Are you a busy mommy tired of cleaning all the time? Does the messy house drive you up the wall, lacking all the cleaning motivation? Is your home always dirty, even with you and your children working so hard to keep it clean? Does your children make a mess more than you can handle? I already have answers to these questions. This post discusses tips for mothers to keep the house clean with kids.
There is a saying that goes, “a clean house is not a sign of a misspent life; It is a sign of a wasted day.” –Helen Exley. This summarizes the importance of keeping your home clean and in order.
As responsible mothers, we get up most days before the sun rises or wake up in the mid-night to tend to our children’s needs (sometimes even their wants). Then, when they’re tucked into their beds at night, we go to ours only to get up and do it all again tomorrow. After such busy days, who can focus on cleaning? Who has time for cleaning? We barely have time for ourselves!
Mothers today are busier than ever, and many of us don’t have the luxury of hiring a housekeeper to come over once a week to help with our household chores. With all the time we spend cleaning and organizing, it’s no wonder that we often feel like there is never the bare minimum time in the day to get anything done! Luckily there are some simple ways you can make your life easier while also saving money on expensive cleaners or storage containers that won’t last long enough before they need replacing again.
1. Use the Baskets or Storage Containers:
This may sound like the general tip, but it is one that most moms forget about when they first start having children! If you want your beloved home to be clean and organized, then invest in storage containers or baskets that will last longer than 12 months.
When you have children, clutter in your home can multiply exponentially. It seems as though toys and clothes are everywhere, and there are seemingly endless amounts of items to organize. I’ve found that with three kids, the easiest way to keep our house organized is to invest in storage containers and baskets.
If you have carpeting throughout your home, one day, you might find Legos under your feet while you’re walking around the house. Or you might not be able to see your child’s floor because it is covered in stuffed animals, books, and other items. You can teach your child to put some things away when playing with them and keep others out for playtime with storage containers. This will help prevent toys from taking over your home.
It is also helpful to have baskets that contain smaller items, such as coloring books and crayons, small figurines, or Play-doh tools. These baskets fit perfectly into larger storage containers, so it is easy for your children to place them inside when they’re finished playing with them, which will keep their rooms clean as well as the rest of the house.
2. Managing your laundry:
Doing laundry is a pain, but it’s not more complicated than running a startup. The problem is that you have to do it pretty much every day. It’s like shoveling snow: you can’t let it pile up, so you have to set aside time for it daily.
The solution is to do one load of laundry a day. If you do this, not only will you never have the problem of having nothing to wear, but your house will always look neat and clean. A single pair of pants lying on the floor will seem like an emergency; if there are other clothes there too, they’ll be less noticeable. Once your house starts looking messy, cleaning it up becomes very unpleasant—it’s not just the extra work from letting things get out of hand, but also the feeling that you’ve let things get out of hand.
One load per day seems about right for two people with no kids. If you have more people or smaller machines, you may need to do two bags. Or if your machines are more extensive, I’m not sure how common those are in the U.S., but there’s just one standard size for washing machines and dryers in most European countries.
3. Keep the kitchen clean:
Put away dishes after every meal. Keep an empty sink. This is the most essential part of having a clean house.
It’s too much to expect to have all the dishes put away at once; my grandmother couldn’t even do that in her tiny apartment with no kids, and she was pretty obsessive-compulsive about cleaning. But by putting away all the dishes after every meal, you can keep the mess from getting out of control.
The empty sink is important because it has one fewer decision to make when you’re deciding what to work on next: “There’s an empty sink, so I guess I’ll do the dishes.” It also gives you something to accomplish when you don’t feel like doing anything else: “I don’t feel like doing these dishes right now, but I guess I could just rinse them off and put them in the dishwasher.” And finally, it lets you know whether your house is clean or not: “Is there anything messy left in this room? No. Is there any clutter? No. Is there a full sink? Eww! There must be something messy somewhere!”
4. Keep everything at its dedicated place:
Having a dedicated specific place for everything and despite his keeping the thing somewhere else, this is not a piece of advice to mothers. Every “thing” in the house should have its place, and if it does, every member of the family will know where to find it and where to put it away. This saving of time makes it possible to have a cleaner house with children.
Have a place for everything, even if it is small, and keep those things there. (Better to use hooks in cupboards, on walls, on the back of doors.)
A good deal can be done by teaching children this principle early in life. Have them pick up their toys after playtime is over and put them away in their proper places before they can go off to do other things. Younger children will often need help at first; they may require suggestions as to the best place for each toy or article of clothing or book they own.
5. Let the kids get involved:
There are some fantastic tips to get your kids involved in keeping the environment of your house clean with you. If your child is too young, you won’t need this, do it by yourself and intentionally do it before your child’s eyes. They will pick up that habit from you. The first and the most important tip is to keep a check on your children and ask them to keep their toys in the right place once they finish playing. This will help in keeping the house tidy.
Make sure that you do not allow your kids to eat or drink anything in their room. It won’t be easy to keep the room clean if you let this habit. Make it a point to allow them to eat or drink only in the kitchen or dining area.
6. Clean up as you go:
One secret to a clean house? Whether you’re cooking in the kitchen, doing arts and crafts at the table, or reading on the sofa, tidy up before moving on to something new. It’s much easier to clean up a small mess than one that has had time to grow and spread; therefore, it can be helpful to get into the habit of cleaning as you go rather than waiting for the right time. You’ll be surprised at how much time this saves!
Learn how to declutter. Another secret to a clean house? Less stuff! If you have the younger children who are learning how to put away their belongings (and let’s face it—they’re all still learning), aim for having fewer toys out at once. This will make life much easier for everyone in your family to keep things neat.
7. Make your bed every morning:
No excuses! It takes 30 seconds and sets the tone for your whole day. The first thing you have to do when you wake up in the morning is making your bed. Doesn’t it seem nice to come home to a mattress that is made, especially if you’ve had a hard day? Making your bed will give you a slight sense of pride, and it will get you excited about doing another task, and another, and another. By the end of the day, completing this one task will have turned into many tasks completed.
And if you didn’t make it yesterday? Well, there’s always today.
8. Keep your bathroom clean every day:
Cleaning up the bathroom is one of the most hated chores around the house. But it doesn’t have to be that way! You can easily make cleaning your bathroom a breeze with these simple steps.
1. Start by washing your bathtub or shower first. Turn on the water to be warm, then add in some soap and scrub the tub or shower down with a sponge. Rinse it out, and let it sit while you work on the other areas of the bathroom.
2. Next, spray down your toilet bowl with your favorite cleaner, let it sit for a minute or two, then scrub it down and flush it clean.
3. Now, take care of your sink area by wiping off any toothpaste spots you might have around the sink area, then spray down and clean off the countertops and sink itself before rinsing everything out.
4. Clean up any mirrors in your bathroom next by wiping them down with an appropriate glass cleaner (Sprayway works excellent for this), then buff them dry with a clean cloth rag or paper towel to ensure there are no streaks left behind from the cleaner itself.
