
*First we were talking about how we have to accept that we can't spend an entire day cleaning the house, and if we do, it won't all be perfectly clean by the end of the day, because we are sure to face many interruptions. So doing housework chopped up, and squeezed in, seems to work best.
*For bathrooms, She was telling me that one of her friends cleans her bathrooms when the kids are in the bath, which I have recently tried and it works very well, and seems to go faster.
*She also was saying that she will spend one entire day doing the laundry, and wait until the end of the day to fold it all, while watching a movie or something fun.
*She also had tips on storing the folded laundry. One idea is to get laundry baskets for each family member and put the folded laundry in there, and have them help put away. Another idea is to have bins for kids instead of a dresser, and put all their pants in their own bin, shirts in their own bin, etc. etc.
*For my own kids, I have little buckets with rags, brushes, and a squirt bottle of water and vinegar. I show them what they can spray and wipe down. They love it and actually ask if they can "clean" sometimes. Mostly it just buys me time .
~I have a previous post on this same topic, with some good comments.
~So do you have any special tricks or tips to fit in your cleaning?
Labels: Parenting
posted by kddub at 8:46 PM
6 Comments:
One thing I do is enlist the babysitting genius of my mom. She takes the girls for 2 hours so I can focus on cleaning.
I've also conceded to not cleaning everything in a day. I'll just do the kitchen sink randomly after I load the dishwasher or something like that.
Lastly, I store cleaning supplies around the house so it's not a major ordeal to get them out. That way, if I'm in my bedroom and I notice dust on the dresser, I can go to the closet and get some pledge and a rag real quick.
12:54 PM
i do just what you were saying... clean the bathroom when my boy's taking a bath-- it works GREAT!!! all i have left to do is clean out the tub when he gets out.
those are good ideas for laundry!
i try to do everything chopped up... like mondays are for dusting and wednesdays are laundry and thursdays is either bathrooms or mopping... it works pretty well. but of course, not always! ;)
4:21 PM
Sarah that is a good idea, to do things a bit randomly, like the sink, and also having things stashed around the house for quick cleaning.
Larissa~ I have wondered if having a day for cleaning certain rooms, or floors or laundry or whatever was a good idea. Right now I'm giving the doing a load of laundry every day a try for a week and then I"ll try the one day for laundry thing, instead of doing it sporadically. what do you do regaurding laundry?
10:45 PM
ya, for me, it works really well having a certain day for everything. that way it doesn't feel like some overwhelming task of having to clean the whole house today, but rather just a bit here and a bit there... but still on some sort of schedule.
i do all my laundry every wednesday. obviously if something needs to get done before then, i'll do a load, but generally i save it all for wednesday. ooh!! and a great idea i had a while back (you may already do this) i keep 2 of those 2 section hampers (ikea) in my laundry room and separate the laundry as it goes into the dirty baskets- that way, if just one thing needs to be washed, i already have a basket of like colors waiting to go in with it (no sorting necessary!) let me know what you like better, a load a day or all at once! :)
4:30 PM
I usually do chores in the evening. I do split my chores up throughout the week. I agree with Larissa, "that way it doesn't feel like some overwhelming task of having to clean the whole house today, but rather just a bit here and a bit there... but still on some sort of schedule." This works the best for me.
12:21 PM
Larissa~ that sounds so good, to have everything on a certain day. So far I am liking doing laundry every day, (except Sunday) so that we always have clean clothes to choose from... But next week I'll try the once a day thing. I have also been meaning to get a sectioned hamper for my laundry room, good idea!
Grace, just out of curiosity, what time do your kids go to bed? Do you give yourself a time limit on working at night? I ask, just because sometimes it feels like if I do my work at night, then I don't get to relax much at all. What about your laundry, do you save it for one day, or do it throughout the week?
9:35 PM
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