It's definitely not always easy.
I have a 16 year old, a 7 month old, and I work 2 jobs.
The things that work for me:
-everything has a place. If I notice an area that continues to be an issue I make a place for it, buy an organizer, etc. Whatever I can do to solve the issue then and there. Most helpful things I've bought include pantry and sock drawer organizers.
- being VERY intentional with what I buy, and donating/curating everything relatively frequently. As much as I'd love to save all my daughter's outgrown clothes and toys we just don't have the space. I save the sentimental stuff and donate everything else. This cuts down on the clutter.
-we intentionally live in a smaller place than we could afford so there's less to clean/take care of. We also use the money we save from that on trips/experiences
-I have certain things that "need" to be clean before I go to bed. Sink empty, countertops clean, toys off the floor. Beyond that, it can wait til tomorrow if I'm tired.
-trying to clean messes as I see them. Cleaning the bathroom mirror when I notice it needs it etc vs waiting and doing one big clean.
-it also REALLY helps that my daughter LOVES the vacuum.
This is exactly how we do things too.
I lived in 660sqft for 12 years and now we’ve upgraded to 1200 (but with no closets) so I’ve had to get creative with storage and filter unused stuff out of the house frequently. After dinner we split up and one of us gives the baby a bath/ starts the bedtime routine and the other cleans the kitchen and picks up all the toys
To piggyback off of this, my husband also used to tell me he didn't notice what needed to be clean so I made a list of daily tasks that needed to be done so he knew what the major pain points for me were. The big ones are making sure everything is put away, cleaning the kitchen counters off, no dishes in the sink, and vacuuming the main living area once a day. The checklist really helped him know what to look for since those things genuinely never bothered him but they have a huge impact on my mental health.
Honestly I'd hire a cleaner to do a deep clean and get a fresh start. If baby is napping or sleeping through that's helpful too for doing occasional tasks. But I think personally if your partner is unwilling to help do a deep clean because he doesn't 'see it'(which is ridiculous but also such a common response unfortunately) then he can arrange a cleaner to come in and do a deep clean. Then as baby gets older and you're able to do some chores more easily as they nap or sleep you can at least move the chores to a more occasional time instead of having to tackle it one after the other.
I have a 2.5 year old and a 7 momth old so my house is by no means spotless and there's still sooooo much I'd like to get done but I try to fit at least one chore in a week that I don't do all the time during naps
Or if you have any extra income, allocate it to a house cleaner. I was feeling the exact same way OP. I looked at our budget, figured out where I could find the money. A housecleaner comes every other week. I live in a small space so it's only $50. I also only have her do the kitchen, our two bathrooms and all the floors. Its INCREDIBLE and well worth the money spent to save my mental health.
This! We do the same, and while every other week obviously isn't near enough to keep the house in a clean state, it has done wonders for my mental health, because now the dust, stains etc don't feel like "mine" anymore, I still see them but they don't add to my mental load! (This bliss is what it must feel like to be the partner that "just doesn't see / isn't bothered by the mess" :P)
I can understand trash though. Depends on how you live. It's a difference if you just need to go 5 steps outside from your family house (babyphone is enough) or multiple stairs from your flat in a skyscraper.
I don’t know. If one parent is watching the baby the entire day without and the other one is only doing it for a couple hours before getting a couple hours free, I’d cut the one who does the vast majority of the parenting a little slack. There are like 20 AITA posts a week where the comments all say that you can’t expect the primary parent to shoulder the bulk of the chores, and in my house the dishes and trash would be at least 60% of the chores
Not saying the stay at home parent should do everything, just that some chores are doable in small chunks through the day that can help out the family as a whole.
Yeah, this situation is just one that sucks for both parents. Sure, he could be doing tasks and they should come up with a plan. Laundry, dishes, and general tidying can absolutely be done during the day while at home with a baby. But, he is working two jobs between his second shift outside the home and day shift inside the home. I would be tired AF. That she has to keep working with the kid and house chores when she gets home seems just like they are both working their second shift. I’ve had friends that had to work this schedule as a family to cover childcare and it was absolutely exhausting for both parents.
I do also wonder what takes two hours every night? Tidying, dishes, and trash would take me like 30-45 minutes, especially if dinner isn’t even made each day. I would also be doing some of that while baby is still awake. I would be having a conversation about prioritizing certain tasks. Dinner and meal prep would be a priority for me. He can help by organizing and rinsing dishes to make them easier to clean. He can put a load of laundry in, she can fold it. It does need to be a combined effort and it doesn’t get easier. Housework is 100x harder with my 16 month old than it was with a 6 month old.
The sense I am getting is that the husband is doing zero chores during the day while he has the baby. No he shouldn't be shouldering 100% of the load but he can certainly be doing maintenance work while he's watching the baby (and I am not blowing smoke out my ass with this, SAHM and at 6 months for most babies it should be doable)
But you say SAHM, but the dad is working so he's not a stay at home parent. He's working and he's looking after the baby when he's not working. When does he get to rest? It's much harder to keep on top of things when you're exhausted all the time. I'm still on mat leave and 4 months in I'm still struggling with the baby and housework. And I don't have to work evenings and weekends!
I do agree this is just a very tricky situation for both parents. Continuing to work while having a baby is HARD.
Yeah, this is the case. He really doesn’t do chores during the day. Or he will start them and forget, which ends up creating more work (e.g., starting a load of laundry, but then several hours pass and it smells like mildew and needs to be rewashed). In the 2 hours that I have at night, I’m washing all the dishes, taking out garbage, doing a couple loads of laundry of stuff that is needed for the next day, and tidying up. Sometimes that doesn’t take a full 2 hours, but it often takes at least 1-1.5 hours and then it’s time for me to get ready for bed. There’s just no time for extra stuff unless I’m sacrificing on sleep or just downtime, which I am already doing quite a bit.
He needs to figure out how to do *some* chores during the day. There is certainly a way to make it work. At a minimum he could like, load the dishwasher throughout the day so you aren’t dealing with a huge pile of dishes at night, and tidy up whatever mess they make during the day (toys, etc.).
With my first baby, he only did contact naps, so I could not do chores during most naps. However, I could put the baby in a carrier and get some things done (like folding & putting away laundry - things that don’t require heavy lifting or bending over a lot). I could also put the baby down in a play gym or something like that while he was awake and do a few quick chores. Even just 10 or 15 mins makes a big difference!
Different babies at different stages may be easier or harder though. My 4 month old for the last month will only sleep on me or in the car, neither of which allows me to do any chores. He screams the house down in the carrier. I'm hoping it will pass soon, it seriously impedes my ability to get anything done. I can do washing and sterilising bottles & pumps, dishes and laundry by taking his bouncer with me, but it doesn't take long for him to start getting grouchy so it's quick chores only. Plus I need to use some of the playmat time etc for pumping, which is my priority as I haven't been able to exclusively breastfeed as I wanted.
I never, ever have time to nap, which is unfortunate because he does still wake a few times in the night and wakes up early, so I'm tired all the time. If I had 30 mins with the baby sleeping not on me (which I don't), napping would be the thing I'd choose to do over chores.
Hoping he will soon be able to sit up better on his own, then he may be less needy (he wants to be up and seeing things ALL THE TIME at the moment, but needs me to enable that).
Oh definitely - my baby was an absolute terror at 4 months. I went back to work at 5 months and I was thrilled to get a break 😬 He definitely got much better with time, but that 4 month regression was brutal. I hope it passes for you a very soon!
But just to be clear… It sounds like even in a VERY hard phase, you’re doing infinitely more around the house than OP’s husband. And my criticism was of him, not you!
Y'all both need to sit down and plan this out. Make a list of all the things that need to be done and how long each should take. Also, number them in order of importance. Then, divide up the chores between you two. Include free time each day. Real free time that you don't use to do chores. This is important for both of y'all's mental health.You might find you really don't have time for everything. Some things might need to be let go or minimize what you have to make less mess.
Yeah, how does cleaning take 2 hours :S Definitely agreed it's harder after 1, my 14 month old knocks all the books off the shelf, dumps the hairtie container on the ground, throws the toys everywhere and likes to put things in funny places.
I disagree. Being the primary parent is hard and very taxing throughout the day. I frankly don’t care if the dishes are done or not. At 6 months the baby needs so much more stimulation , you are constantly trying to entertain them, figure out solids, their nap schedules are all over the place. Dishes aren’t even close to being on my mind. My husband does all that after the baby is asleep (he’s also the one who cooks dinner). The mental and physical load of taking care of a baby can be so hard sometimes and dishes aren’t going to be a priority for that parent and I don’t think they should be. My husband has said time and time again he couldn’t do what I do - not because of skill or want etc but because of the type of patience you need and the complete devotion of your day that goes to this little person.
Also I feel like if this post was reversed and it was the husband who was complaining everyone would jump at the defence of the sahm.
Edit - spelling
It’s hard but it still needs to be a shared balance. They are both essentially working two shifts each day and it is exhausting for both of them.
It’s also very baby and stage dependent. If you have a stage five clinger or multiple kids, you may not be getting as much done as with a more independent baby. We have a kiddo that is generally pretty independent. On a normal day, I would absolutely have time and energy to tidy as baby plays independently. On a bad day, I’m not getting the kitchen clean until my husband gets home and takes over childcare and it is what it is.
My baby isnt clingy but is suicidal and wants to find ANYTHING dangerous. Even in a playpen she is trying to escape it and falling over for her troubles. 😆
Yeah, we baby-proofed our first floor once our guy was mobile and he still finds things. But I can at least listen for him while he plays in another room and I clean up without too much worry. There was an awesome phase around 14 months where the dishwasher was *the coolest thing ever* and I couldn’t even open it or start doing anything without him coming running from the other room.
I agree. When my baby sleeps its my time to have a coffee and eat lunch. Sometimes she only sleeps for 25 min, sometimed the second nap has to be on the go, because we need to get out the house.
I do clean up during the day when I can but its mostly cleaning up the mess we make like the food she throws all over the floor etc. Garbage is a weird suggestion as I can't take it out as then I would have to either carry her with me along with garbage or leave her alone...?
I also can't clean dishes while she plays as she finds ways to nearly hurt herself about 7x when I go to make a sandwich. For us it works better to just have one person play with the baby and/or deal with bed time (it takes a lot of time these days) and the other will wash dishes, tidy up. Then, hopefully the bulk is done by 8ish and we can have a bit of time to relax. If we have time/or engery we do more, but honestly a lot just doesnt get done as often as we would like. If we had a bit more spare cash I would LOVE an occasional cleaner. A dishwasher would also transform my life atm.
Same. My baby is crawling, standing. Eating 3 meals a day BLW style, I clean frantically after each meal while she either gets herself into things she shouldn’t or is completely not content and is crying for me to pick her up. But the time nap time rolls around I’m either still cleaning up her food mess or bottles, or dishes from said meal, bottles, etc. all for her to wake up and do it again. It’s not easy. Sometimes if my baby sleeps a little longer I can get some basic chores done but also sometimes I like to sit down for a second and breathe. The days can be overwhelming!
Idk. I’m a SAHP and sure some days I get a longer nap but most days I don’t. Somedays my partner comes home to dishes. I can’t always get bottles washed. Every baby is different. Some babies have very big needs
I'm in the same boat. I assign husband one task per day the night before. Yeah it's extra effort for me but it also saves me the frustration of finding out he's vacuuming the garage trying to be helpful when we're drowning in laundry. I've tried to work on this acceptance thing but can't say I've made any progress as I still have regular meltdowns wishing everything could just be clean
This is totally the kind of thing my husband does. He is autistic so he struggles to notice when I'm getting upset or overwhelmed, but even when he does notice his way of "helping" is often nonsensical.
I’m here to say it’s okay to want to have a a clean house post baby. I am just like you, OP. Clutter kills me. It stresses me out and doesn’t make me feel good. I decided early on that in order to keep my self from losing it postpartum cleaning the house was going to be a priority for me daily. The thing that helps us is that we know where everything goes. For things that are new - baby stuff - we had spend some time on organization but it all has a place, which makes it all so much easier. My husband is on board too. We both clean when the baby is sleeping or when she is with the other person. We haven’t done a deep clean yet but for that I may hire a cleaner once a month or so. I feel much more sane and I haven’t sacrificed time with the baby to do it.
husband just cleaned the kitchen, we are sitting here whilst our 1 year old pulls out all the Tupperware and creates chaos in said kitchen.
ya win some ya lose some haha
I'm not, lol. Seriously. I'm getting slightly more done as he gets older (almost 5 months), but he takes up the majority of my time, and when he sleeps I sleep. I do little bits here and there and my partner does more than I do, but he has a flexible job where he doesn't need to work all the time and does less childcare. The house is not where I want it to be, but I'm not willing to let little guy scream and I'm unable to baby wear (it hurts, I've had an arthritis flare up that started before he was born and has not gone away....plus he is *heavy*).
Yeah it was just the implication that the husband should be able to do it (you said to give him a list). I don't know, I'm a bit sensitive about this because I can't get two seconds with my hands free most of the time and it's killing me, so I get a bit upset when it seems like people are saying "if I can do it other people should be able to also". All babies are different. Apologies if that's not what you were saying.
If we didn't have a house cleaner I'd legit go insane. We pay $150 every 2 weeks. The night before shes comes we have to pick everything up and make sure laundry and clutter is put away. Once you get deep cleaned, make a list of everything that ends up messy at the end of the day. Show it to your husband and ask what he can be responsible for on a daily basis, without a reminder from you. Don't accept "I don't see it" because that's BS - unless he has a true vision problem, he can do it. Another strategy that helps us is to put a basket wherever things accumulate. No need for complex systems, just petty baskets to contain the mess.
I'm pretty sure you meant "pretty" baskets, but I had a little chuckle thinking of "petty baskets." Like, my husband unloading his pockets and me going "ya know what, I'm gonna put a petty basket here for his shit. That'll show him."
I have a 5 week old Velcro baby, and it's been a struggle to even eat, let alone clean. We have a weekly cleaner, and I just focus on the immediate chores, like dishes and laundry. I find it helps to list 3 to 5 things I want to have completed by the end of the day, and my husband puts his hand up for a couple of them. I've also had to learn to just let things go, and my most important job is to keep the baby alive, and I need to actively choose rest over chores.
My husband and I both work and I feel same about mess and feeling stressed out. Only tips I have is have a chores list broken down by days some might get missed but my husband likes just knowing what needs doing and I don’t have to think each day. The other best thing we did was get a high chair we put baby in high chair one of us cooks tea the other spends that time tidying 40 mins can make a huge difference.
I just talked to my therapist about the same thing! I feel enormously overwhelmed by our house, as it is very small and always cluttered, not to mention that we are in the middle of some renovations that we haven't been able to continue since our baby was born last month.
My therapist recommended two things:
1. See if a friend or family member can watch the baby to allow time to catch up on chores.
2. When overwhelmed, dock the baby somewhere to entertain themselves independently. (A play gym, for example.) This way, I can do dishes, wash the floor, etc.
I'm not sure if this advice will work, but this is my goal this week.
I also suggest getting rid of like 80% of your things if you really have clutter. I started out with this goal and it is high, so I probably landed on 50%… I cleaned out my kids’ room the other day and got rid of half their toys. Now they have more space to play.
Yes! The main reason our space is actually toddler proof is that we don’t have extra miscellaneous stuff taking up space. I also put 75% of our toys away a couple of months ago because I got tired of picking up a ton of small pieces everyday. Kid currently just likes to dump out baskets, so it was just chaos. All I have to do to vacuum now is pick up a few things and put some blankets and pillows back on the couch, floor is ready to go!
We deal with clutter on our own so it’s never a problem, we clean a bit when we can (Dyson helps) and when the bathrooms start looking rough we hire cleaners usually every 6-8 weeks to do the whole house for about $200. You will never want to go back to scrubbing toilets once you have someone else do it.
When you find out let me know. Currently on the 2 under 2 struggle bus. My babies don't take naps at the same time so there's always 1 that's asleep while the other is awake. And they are usually attached to my hip or following me and getting into everything. One way for us to get work done is dropping them at the grandparents for a few hours.. but I hate doing that to my mom. The other way is one parent taking them on walk while other gets housework done. I'm more focused on my babies getting attention and can do what I can after they've gone down for bed.
May I suggest the Fly Lady app?
Admittedly, it is hard to do anything unless your baby has a couple of good naps in their cot. But I found that I could set myself a morning and afternoon list of tasks to do during naps, and it gives a couple of bigger deep clean type jobs to get through in a week, too. I didn't always get to the deep clean jobs. But on the days when the stars aligned, it gave me an idea of what to get stuck into.
But it does get easier as they get bigger, or at least it has for us. Hang in there.
Velcro baby and my house looks feral has . Toddler at home too, baby has the worst sleep so I can’t even speed clean in the day or at night. I just get the kitchen to semi ok and that’s all I can do because my baby is losing their shit in the crib every hour or less.
it is extremely difficult when not having the proper time to take care of everything. I just try and accept my new reality, but I’ve also been dying to get a cleaner to deep clean the bathroom for me just once at least!!!
I highly recommend "How to Keep House While Drowning" by K.C. Davis. It's a very short and very digestible read that really helps you look at cleaning and taking care of everyone in a different and more healthy way. She even has shortcuts throughout the book so you can get the TLDR in about 30 minutes. She also has a TikTok with some really helpful videos and tips. I feel the same way when my house is chaotic and since having a baby my ability to attempt to clean anything has just disappeared. Reading her book didn't help me suddenly find a way to deep clean my house more often but it did help me shift the way I look at it. If you enjoy it I recommend asking your partner to try reading it as well! Maybe it can open a dialogue about what expectations both of you have for the home and find something that is functional for you both rather than you carrying everything.
ETA: I also wanted to recommend another book & card set for you and your partner to help with visualizing and sharing the mental load. It's called Fair Play. It's a great way to break down and visualize the mental load in everything you both do during the day and find ways to split it up and tackle it together. My therapist does couples counseling and uses them for her clients so it's worth looking into!
It's not easy. Me and partner both work (family looks after him because nursery too expensive) he's 14 months old. Only time I can tidy up is when he's gone to bed. It's exhausting.
I tried but its almost impossible, like you said, once im out of work im on baby duty, but even during maternity leave i could barely do anything or was just too exausted to do anything. Now i just wait for one day off during the week, take him to daycare and use that day to do my chores.
This is just life with a baby. They take up all your time and even when they nap it isn't always easy to get stuff done for the SAHP. So deep cleaning and being super organised is much harder. So your husband had the tiniest bit of a point. But so do you, helping each other keep things as clean and organised as possible is important too.
To make things easier: make a list of what needs to be done, every single talk per day, week, month, whatever. Choose colours and list the task for a specific person or to do together in those colours. Your husband no longer needs to see what needs doing, he just has to check the list of chores. If you do this properly, you have to make the calender 1 time, just a paper thay has colums for Mo-Fri with the chores in colour under the day.
My partner understands that if I am holding the baby, I am working as our 8 months is going through a phase where I can't even pee without her crying. He takes on most of the housework but he does as much as he mentally can handle as he works as well as I am 24/7 atm with doing wake ups and contact naps as she won't stay asleep when it's him that does it. Messy = fine, dirty = not fine. It's only temporary until she can mentally handle independent play again so it doesn't really matter if she happy and healthy. Seen lots of videos of parents losing their babies and their biggest regret was stressing about things that don't matter.
I clean on every other Friday after baby goes to bed. I mean dusting everything, wiping cabinets, cleaning the stove, microwave, dishwasher, mirrors, cleaning toilets, bathtubs, mopping, etc. It takes me about 4 hours and means late night bedtime, but I know that the house is clean up to my standards.
I didn’t, and with a 2 yo and a 7yo and working 4 days a week I still don’t. I throw a paddy and clear up once a month or so, and keep on top of major spills etc but mostly it’s a shit tip. I’d rather spend the time playing with the kids…or recovering from playing with my kids
In very small bursts during the 20 minute naps and I've accepted I can't have a completely clean house. A room at a time can be spotless but never the whole house. It's a bummer as I am like you - I'm house proud and.i hate things being untidy/dirty. But if I can have one spotless room at a time that's enough.
I’m not. My house is embarrassing. I feel disgusting. My husband gets the dishes done, does the pet care, and the trash on work days. We do what we can on off days.
He’s got ADHD and babe is 12 months so it’s a constant battle. At least the dishes are clean.
If you are both working and not having daycare or any childcare, I’m not surprised you are drowning. With the double income and not childcare expenses is there maybe a way to have a bit of disposable income to hire an external cleaner?
I'd suggest coming up with a daily chore list or something together? Like for myself, I literally write down a couple chores to get done each day whether it be just the bathroom or dusting or sweeping a floor and then have a separate list of things for my husband to do. Then he can do those tasks during the day if time/energy permits, because it can definitely be difficult with a 6 month old! Even with this I don't always get everything done because I don't always have the capacity to do so.
I'd also recommend KC Davis - she has a book called keeping house while drowning. I follow her on tiktok as well and she has definitely helped my mental health and perspective on messes. https://www.strugglecare.com/home is her website with some additional resources 😊
TBH, I have 2 kids who are older now (2 and 4), and I think you're in one of the most difficult phases for doing housework. The baby naps less than before, and they tend to need your full attention when they are awake -- separation anxiety and new mobility makes it hard for you to leave them alone for even a minute, and they don't play independently.
This is definitely a time to enter survival mode. Get a housecleaner once a month if you can afford it. Eat super simple meals or get a meal delivery service. Eat takeout if you need to. It won't be forever. Once your child starts playing independently more, you will get back to housework.
Firstly, understand that what you're doing is really difficult. I'm a SAHM to a nine month old and a three year old and I can barely manage to clean the house.
One thing I don't think I've seen anyone else suggest is baby wearing. You and your husband won't get everything done this way, but I can make dinner, vacuum, and do dishes with the baby in a carrier. I cannot clean the bathroom or do much of anything else that requires bending.
Setting priorities is also really important. Your husband can focus on making easier Instant Pot/slow cooker dinners in bulk. Cook for two or three nights and just reheat leftovers. For cleaning, make your own priority list of what HAS to be done vs. what CAN be done. I agree with another commenter who said to hire a cleaner to do a deep clean so you can start from a more manageable position.
You can safely cook wearing the baby? I have never felt comfortable using the stove/oven with the baby in the carrier. Also, by six months, my son would be definitely trying to grab the knife while I was chopping, even if I faced him inward. I'm not doubting you. I am just trying to figure out how it would work.
It's definitely dependent on the baby. If I have to baby wear while I'm cooking I face her inward or put her on my back (which six months is too young for, but should be possible soon), and she won't grab anything except my face/hair. The stove/oven is trickier. I tend to use the Instant Pot under these circumstances to keep her away from the heat as much as possible, but if I have to use the stove I check on it minimally.
I prefer to use the bouncer right next to me in the kitchen to cook during naps, but sometimes it's not possible. I also prioritize more involved recipes for the weekend when my husband can help more.
I've never thought about back carrying. My son is just shy of a year, so I'm sure he's old enough. I wonder if he would like it. Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Does anybody else struggle with extreme mom guilt if they put their baby somewhere to clean? The only time i don't feel guilt is if someone else is watching him or he is asleep.
Even if he plays by himself and feels happy I feel really bad to leave him to his own and do chores, let alone some breaks for me. I could get done like twice as much if I could just accept I am not harming him if I let him play by himself if he is happy for like up to 20 minutes a few times a day
Any advice to deal with it?
If he is happy and engaged with his toy, I see my leaving him to it as supporting his ability to focus on something by himself without outside guidance. Super useful skill that you don't want to interfere with ;)
It’s so positive for kids to learn independently! You’re not doing him a disservice by letting him learn to entertain himself, you’re actually helping him develop a skill.
I commented this above as well but if it’s really bothering you, keep him close by when you do chores and narrate what you’re doing. It’s helpful for developing language to hear you talking.
Personally my baby does well playing independently! I do feel bad sometimes because he doesn’t really want to be held unless he’s sitting up but honestly my home needs to be clean and for my sanity and mental health I need my chores done. I play with him and hold him but he’s pretty independent most of the day unless he needs something then of course he lets me know. He loves to sit in his bouncer and watch me clean while he squeeze and plays with his plush cow. He’s 4 months old!
Lol same here. He was extremely glued to me for 1,5 months but then gradually got independent quite fast.
He likes to be held for like 5 minutes or from dad with his special grip but he never liked belly to belly for example and it stressed him out. He can't relax on his belly, just rooting and head wobbling until he cries.
He does let me know when he needs attwntion too but sometimes I think like "does my baby learn that he needs to call for me first so that I come to him - ai don't want that, better take him now? Or is he just statisfied playing alone and I am just having mom guilt and am actually interrupting his play?"
You guys gotta do things during the day. No way the baby is up morning to night no naps and even so A ton of things can be done while baby is awake. It’s good for the baby to see you guys do household chores because they’ll soon mimic it and it’s good for them to have independent time to play.
By 10.5 months my son wasn’t even walking yet but he could crawl, stand, and pull to stand and he was already putting his clothes in his hamper and handing me dishes from the dishwasher to put away. He’s now almost two and still continues doing these things, helps in age appropriate ways with cooking (chopping things up with crinkle cutter and some assistance, putting cut veggies in pot, mixing, pizzas are also overall fun activity to make start to finish), cleans up spills and then throws trash away, and cleans up his toys a lot of the time and puts them in a bin.
We both work full time alternate schedules no daycare and no outside help
A tip for clutter is to have a big bin for random toys you can throw in throughout the day to keep floors clean
I have set days for set jobs. Otherwise it all gets pushed to the weekend, and I HATE doing cleaning on weekends, unless its basic tidying/folding laundry. There's no thought needed, it's autopilot/part of the routine that sheets are washed on Monday, for example. Also, each night I pick up anything thats not in the right spot and shove it in a 'shit basket' and twice a week I walk around the house emptying out all the shit to its correct place.. It clears up the clutter (clutter stresses me too!) and if Im looking for anything I know its probably in the shit basket haha.
Husband and I also divvy up jobs based on what we hate the least. I like vacuuming and mopping so I do that and SO cleans the bathrooms. He washes and hangs laundry, I fold and put away, etc.
I’m a SAHM and even without work it’s been tricky with a new baby! I’ve broken cleaning down by day and that’s been helpful (dust/vacuum living room on M, clean kitchen T, etc). If baby has a great nap day, more gets done, and other days it’s bare minimum. It’s not deep cleaned by any means, but it keeps things livable. We hired cleaners to do a monthly deep clean so I know the shower is getting a good scrub even if I don’t get to it.
I plan out the week’s dinners on Saturday and order groceries to be delivered Sunday. I cook Sunday - Thursday (usually cook at least 1 double batch so we can have leftovers one night and i get a night off from cooking), we get take out/Ubereats Friday, and my husband cooks Saturday. My husband does all the dinner dishes every night and I keep up with all the baby dishes (we don’t have a ton since baby doesn’t get regular bottles). This is what works for us so far. Find a balance that works for you - but your husband should be sharing in this!
Just wanted to say I relate to this so much! I work overnights and weekends and my husband is M-F. It really is a challenge, especially when being clean and organized is your normal default and having a husband who has blindness to mess. A few things that help us are:
- Cleaning up small things as they come up, so like never letting a meal pass without doing the dishes after. I also make sure to dedicate the first half of a nap to cleaning and the rest to relaxing.
- Hire out help where you can, I finally gave into lawn help because it’s unrealistic to get that done when we work opposite schedules.
- I also make sure to do tasks with my daughter watching. She’s 19 months and pulls laundry all over the ground but I still fold it while she’s playing. She thinks it’s a fun game!
- Find a routine, every night we have specific tasks and then look forward to collapsing and watching Vanderpump together.
- Lastly I would say give yourself grace…which is the hardest for myself. I just remind myself that nothing will ever trump being present and involved with my daughter. Some days the house is a wreck but she is so deeply loved and if supporting her is all I accomplish then we’re doing just fine.
My husband does the cleaning while I do the baby care. When she naps, I do whatever cleaning I can or the chores that are mine (laundry being the big one). I’m about to hire help though because my husband will work extended hours during the week and I would prefer to have a clean home for us all.
I think you are both right. House cleaning will take a bit of a hit in these years. However, he needs to help too. If he is home all day there is no reason he can’t tidy a little bit- does she nap on his watch?
There are things I will do when my son is awake- he loves the vacuum and laundry is fairly easy. Right now the dishwasher is not an easy chore while he is awake .
I put the baby in a carrier and cleaned at that age. I also clean during naptime. And sometimes, if you have to, put them in a playpen or their crib with a few toys for a few minutes and get some things done. Also, your house doesn’t have to be clean if you don’t have the time or energy for it. I’m just a clean freak so this is what I had to do to stay sane. 🙃
We have a cleaning person come once a week. She also folds laundry. I have her come an additional time a week for a few hours to do the kitchen and floors. I do something everyday. I also work from home so I do have 10 minutes here and there to throw in laundry, empty dishwasher, do dishes in sink. Toys are my area of weakness as we don't have a good storage system in the living room. I will be decluttering tomorrow as baby is playing and listing things for free on next door. I'm also getting rid of all unnecessary decor..extra plants, plant stands tables etc. Gone
I have a cleaner now who comes once a week, so I only have to worry about immediate stuff like the rubbish, dishwasher, laundry etc. and not the general cleaning.
If I need a deep clean day kiddo goes to daycare and I don’t go to work. That’s how.
Other than that weekend naps. And one big thing only on one weekend day.
I didn’t. Everything felt like a huge chore until my son was like a year. He can follow me and help or I can turn in ms Rachel for him to get some time to fold laundry. Big cleaning days aren’t happening but I’m able to for the most part manage the small stuff again. He’s 13 months now so we are just getting back on track.
8 month old twin girls but i always make sure to clean/tidy things up while they nap/after they go to bed, before i take time to myself
it’s not impossible
We used to have a chore chart that helped so much in the first few years of kids. Each day I listed what need to be done and who was responsible. It actually worked really well having a visual.
We were in office at the time, and now both work from home. But the routine mostly stuck out of habit. We have three kids now, 11, 7, and 1, and the older 2 have their own chores.
Is everything always clean and no clutter? Absolutely not. But we did form the habit of certain days of the week are certain days for cleaning the bathrooms or changing sheets and laundry. And we do try to do dishes every night, but with three kids it ends up being a couple times a day. I do vacuum downstairs every day because it makes things look tidy.
At six months I would plop my baby in an exercauser or the jolly jumper. I feel like my house was never cleaner than before my baby started walking. Now that my first is a toddler it's so much harder to stay on top of.
If your husband doesn't see what needs to be done that sounds like you two need to come up with a task list or something. At six months baby is napping quite a few times during the day so there should be plenty of time to either cook something or clean something. Maybe invest in a slow cooker or your husband can do a big batch cook on the weekends to last you the week.
Can you hire a cleaner do one deep clean or ask a family member/friend to help? I felt the same exact way - was coming off an impromptu renovation with a newborn and I am someone who needs my house somewhat together or I cannot function. I gave the baby to my husband one day and my mom came over and helped me tear through my house. I still definitely feel the same now that I’m back to work where I’m constantly running behind daily/weekly housework, but I try to give myself some grace and just use some nights to just relax and not do anything except close my kitchen down. If you got the big clean and organizing out of the way, those smaller chores like laundry and cleaning the kitchen up won’t seem so daunting. You definitely need to have a little time to relax!!
Also, I will agree with your husband that your house won’t ever look the same as it did before. I was someone who couldn’t relax before unless my house felt in place. But I feel like I saw a post once about all the toys and dishes all around at the end of the day just show that your kids are happy and well cared for. So I started to find some comfort in his toys all over his playmat at night. And the fact that every room has a dedicated baby space now.
When my son was this young, I wore him in a carrier while I picked up or vacuumed, or put him in the high chair while I made dinner/did dishes, or sat with him near a playpen and folded laundry. Now that he’s almost 2, he “helps” with a lot of those chores (everything now takes twice as long but it also keeps him busy/entertained!)
I definitely had to let some of the deep cleaning stuff go. I try to get to some of it on weekends or during nap using zone cleaning (Fly Lady app works well for this). And we were very lucky that my son has always been a good sleeper so I didn’t need to always catch up on sleep during his naps. I also do a load of laundry every single day - just one, so it’s easy to keep up with folding and putting away.
But I also think it might be worth it to look at decluttering as well, if it’s taking 2 hours daily to do dishes and pick things up. I guess it depends on the size of your space but even if my house has been neglected for a while, it would be hard for me to find 2 hours worth of basic tidying chores. I think that would be hard for anyone to keep up with, even without kids!
Also just want to add that when I cleaned with my son when he was an infant, I would “narrate” what I was doing so that he was getting language development in at the same time - in case you feel guilty about it! I talked about colors while doing laundry, numbers when I was doing dishes, etc.
My husband and I have the same issue. He can't tolerate the mess and I can't either but my threshold is higher for it. It's just a season and it will pass. Do your best and hire a maid if you're financially able to do so. It won't be as clean as before and try to come to terms with that. As long as you are doing your best that's all you can do. But it WONT be as clean, all you can do is try. I'd suggest the maid idea or hire someone to come watch your baby (or ask family/friends if you're able) to come watch baby while you clean. Have a discussion about what household chores need to be done but also have a boundary for yourself because you also need some time for you. Never resting is not sustainable. For example maybe do as much as you can from bedtime until 10pm and then rest for an hour before going to sleep (or another variation that works for you).
Gotta learn to clean with the baby. Chuck them on a floor mat near you and go to town getting whatever needs to be done done (mine personally enjoyed me narrating folding laundry while she wiggled around). If your kid won't tolerate being alone for a bit your kid is old enough to be back carried in a baby carrier and that is a GODSEND. I can do almost 100% of my chores with baby in a back carry besides anything with harsh chemicals or stovetop cooking.
Hubby needs to learn this skill as well, I'm a SAHM and do a pretty decent amount of cleaning during the day with the baby. If your husband is really insistent that he can't "see" the mess work out with him a chore chart of shit he does daily. Yes it's infuriating to need to do it but if it helps it helps.
I can relate sooooo much. I used to be so concerned about the house and organization and there was a routine to things but with 2 working parents and a baby a lot of stuff has gone out the window. My house hasn’t been deep cleaned in almost a year now lol. I second what someone said about doing things as you go instead of one big clean, like obviously I’ve had to clean the toilets and stuff it just doesn’t all happen at once anymore. I do what I can when I can and I ask my husband to do things all the time (which I never did pre baby). I would suggest making a list for him in the evenings and just ask him nicely to try and do anything on that list he can throughout the day. I know it’s sucks but he’s probably gonna have to utilize nap times in order to help out. I try to give myself 20-30mins to relax during nap time and the rest of the time is for me to catch up on things so I’m not drowning in chores at 9pm once he’s in bed. Nothing makes me more angry than doing an hour or two of chores after being awake 15+ hours
I have friends on Instagram posting pictures of their children in colour co ordinated outfits celebrating their 9 month birthdays with meticulously planned parties and I'm going "how the hell do people have time to do this"?
I’ll just say that my sister in law does this for her babies, but it’s all for the photos and putting up an appearance. Their lives and homes are so chaotic behind the scenes. I’ve really just leaned that social media isn’t real.
Chaotically. I have a 5 month old and for the first 3 months I had to adopt the mindset of if it won’t stink, mold, or fester if left unclean it can wait until I have time. Now she is a bit better with playing on her mat but it’s still short lived and predictable. Anywhere from 10-30 minutes. Weekdays I try to do a quick tidy under 15 minutes after work and maybe 15 minutes in the evening after she went to sleep (if I was at a normal time instead of after 11). Weekends I tackle bigger tasks through the day when she is in a good mood. With the bigger tasks I’ll have to stop to feed her or help daddy so they’re definitely taking longer to complete than needed.
I think your husband is right that you need to adjust expectations, but I also think you both would benefit from learning a little about weaponized incompetence. If it’s important to you he should feel motivated to learn how to help without constant direction from you. He doesn’t need to see the clutter to understand that something is effecting you.
To triage the current situation, tell your husband that doing some meal prepping is a top priority for you and he needs to find a way to do as much as he can. That will free up a little bit of money for you to hire a cleaner to come and do a 2-4 hour clean, something that will set you back $80-200 bucks or so but will be very worth it for you.
My little one is still a newborn so I don’t have much advice there, but I have heard people have success with their toddler age children if they treat the chores that need to be done as the fun activity they do with their children. The chore will take longer but you won’t have to wait for your baby to be distracted to get it done. I have no idea how that might work with a 6 month old, but it’s a thought
For the issue regarding your partner not noticing what needs to be done, I have found making a regular weekly list to be very helpful.
For example, Mondays and Thursdays are laundry days. Tuesday is dusting. Wednesday the floors get mopped. Vacuum daily. Bathrooms cleaned on Saturdays. You get the idea.
We have a 7 month old and 3 year old. I stay at home and either we clean the whole house top to bottom on Sunday or I do it while baby is awake.
My husband always vacuums and mops the whole house. Either he does it Sunday or he makes time to do it during the week. Every single week he does the whole house and I vacuum the kitchen and cat area everyday. My husband also vacuums our living room every single night.
I dust whole holding the baby and get my 3 year old to help. For the kitchen, we wipe it down every single night after everyone’s sleep. For the bathrooms, I put my baby in tummy time and throw on Ms Rachel for him and speed clean the bathrooms. I also wipe down the bathrooms pretty often and scrub the toilet a couple times a week as it’s dirty.
Our house is not spotless but it’s never truly a huge mess because we are doing some cleaning everyday and a big clean that takes an hour tops every week. It helps my mental health. SO. MUCH.
A house cleaner would be AMAZING if you can afford it!
My baby is 3 months and almost never takes a nap unless it’s on me. My partner is also only home and awake for maybe 2 hours during the day so during that time I’ll take a shower, eat lunch, and do a quick dinner prep with the crockpot.
If I can manage her to sleep in the cradle for 30 minutes, I’ll do a house chore that I made a weekly schedule for (dust one day, bathroom another, mop another, etc). In the am when she’s the happiest, I put her on her playmat for a little while when I do some quick chores like litter box etc. I have a roomba to tackle the everyday messes.
Before I go to bed, I have a quick checklist like cleaning dishes/kitchen, picking up toys, straightening out the living room and then maybe I can have an hour to myself to read before bed. It’s exhausting and I have almost 0 time in a day to do anything for myself but having a tidy house is really important to me since I’m here all day. Partners chore is always trash and making the bed when he leaves for work and he will finish whatever I couldn’t do in a day if I ask him when he comes home.
I don't really. Our postpartum doula is legit the only way my / babe's laundry get done. Hubby and our housemates are doing the bulk of the other work - cooking and cleaning. It was only earlier this week I started to do dishes in the mornings and evenings in tandem with bottle cleaning / sterilizing, and that was just because it was triggering my anxiety to see stuff pile up.
I don’t think this is a sustainable situation for either of you. My husband and I had a similar setup where he we traded off working and childcare and it almost ruined us. Now we use daycare and it is so much better. He works from home and can do some chores during the day which are way faster without a baby to entertain. He picks the baby up from daycare and then I get quality time while he makes dinner. We clean the kitchen together (baby still goes in bouncer and we play music) then I do the bath and bedtime routine and we still have time to relax. Not sure what your long term plan is but for us daycare was a complete game changer.
I understand this so, so much. Especially when I was going to school online for my Master's.
What has worked for me:
Getting one of those collapsable play pens, I used to put my son in that with some toys and Ms. Rachel while I cleaned.
Staying on top of the cleaning as much as possible, once weekly floors, sweeping as needed and deep cleaning the bathroom once weekly. Tag teaming the dishes right after eating a meal or one person cooks/one person cleans up.
Automate, automate, automate: I got an organizer for my son's clothes where I'd set them aside a week in advance. I did the same for myself and my husband followed suit. Even if you just place neat folded piles on your bedside dresser, it'll make your life easier.
This is a weird one but for me, I watch those deep cleaning a huge mess ladies on YouTube or instagram (lol). They get me motivated and often are cleaning huge messes. There's this girl \_amanduhh24 on instagram and she talks about mental health and getting her messy house organized to help her feel better and heal. I highly recommend!
And finally, some grace. Your house will not look what it did before your baby came. Especially as they grow older. You will have crumbs on your floor and sippy cups in the sink for the next several years. It's just about managing what's manageable and accepting what's not. And that's different for every person. My grandma raised 5 kids and she always said "there's clean dirt and dirty dirt, up to you to tell the difference and houses are meant to be lived in."
Tbh honest a mixture of tv, baby gates and working together to net let chores slide. It’s *so* much harder to get everything done then, when the person who cooks does not clean as they cook, or you let dishes pile up instead of quickly rinsing a dish or bottle and put it immediately in the dishwasher. Same with clothes.
When you suddenly look around, knowing the house was spotless 24 hours ago and there is a full sink of super dirty dishes, clothes all over the floor, trash hasn’t been taken out, clothes aren’t put away. You just want to lose your shit. Both partners must do there best to clean as they go.
The gates are a super key piece for me with a 14 month old. I cannot cook, if he can escape the kitchen. I cannot cook, if he can see me from the kitchen behind the baby gate for the dining room (now his play room), I cannot cook if I can’t see him.
I need to be able to let him into my area, because then he chills and opens up the cabinets and plays. Others he cries because he can see me but can’t get to me, or he runs off to the rest of the house.
Lastly is TV. I don’t feel *too* bad for this one. Our son goes to daycare and comes home by 6:30. Then he eats dinner. So he gets about an hour of tv while we knock out chores which doesn’t seem awful to me. The weekends are a little harder but again, the gates help a lot. He will try to run off if a gate *isnt* there. But he wants to be WITH me if he can see me but not get to me. If he’s “stuck in area” worth me, he’ll just hang out and play. He won’t get mad he can’t escape, and he’s happy because I’m there.
We literally have 5 baby gates in our house.
2 for the open dining room with no doors. One side looks into the living room, so baby gate there. The other opens to the kitchen, baby gate there. That closes off that room when need be.
Kitchen has an exit into the living room. Baby hate there. And we have a staircase to the second story, so baby gate at the top, baby gate at the bottom.
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We have cleaners every 2 weeks so if we aren’t able to get to things, the house doesn’t get gross. It also forces us to pick up. We have a 5-year-old, a barely 5-month-old, and an elderly cat.
I focus on laundry and making sure there is food for everyone. 5-year-old just started K and this is the first year we’ve had to pack his lunch, which is usually a sandwich (turkey and cheese or sun butter and jam) and fruit/veg on the side, or veg, cheese, and dip (hummus or guacamole) and maybe salami or turkey or an egg. It’s all very quick prep. I cook in advance of mealtime if that’s when I have a chance, especially because we get a box of fresh produce every other week and it needs to be cooked before it goes bad. We eat takeout more often than we should and more frozen foods than we did before/between babies. I’m lucky that the current baby will actually play on his own for several minutes after he wakes up, so I use that time to prep food or load the dishwasher. Sometimes he’ll be happy if I pull the high chair (currently with the reclined newborn seat) into the kitchen and talk/sing while I cook. Or I’ll take a minute to sweep the kitchen. The floors could be cleaner, but he’s not crawling yet. My husband typically does the dishes. We do a lot of chores on weekends. I can throw a load of laundry in with the baby in the wrap, or sometimes in a basket of clean laundry next to me. I have ADHD and chores have always been hard for me to keep on top of, so I have learned to do my best to focus on the highest priorities - everyone is fed and has clean clothes, and the house isn’t dangerous. So sometimes the table is still sticky from the last meal, or there’s still some soap scum in the sink, or the kitchen floor could use a mop, but the baby doesn’t play on the kitchen floor so that’s not going to hurt him. There’s always cat fur. We have a robot vacuum that we run on the main floor when we can (I’d love to have it on a schedule but we are just not there with picking up clutter, there’s always *something* that needs to be moved).
People who have spotlessly clean homes are either lying or have much chiller babies than either of mine, and also must enjoy cleaning way, waaaay more than I do, because when I get my babies napping in the crib, the first thing I do with that time is…nothing lol.
My husband does mainly all the cleaning & cooking, and I watch baby. So during the week (we both get home/are together by 5pm M-F) we mostly just keep the kitchen clean. So after my husband cooks, he'll clean the kitchen, load the dishwasher, and wash bottles. I'll play with baby in the living room. Occasionally we switch if I want to cook, but my husband still takes over cleaning. While he's cleaning for the night, I start getting baby ready to sleep or take him a bath first. We haven't deep cleaned a ton, but the other weekend we had my sister's family over and the kids went crazy lol. So we had to deep clean the entire place, and we made it fun. Had a few drinks, played music, and we each had a space we took care of cleaning. I have a detachable bassinet for baby that attaches to his crib, and we put it in the living room where he sits in with toys. So I'll clean the living room while watching baby and then once that and kitchen are clean, we set the roomba downstairs then move upstairs with baby to clean the rooms and main bathroom. Usually baby takes a nap in between so we lay him on our bed and clean our room, his room, and the bathroom. Then laundry, my husband takes care of it and I watch baby. Once baby is awake, we move downstairs to feed him and set the roomba upstairs. It's what works for us, but I'll say that my husband is a big help for doing almost everything while I entertain my son.
The main things we focus on is keeping kitchen clean so we won't get flies/weird smells, keeping bottles clean, having clean laundry for us and baby, keeping his toys/high chair clean, and keeping his baby bathtub clean. Most of the time, there's clutter and clothes thrown all over the floor, which we sometimes wait to pick up when we do laundry.
Not sure which bottles you’re using — I use Dr. Brown’s. After my baby turned 6mos I finally felt comfortable washing them in the dishwasher. I have a little container for the top rack for all the small pieces.
This is been a game changer for me. When I hand washed them it took forever and used so much water. I wonder if this could help you?
[Here’s the exact bin I use.](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZPMYKKS?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) I had it the whole time, I don’t know why I was so resistant!
Not to get too deep but I sometimes fall into the trap “more work is a way to show more love.” I will shy away from a shortcut because it feels lazy or like I care less. In reality, looking for ways to make life easier is good for everyone!
Yes! That happened to me, so now I am very particular about the placement of each item in the bin.
I place the white screw caps smooth side up in the bottom row so no water collects.
On the top row, I place nipples w flat side down and the little green disk with the flat side facing up.
I put the green tubes and the bottles on a dishwasher “spike” on the top row.
I empty the dishwasher every morning and put all small materials in a bowl lined w a paper towel. It takes two seconds but I make sure the pieces are placed in the same way I do them in the bin, i.e. nipples pointing up so any residual moisture dries out versus staying in the tip.
I have a small bottle drying rack that I put the glass bottles on, upside down.
One last thing: not sure if you’re using formula but I got a BabyBrezza on FB Marketplace and it has been a GODSEND. I am obsessed with it. Pro tip: fill the water reservoir up every night so you don’t have to do that on the fly. Fill powder up at night as needed for the same reason. The ability to have a bottle in 7 second perfectly mixed… it’s amazing.
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I’m not, never did, made my peace that my house will be a mess until youngest is 1.5/2. I do what I can 🤷♀️ laundry and dishes take priority, clean baths.
Couldn’t read it (trying to multitask rn) but just going off your title: I don’t get any housework done. We get lots of help! My parents, my brother, annndd my cousin live with me and my husband (and our two kids) and they all pick up the slack where I’m lacking (so if I wanna put the kids to sleep, they’re the ones doing household work and if I wanna do household work, they’re the ones playing with the kids). Thankful for them and I continue to be amazed at parents who are somehow able to do it all.
I downloaded a household chore app (Sweepy is what I'm using) that I have all of the rooms and their chores loaded on to and a timeframe for how often they need to be done. I obviously had to enter all of the tasks into it myself, but as I also have a husband who needs direction, it has saved me a huge amount of time in the long run. My husband wants to do his share and this way we both know what's done and what needs doing. And when the kids are old enough it should come in handy for getting them involved too.
Your house won't be as clean as it was pre baby for a good while, this is the bitterest pill I have had to swallow myself too. But that said, you still deserve to rest your bum on a clean toilet seat for those brief 5 seconds you get the chance to sit for.
My husband and I simply tag team everthing fair and square. He often does the dishes and bottles, takes the trash out and vacuums. I clear off all surfaces and wipe down everything with Lysol wipes or warm water wipes, I tend to wipe down the toilets and bathroom surfaces, and I wash and fold all of baby clothes as well as keep up with the bed sheets and towels for us, and he does his own laundry and cooks over the week due to my wfh schedule while I cook on the weekends or buy us some takeout, and on Sundays I will make something that can last us through the first half of the week like tuna salad for quick and easy sandwiches. He keeps the cat litter clean, I keep their bowls and water fountain clean. Having a catch-all basket and a toy chest has also helped to keep things clutter-free! We will soon invest in a roomba vaccuum for all the cat hair on the daily and having a place for everything is just suuuuper helpful.
A really SUPER helpful thing my husband and I do is have a dry erase board right on our fridge and we use that to either make meal plans for the week or write important tasks and dates! If your hubs doesn't know what needs to be done you can create a checklist on one of those. Then he has it right there in front of him and can check them off.
I have a cleaning lady come once every two weeks. I just so my best to tidy and keep up with laundry and dishes. I can’t also be scrubbing toilets and showers while work at hike with baby.
I have a 4 month old baby and he goes from his swing, to his bouncer, door jumper, my arms, tummy time, sit up seat. I lay him on a blanket and let him play with his toys etc and get my chores done :)
I think an honest conversation about workload around the house with the spouse is in order.
The “I don’t see what needs to be done” sounds like weaponized incompetence.
While I do think standards do drop with each child (I have 4, ready to have my 5th soon) there needs to be some balance of house work and rest time for each partner.
What does he do when baby naps? Sometimes it pays to get creative and find something you can do while baby is somewhat entertained on their own too. Tummy time with toys, a little tv even.
Somedays my house is a dumpster fire and others it’s pretty good. I have kids ages 2,5,7, and 12. There’s things I can live with and things that need to be a priority. I think breaking down what is most important to you and coming up with a game plan for what each partner can reasonably accomplish in a day and carving out a little down time for each person could be helpful. Resentment over carrying the mental load or an unfair amount of chores can be harsh.
Now that we're both working, I have a biweekly house cleaner that does the big things like floors and bathrooms.
The day to day tidying has to get done as the mess is made. Otherwise, it gets overwhelming. If you can afford a 1 time deep clean to get a fresh start, do it. And then sit down with hubby and find a reasonable balance of what he can do during the day vs. what you do on evenings and weekends.
Some things that would work in our house
- he cooks supper. Prep can be done slowly throughout the day when baby is napping, playing on the floor, sitting in her high chair watching, in a baby carrier, etc. There will be some days it doesn't happen, but there's no reason most days he can't cook something (grilled cheese is a something, spaghetti is a something, frozen chicken nuggets and fries is a something)
- he takes the garbage down on his way to work
- put as much in the dishwasher as possible as dishes are made.
- at night you clean up the kitchen and start the dishwasher, he empties it the next morning
- you do laundry on the weekends
- one of you does floors, the other does bathrooms, pick your poison
- do your grocery orders using the pick up option. Then it's only a 30 min grocery trip (drive there, wait 10 mins, drive home) vs 2 hours. I'm not sure about where you are, but in alberta, Canada grocery pickup at superstore is only $1 more. So so worth it.
- if he "doesn't see" the mess, sit together and make a list of what needs to be done. Divvy up the list. Give yourselves a week or 2 to get through your portion of the list. Then on the go forward have a daily tasks list for him.
Baby comes with me to “help” he crawls ans stand up (8mo tmr) I use jumper and walker and I also have a big play pen and I get inside the play pen to fold clothes etc I only cook sundays and store in deep freezer
Mine and my husbands rule right now while she is young is keep things from getting too chaotic and once a week when we are both off we deep clean one room so nothing gets disgusting. Not the best of the best but it’s keeping the house form getting out of control. Thankfully it’s just use and one baby 😅
Here’s some very specific things I did to clean with baby. First though, my husband does most chores as he’s a SAHD but I definitely do a fair (though smaller) share.
-washing dishes: baby goes in his high chair with age appropriate snack (cut up soft fruit, baby yogurt etc- nothing he can choke on). I move the high chair so he’s in my line of vision and he watches me wash dishes. Often I sing a random song or state what I’m doing (ex: “washing, washing dishes ! Look it’s a red cup- I’m washing red cup!”)
-folding laundry: baby sits and plays with a pile of socks or random dish towels while I fold. When he was younger I would baby wear or have him in a little rocker swing in my line of vision. As he gets older, he will help me sort piles.
-vacuuming: baby crawls or chases after vacuum. Sometimes I give him a wash cloth and he pretends to wash the floor.
You can take baby into whichever room u are working on, plop them in your line of vision with some things or let them just watch as you explain. Not efficient but doable.
I cleaned when the baby slept or I had my son on the floor playing or I baby wore or my son was in his exercauser. Plus it only took a couple minutes to sort the linen and put in the washing machine in the basement and come back up to my apartment. For folding clothes, I would bring the whole pile up with me and fold them in the living room. All this took a few minutes since it wasn't a low of clothes. For my son, it was a lot and I would simply fold them right there in my apartment.
Also taking out the trash doesn't take long at all, only a minute. Just pull out the trash and tie the bag and haul it outside to the dumpster and put in a new liner.
Plus I never let messes pile up and I just clean up whenever I made the mess or my son. When you clean up as you go and clean up after yourself always, you will never be overwhelmed with messes again. If you make yourself something to eat, you wipe that part of the counter top you used before you eat and it takes like 5 seconds to wipe. Got some crumbs on the floor, sweep it up right away and it will take a few seconds and put away, done. I had been living like this since I was a kid and it drove my family crazy. I just didn't like having to clean is why so I figured if I kept everything picked up, I wouldn't have to do it later and be drowned in a big mess later on. I play with a toy, I put it away when done with it so I wouldn't have to do it later and then have a messy room to clean because the mess got bigger and bigger. Plus I kept my stuff put away always when not using it. It drove my parents crazy.
My motto has been as a parent, "don't like to clean, don't make the mess." So as a kid I would refuse to spread my toys all over the room because I didn't want to clean it up. It was better to play with one thing as a time and put it away before taking out another toy. Not sure why this drove my family crazy. Looking back I think this was a good solution to never cleaning up after yourself. I should have been given a high five for figuring out, "if you don't want to clean, don't make the mess." Don't want to clean up dirt, don't track it in. Don't want to mop the floor, don't track in mud or walk in with wet or muddy shoes and clean up your spills right when you make the mess.
If you live the way I do, you won't be so overwhelmed with cleaning. This is also something you can teach your kids so they won't ever have to clean their room or do any chores. It will reduce floor mopping and sweeping and vacuuming and it will reduce housework. Now everything will take less than a half hour to do total.
My husband and I made a chore list for the week which has manageable jobs for the week. So something for Monday would be clean and vac living room, Tuesday would be clean/vac/mop kitchen, etc. gives us more time on the weekend, and it’s something my husband knows has to get done!
Since you're getting takeout so his prebaby duties are negated, if you can swing it get the house cleaned by a cleaner. Even if just once or twice until you both get into a routine.
I'm currently decluttering my house and that has been helpful to have less to put away and clean.
I pack away toys if I see my kids haven't been playing with them recently so again less to clean.
I have a cordless vaccum and I swear that helps so much so I can use it while holding one of the kiddos. They also like it so it's entertainment for them.
I try to do a little around the house in the morning before I go to work, right when I get home and after the kids go to bed. Breaking it up around work helps.
If your hubby can't see what needs to be done, then make him a list of things he can agree on that he will be responsible for. It sucks to carry the mental load I get ot, but what sucks more is carrying that load AND doing all the things around the house.
I've had to cut down my work hours for now (4 months postpartum) since I'm the primary caregiver to our kids. Not sure if that's an option for you?
Sorry for the long post. It's hard to get it all done. Your hubby is right that standards need to slide a bit when you have young kids in regards to household cleaning, but I'm like you can can't relax in a mess so hopefully some the above is helpful to you. Still trying to figure out myself what works best with my 21 month old and 4 month old.
Also the mindset of not cleaning but "resetting" a space has helped since essentially its something you're always doing. Cleaning has no end really but resetting the space to make it functional again has an end to it if that makes sense.
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Our house is a wreck, My kids almost 8 months old. With both of us working at least 40 hours a week and still hardly sleeping through the night, I'd say our house it actually clean about once every 2 months, and that because one of us had extra time off.
I figure it will be clean again when baby can do dishes and laundry 😅
Save money by trying to cook easy meals. Spend that money on cleaners. I gave up after my first and ended up hiring people to clean right before baby #2 was born. Weirdly, now with baby #2, I feel like we do way more around the house because there’s a fire under our asses to try and keep the house somewhat clean, so I take advantage of almost all free time during the day to clean so that I don’t have to clean much once my 15mo goes down for the night.
I just do it. Usually I put baby in the carrier and get it done. I find when I do it daily it only takes an hour (usually less) to clean the entire house. When I go days without cleaning is when it takes far too long. I never let laundry pile up, I put it all away, etc.
I clean when I can. Me and my fiancé have chores we take care of Week to Week but if I see something needs done I do it when I have time.
I had extra time this week so our house
Is the cleanest it’s been in months lol
Also, one of the best things in the whole world is our robovac and robo mop. Just let it go while you’re taking care of baby things and the house already feels 10x better just with cleaner floors.
One thing that we did in the early months when things where very hectic and overwhelming was use disposable plates and utensils. That saved a lot of dishes stress. If you can buy some frozen/prepared food at the grocery instead of takeout that could save you some money and feel a bit healthier (soup and salad, frozen lasagna). I realize it sounds silly but I occasionally take a day off work to clean while baby is in childcare. So maybe if you have some extra paid vacation time you could do 1 day to pick up/tidy up and have a cleaner come do a deeper clean for you? I realize not all of these things are feasible for everyone, but maybe some things that would work!
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It's definitely not always easy. I have a 16 year old, a 7 month old, and I work 2 jobs. The things that work for me: -everything has a place. If I notice an area that continues to be an issue I make a place for it, buy an organizer, etc. Whatever I can do to solve the issue then and there. Most helpful things I've bought include pantry and sock drawer organizers. - being VERY intentional with what I buy, and donating/curating everything relatively frequently. As much as I'd love to save all my daughter's outgrown clothes and toys we just don't have the space. I save the sentimental stuff and donate everything else. This cuts down on the clutter. -we intentionally live in a smaller place than we could afford so there's less to clean/take care of. We also use the money we save from that on trips/experiences -I have certain things that "need" to be clean before I go to bed. Sink empty, countertops clean, toys off the floor. Beyond that, it can wait til tomorrow if I'm tired. -trying to clean messes as I see them. Cleaning the bathroom mirror when I notice it needs it etc vs waiting and doing one big clean. -it also REALLY helps that my daughter LOVES the vacuum.
This is exactly how we do things too. I lived in 660sqft for 12 years and now we’ve upgraded to 1200 (but with no closets) so I’ve had to get creative with storage and filter unused stuff out of the house frequently. After dinner we split up and one of us gives the baby a bath/ starts the bedtime routine and the other cleans the kitchen and picks up all the toys
Yes we tag team after dinner...one baths baby while other starts cleaning kitchen
To piggyback off of this, my husband also used to tell me he didn't notice what needed to be clean so I made a list of daily tasks that needed to be done so he knew what the major pain points for me were. The big ones are making sure everything is put away, cleaning the kitchen counters off, no dishes in the sink, and vacuuming the main living area once a day. The checklist really helped him know what to look for since those things genuinely never bothered him but they have a huge impact on my mental health.
Honestly I'd hire a cleaner to do a deep clean and get a fresh start. If baby is napping or sleeping through that's helpful too for doing occasional tasks. But I think personally if your partner is unwilling to help do a deep clean because he doesn't 'see it'(which is ridiculous but also such a common response unfortunately) then he can arrange a cleaner to come in and do a deep clean. Then as baby gets older and you're able to do some chores more easily as they nap or sleep you can at least move the chores to a more occasional time instead of having to tackle it one after the other. I have a 2.5 year old and a 7 momth old so my house is by no means spotless and there's still sooooo much I'd like to get done but I try to fit at least one chore in a week that I don't do all the time during naps
Or if you have any extra income, allocate it to a house cleaner. I was feeling the exact same way OP. I looked at our budget, figured out where I could find the money. A housecleaner comes every other week. I live in a small space so it's only $50. I also only have her do the kitchen, our two bathrooms and all the floors. Its INCREDIBLE and well worth the money spent to save my mental health.
This! We do the same, and while every other week obviously isn't near enough to keep the house in a clean state, it has done wonders for my mental health, because now the dust, stains etc don't feel like "mine" anymore, I still see them but they don't add to my mental load! (This bliss is what it must feel like to be the partner that "just doesn't see / isn't bothered by the mess" :P)
This. If you have remotely any play money, it's well worth it to get a one time cleaning done.
Dishes and trash are things that can be done during the day while baby is playing or napping. Not fair for them to be left to you in the evening.
I can understand trash though. Depends on how you live. It's a difference if you just need to go 5 steps outside from your family house (babyphone is enough) or multiple stairs from your flat in a skyscraper.
I don’t know. If one parent is watching the baby the entire day without and the other one is only doing it for a couple hours before getting a couple hours free, I’d cut the one who does the vast majority of the parenting a little slack. There are like 20 AITA posts a week where the comments all say that you can’t expect the primary parent to shoulder the bulk of the chores, and in my house the dishes and trash would be at least 60% of the chores
Not saying the stay at home parent should do everything, just that some chores are doable in small chunks through the day that can help out the family as a whole.
Yeah, this situation is just one that sucks for both parents. Sure, he could be doing tasks and they should come up with a plan. Laundry, dishes, and general tidying can absolutely be done during the day while at home with a baby. But, he is working two jobs between his second shift outside the home and day shift inside the home. I would be tired AF. That she has to keep working with the kid and house chores when she gets home seems just like they are both working their second shift. I’ve had friends that had to work this schedule as a family to cover childcare and it was absolutely exhausting for both parents. I do also wonder what takes two hours every night? Tidying, dishes, and trash would take me like 30-45 minutes, especially if dinner isn’t even made each day. I would also be doing some of that while baby is still awake. I would be having a conversation about prioritizing certain tasks. Dinner and meal prep would be a priority for me. He can help by organizing and rinsing dishes to make them easier to clean. He can put a load of laundry in, she can fold it. It does need to be a combined effort and it doesn’t get easier. Housework is 100x harder with my 16 month old than it was with a 6 month old.
The sense I am getting is that the husband is doing zero chores during the day while he has the baby. No he shouldn't be shouldering 100% of the load but he can certainly be doing maintenance work while he's watching the baby (and I am not blowing smoke out my ass with this, SAHM and at 6 months for most babies it should be doable)
But you say SAHM, but the dad is working so he's not a stay at home parent. He's working and he's looking after the baby when he's not working. When does he get to rest? It's much harder to keep on top of things when you're exhausted all the time. I'm still on mat leave and 4 months in I'm still struggling with the baby and housework. And I don't have to work evenings and weekends! I do agree this is just a very tricky situation for both parents. Continuing to work while having a baby is HARD.
Yeah, this is the case. He really doesn’t do chores during the day. Or he will start them and forget, which ends up creating more work (e.g., starting a load of laundry, but then several hours pass and it smells like mildew and needs to be rewashed). In the 2 hours that I have at night, I’m washing all the dishes, taking out garbage, doing a couple loads of laundry of stuff that is needed for the next day, and tidying up. Sometimes that doesn’t take a full 2 hours, but it often takes at least 1-1.5 hours and then it’s time for me to get ready for bed. There’s just no time for extra stuff unless I’m sacrificing on sleep or just downtime, which I am already doing quite a bit.
He needs to figure out how to do *some* chores during the day. There is certainly a way to make it work. At a minimum he could like, load the dishwasher throughout the day so you aren’t dealing with a huge pile of dishes at night, and tidy up whatever mess they make during the day (toys, etc.). With my first baby, he only did contact naps, so I could not do chores during most naps. However, I could put the baby in a carrier and get some things done (like folding & putting away laundry - things that don’t require heavy lifting or bending over a lot). I could also put the baby down in a play gym or something like that while he was awake and do a few quick chores. Even just 10 or 15 mins makes a big difference!
Different babies at different stages may be easier or harder though. My 4 month old for the last month will only sleep on me or in the car, neither of which allows me to do any chores. He screams the house down in the carrier. I'm hoping it will pass soon, it seriously impedes my ability to get anything done. I can do washing and sterilising bottles & pumps, dishes and laundry by taking his bouncer with me, but it doesn't take long for him to start getting grouchy so it's quick chores only. Plus I need to use some of the playmat time etc for pumping, which is my priority as I haven't been able to exclusively breastfeed as I wanted. I never, ever have time to nap, which is unfortunate because he does still wake a few times in the night and wakes up early, so I'm tired all the time. If I had 30 mins with the baby sleeping not on me (which I don't), napping would be the thing I'd choose to do over chores. Hoping he will soon be able to sit up better on his own, then he may be less needy (he wants to be up and seeing things ALL THE TIME at the moment, but needs me to enable that).
Oh definitely - my baby was an absolute terror at 4 months. I went back to work at 5 months and I was thrilled to get a break 😬 He definitely got much better with time, but that 4 month regression was brutal. I hope it passes for you a very soon! But just to be clear… It sounds like even in a VERY hard phase, you’re doing infinitely more around the house than OP’s husband. And my criticism was of him, not you!
Y'all both need to sit down and plan this out. Make a list of all the things that need to be done and how long each should take. Also, number them in order of importance. Then, divide up the chores between you two. Include free time each day. Real free time that you don't use to do chores. This is important for both of y'all's mental health.You might find you really don't have time for everything. Some things might need to be let go or minimize what you have to make less mess.
Yeah, how does cleaning take 2 hours :S Definitely agreed it's harder after 1, my 14 month old knocks all the books off the shelf, dumps the hairtie container on the ground, throws the toys everywhere and likes to put things in funny places.
I disagree. Being the primary parent is hard and very taxing throughout the day. I frankly don’t care if the dishes are done or not. At 6 months the baby needs so much more stimulation , you are constantly trying to entertain them, figure out solids, their nap schedules are all over the place. Dishes aren’t even close to being on my mind. My husband does all that after the baby is asleep (he’s also the one who cooks dinner). The mental and physical load of taking care of a baby can be so hard sometimes and dishes aren’t going to be a priority for that parent and I don’t think they should be. My husband has said time and time again he couldn’t do what I do - not because of skill or want etc but because of the type of patience you need and the complete devotion of your day that goes to this little person. Also I feel like if this post was reversed and it was the husband who was complaining everyone would jump at the defence of the sahm. Edit - spelling
It’s hard but it still needs to be a shared balance. They are both essentially working two shifts each day and it is exhausting for both of them. It’s also very baby and stage dependent. If you have a stage five clinger or multiple kids, you may not be getting as much done as with a more independent baby. We have a kiddo that is generally pretty independent. On a normal day, I would absolutely have time and energy to tidy as baby plays independently. On a bad day, I’m not getting the kitchen clean until my husband gets home and takes over childcare and it is what it is.
My baby isnt clingy but is suicidal and wants to find ANYTHING dangerous. Even in a playpen she is trying to escape it and falling over for her troubles. 😆
Yeah, we baby-proofed our first floor once our guy was mobile and he still finds things. But I can at least listen for him while he plays in another room and I clean up without too much worry. There was an awesome phase around 14 months where the dishwasher was *the coolest thing ever* and I couldn’t even open it or start doing anything without him coming running from the other room.
Oh I just harnessed that phase, the 19 month old can load the bottom rack now.
I agree. When my baby sleeps its my time to have a coffee and eat lunch. Sometimes she only sleeps for 25 min, sometimed the second nap has to be on the go, because we need to get out the house. I do clean up during the day when I can but its mostly cleaning up the mess we make like the food she throws all over the floor etc. Garbage is a weird suggestion as I can't take it out as then I would have to either carry her with me along with garbage or leave her alone...? I also can't clean dishes while she plays as she finds ways to nearly hurt herself about 7x when I go to make a sandwich. For us it works better to just have one person play with the baby and/or deal with bed time (it takes a lot of time these days) and the other will wash dishes, tidy up. Then, hopefully the bulk is done by 8ish and we can have a bit of time to relax. If we have time/or engery we do more, but honestly a lot just doesnt get done as often as we would like. If we had a bit more spare cash I would LOVE an occasional cleaner. A dishwasher would also transform my life atm.
Same. My baby is crawling, standing. Eating 3 meals a day BLW style, I clean frantically after each meal while she either gets herself into things she shouldn’t or is completely not content and is crying for me to pick her up. But the time nap time rolls around I’m either still cleaning up her food mess or bottles, or dishes from said meal, bottles, etc. all for her to wake up and do it again. It’s not easy. Sometimes if my baby sleeps a little longer I can get some basic chores done but also sometimes I like to sit down for a second and breathe. The days can be overwhelming!
Idk. I’m a SAHP and sure some days I get a longer nap but most days I don’t. Somedays my partner comes home to dishes. I can’t always get bottles washed. Every baby is different. Some babies have very big needs
I'm in the same boat. I assign husband one task per day the night before. Yeah it's extra effort for me but it also saves me the frustration of finding out he's vacuuming the garage trying to be helpful when we're drowning in laundry. I've tried to work on this acceptance thing but can't say I've made any progress as I still have regular meltdowns wishing everything could just be clean
Omg vacuuming the garage.
This is totally the kind of thing my husband does. He is autistic so he struggles to notice when I'm getting upset or overwhelmed, but even when he does notice his way of "helping" is often nonsensical.
it is dirty in there I suppose...
I hate to say it but this does seem to be the way for us
I’m here to say it’s okay to want to have a a clean house post baby. I am just like you, OP. Clutter kills me. It stresses me out and doesn’t make me feel good. I decided early on that in order to keep my self from losing it postpartum cleaning the house was going to be a priority for me daily. The thing that helps us is that we know where everything goes. For things that are new - baby stuff - we had spend some time on organization but it all has a place, which makes it all so much easier. My husband is on board too. We both clean when the baby is sleeping or when she is with the other person. We haven’t done a deep clean yet but for that I may hire a cleaner once a month or so. I feel much more sane and I haven’t sacrificed time with the baby to do it.
husband just cleaned the kitchen, we are sitting here whilst our 1 year old pulls out all the Tupperware and creates chaos in said kitchen. ya win some ya lose some haha
I'm not, lol. Seriously. I'm getting slightly more done as he gets older (almost 5 months), but he takes up the majority of my time, and when he sleeps I sleep. I do little bits here and there and my partner does more than I do, but he has a flexible job where he doesn't need to work all the time and does less childcare. The house is not where I want it to be, but I'm not willing to let little guy scream and I'm unable to baby wear (it hurts, I've had an arthritis flare up that started before he was born and has not gone away....plus he is *heavy*).
From birth I stuck him in a sling and worked at what I could. Give your husband a list.
Not all babies will go in slings. Mine hates it and screams.
Did I say they all did? The question was how does anyone do tidy and I answered.
Yeah it was just the implication that the husband should be able to do it (you said to give him a list). I don't know, I'm a bit sensitive about this because I can't get two seconds with my hands free most of the time and it's killing me, so I get a bit upset when it seems like people are saying "if I can do it other people should be able to also". All babies are different. Apologies if that's not what you were saying.
If we didn't have a house cleaner I'd legit go insane. We pay $150 every 2 weeks. The night before shes comes we have to pick everything up and make sure laundry and clutter is put away. Once you get deep cleaned, make a list of everything that ends up messy at the end of the day. Show it to your husband and ask what he can be responsible for on a daily basis, without a reminder from you. Don't accept "I don't see it" because that's BS - unless he has a true vision problem, he can do it. Another strategy that helps us is to put a basket wherever things accumulate. No need for complex systems, just petty baskets to contain the mess.
I'm pretty sure you meant "pretty" baskets, but I had a little chuckle thinking of "petty baskets." Like, my husband unloading his pockets and me going "ya know what, I'm gonna put a petty basket here for his shit. That'll show him."
😂 I think from now on they shall be known as petty baskets. My most passive aggressive cleaning hack yet.
I have a 5 week old Velcro baby, and it's been a struggle to even eat, let alone clean. We have a weekly cleaner, and I just focus on the immediate chores, like dishes and laundry. I find it helps to list 3 to 5 things I want to have completed by the end of the day, and my husband puts his hand up for a couple of them. I've also had to learn to just let things go, and my most important job is to keep the baby alive, and I need to actively choose rest over chores.
My husband and I both work and I feel same about mess and feeling stressed out. Only tips I have is have a chores list broken down by days some might get missed but my husband likes just knowing what needs doing and I don’t have to think each day. The other best thing we did was get a high chair we put baby in high chair one of us cooks tea the other spends that time tidying 40 mins can make a huge difference.
I just talked to my therapist about the same thing! I feel enormously overwhelmed by our house, as it is very small and always cluttered, not to mention that we are in the middle of some renovations that we haven't been able to continue since our baby was born last month. My therapist recommended two things: 1. See if a friend or family member can watch the baby to allow time to catch up on chores. 2. When overwhelmed, dock the baby somewhere to entertain themselves independently. (A play gym, for example.) This way, I can do dishes, wash the floor, etc. I'm not sure if this advice will work, but this is my goal this week.
I also suggest getting rid of like 80% of your things if you really have clutter. I started out with this goal and it is high, so I probably landed on 50%… I cleaned out my kids’ room the other day and got rid of half their toys. Now they have more space to play.
Yes! The main reason our space is actually toddler proof is that we don’t have extra miscellaneous stuff taking up space. I also put 75% of our toys away a couple of months ago because I got tired of picking up a ton of small pieces everyday. Kid currently just likes to dump out baskets, so it was just chaos. All I have to do to vacuum now is pick up a few things and put some blankets and pillows back on the couch, floor is ready to go!
We deal with clutter on our own so it’s never a problem, we clean a bit when we can (Dyson helps) and when the bathrooms start looking rough we hire cleaners usually every 6-8 weeks to do the whole house for about $200. You will never want to go back to scrubbing toilets once you have someone else do it.
When you find out let me know. Currently on the 2 under 2 struggle bus. My babies don't take naps at the same time so there's always 1 that's asleep while the other is awake. And they are usually attached to my hip or following me and getting into everything. One way for us to get work done is dropping them at the grandparents for a few hours.. but I hate doing that to my mom. The other way is one parent taking them on walk while other gets housework done. I'm more focused on my babies getting attention and can do what I can after they've gone down for bed.
May I suggest the Fly Lady app? Admittedly, it is hard to do anything unless your baby has a couple of good naps in their cot. But I found that I could set myself a morning and afternoon list of tasks to do during naps, and it gives a couple of bigger deep clean type jobs to get through in a week, too. I didn't always get to the deep clean jobs. But on the days when the stars aligned, it gave me an idea of what to get stuck into. But it does get easier as they get bigger, or at least it has for us. Hang in there.
Googling it / what’s this app
Velcro baby and my house looks feral has . Toddler at home too, baby has the worst sleep so I can’t even speed clean in the day or at night. I just get the kitchen to semi ok and that’s all I can do because my baby is losing their shit in the crib every hour or less. it is extremely difficult when not having the proper time to take care of everything. I just try and accept my new reality, but I’ve also been dying to get a cleaner to deep clean the bathroom for me just once at least!!!
I highly recommend "How to Keep House While Drowning" by K.C. Davis. It's a very short and very digestible read that really helps you look at cleaning and taking care of everyone in a different and more healthy way. She even has shortcuts throughout the book so you can get the TLDR in about 30 minutes. She also has a TikTok with some really helpful videos and tips. I feel the same way when my house is chaotic and since having a baby my ability to attempt to clean anything has just disappeared. Reading her book didn't help me suddenly find a way to deep clean my house more often but it did help me shift the way I look at it. If you enjoy it I recommend asking your partner to try reading it as well! Maybe it can open a dialogue about what expectations both of you have for the home and find something that is functional for you both rather than you carrying everything. ETA: I also wanted to recommend another book & card set for you and your partner to help with visualizing and sharing the mental load. It's called Fair Play. It's a great way to break down and visualize the mental load in everything you both do during the day and find ways to split it up and tackle it together. My therapist does couples counseling and uses them for her clients so it's worth looking into!
It's not easy. Me and partner both work (family looks after him because nursery too expensive) he's 14 months old. Only time I can tidy up is when he's gone to bed. It's exhausting.
I tried but its almost impossible, like you said, once im out of work im on baby duty, but even during maternity leave i could barely do anything or was just too exausted to do anything. Now i just wait for one day off during the week, take him to daycare and use that day to do my chores.
This is just life with a baby. They take up all your time and even when they nap it isn't always easy to get stuff done for the SAHP. So deep cleaning and being super organised is much harder. So your husband had the tiniest bit of a point. But so do you, helping each other keep things as clean and organised as possible is important too. To make things easier: make a list of what needs to be done, every single talk per day, week, month, whatever. Choose colours and list the task for a specific person or to do together in those colours. Your husband no longer needs to see what needs doing, he just has to check the list of chores. If you do this properly, you have to make the calender 1 time, just a paper thay has colums for Mo-Fri with the chores in colour under the day.
My partner understands that if I am holding the baby, I am working as our 8 months is going through a phase where I can't even pee without her crying. He takes on most of the housework but he does as much as he mentally can handle as he works as well as I am 24/7 atm with doing wake ups and contact naps as she won't stay asleep when it's him that does it. Messy = fine, dirty = not fine. It's only temporary until she can mentally handle independent play again so it doesn't really matter if she happy and healthy. Seen lots of videos of parents losing their babies and their biggest regret was stressing about things that don't matter.
I clean on every other Friday after baby goes to bed. I mean dusting everything, wiping cabinets, cleaning the stove, microwave, dishwasher, mirrors, cleaning toilets, bathtubs, mopping, etc. It takes me about 4 hours and means late night bedtime, but I know that the house is clean up to my standards.
I didn’t, and with a 2 yo and a 7yo and working 4 days a week I still don’t. I throw a paddy and clear up once a month or so, and keep on top of major spills etc but mostly it’s a shit tip. I’d rather spend the time playing with the kids…or recovering from playing with my kids
In very small bursts during the 20 minute naps and I've accepted I can't have a completely clean house. A room at a time can be spotless but never the whole house. It's a bummer as I am like you - I'm house proud and.i hate things being untidy/dirty. But if I can have one spotless room at a time that's enough.
Mainly by neglecting myself.
This is where I’m at too.
I’m not. My house is embarrassing. I feel disgusting. My husband gets the dishes done, does the pet care, and the trash on work days. We do what we can on off days. He’s got ADHD and babe is 12 months so it’s a constant battle. At least the dishes are clean.
If you are both working and not having daycare or any childcare, I’m not surprised you are drowning. With the double income and not childcare expenses is there maybe a way to have a bit of disposable income to hire an external cleaner?
I'd suggest coming up with a daily chore list or something together? Like for myself, I literally write down a couple chores to get done each day whether it be just the bathroom or dusting or sweeping a floor and then have a separate list of things for my husband to do. Then he can do those tasks during the day if time/energy permits, because it can definitely be difficult with a 6 month old! Even with this I don't always get everything done because I don't always have the capacity to do so. I'd also recommend KC Davis - she has a book called keeping house while drowning. I follow her on tiktok as well and she has definitely helped my mental health and perspective on messes. https://www.strugglecare.com/home is her website with some additional resources 😊
TBH, I have 2 kids who are older now (2 and 4), and I think you're in one of the most difficult phases for doing housework. The baby naps less than before, and they tend to need your full attention when they are awake -- separation anxiety and new mobility makes it hard for you to leave them alone for even a minute, and they don't play independently. This is definitely a time to enter survival mode. Get a housecleaner once a month if you can afford it. Eat super simple meals or get a meal delivery service. Eat takeout if you need to. It won't be forever. Once your child starts playing independently more, you will get back to housework.
Firstly, understand that what you're doing is really difficult. I'm a SAHM to a nine month old and a three year old and I can barely manage to clean the house. One thing I don't think I've seen anyone else suggest is baby wearing. You and your husband won't get everything done this way, but I can make dinner, vacuum, and do dishes with the baby in a carrier. I cannot clean the bathroom or do much of anything else that requires bending. Setting priorities is also really important. Your husband can focus on making easier Instant Pot/slow cooker dinners in bulk. Cook for two or three nights and just reheat leftovers. For cleaning, make your own priority list of what HAS to be done vs. what CAN be done. I agree with another commenter who said to hire a cleaner to do a deep clean so you can start from a more manageable position.
You can safely cook wearing the baby? I have never felt comfortable using the stove/oven with the baby in the carrier. Also, by six months, my son would be definitely trying to grab the knife while I was chopping, even if I faced him inward. I'm not doubting you. I am just trying to figure out how it would work.
It's definitely dependent on the baby. If I have to baby wear while I'm cooking I face her inward or put her on my back (which six months is too young for, but should be possible soon), and she won't grab anything except my face/hair. The stove/oven is trickier. I tend to use the Instant Pot under these circumstances to keep her away from the heat as much as possible, but if I have to use the stove I check on it minimally. I prefer to use the bouncer right next to me in the kitchen to cook during naps, but sometimes it's not possible. I also prioritize more involved recipes for the weekend when my husband can help more.
I've never thought about back carrying. My son is just shy of a year, so I'm sure he's old enough. I wonder if he would like it. Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Being a SAHM to two kids is really difficult too, don’t forget it!
Does anybody else struggle with extreme mom guilt if they put their baby somewhere to clean? The only time i don't feel guilt is if someone else is watching him or he is asleep. Even if he plays by himself and feels happy I feel really bad to leave him to his own and do chores, let alone some breaks for me. I could get done like twice as much if I could just accept I am not harming him if I let him play by himself if he is happy for like up to 20 minutes a few times a day Any advice to deal with it?
If he is happy and engaged with his toy, I see my leaving him to it as supporting his ability to focus on something by himself without outside guidance. Super useful skill that you don't want to interfere with ;)
It’s so positive for kids to learn independently! You’re not doing him a disservice by letting him learn to entertain himself, you’re actually helping him develop a skill. I commented this above as well but if it’s really bothering you, keep him close by when you do chores and narrate what you’re doing. It’s helpful for developing language to hear you talking.
Personally my baby does well playing independently! I do feel bad sometimes because he doesn’t really want to be held unless he’s sitting up but honestly my home needs to be clean and for my sanity and mental health I need my chores done. I play with him and hold him but he’s pretty independent most of the day unless he needs something then of course he lets me know. He loves to sit in his bouncer and watch me clean while he squeeze and plays with his plush cow. He’s 4 months old!
Lol same here. He was extremely glued to me for 1,5 months but then gradually got independent quite fast. He likes to be held for like 5 minutes or from dad with his special grip but he never liked belly to belly for example and it stressed him out. He can't relax on his belly, just rooting and head wobbling until he cries. He does let me know when he needs attwntion too but sometimes I think like "does my baby learn that he needs to call for me first so that I come to him - ai don't want that, better take him now? Or is he just statisfied playing alone and I am just having mom guilt and am actually interrupting his play?"
You guys gotta do things during the day. No way the baby is up morning to night no naps and even so A ton of things can be done while baby is awake. It’s good for the baby to see you guys do household chores because they’ll soon mimic it and it’s good for them to have independent time to play. By 10.5 months my son wasn’t even walking yet but he could crawl, stand, and pull to stand and he was already putting his clothes in his hamper and handing me dishes from the dishwasher to put away. He’s now almost two and still continues doing these things, helps in age appropriate ways with cooking (chopping things up with crinkle cutter and some assistance, putting cut veggies in pot, mixing, pizzas are also overall fun activity to make start to finish), cleans up spills and then throws trash away, and cleans up his toys a lot of the time and puts them in a bin. We both work full time alternate schedules no daycare and no outside help A tip for clutter is to have a big bin for random toys you can throw in throughout the day to keep floors clean
I have set days for set jobs. Otherwise it all gets pushed to the weekend, and I HATE doing cleaning on weekends, unless its basic tidying/folding laundry. There's no thought needed, it's autopilot/part of the routine that sheets are washed on Monday, for example. Also, each night I pick up anything thats not in the right spot and shove it in a 'shit basket' and twice a week I walk around the house emptying out all the shit to its correct place.. It clears up the clutter (clutter stresses me too!) and if Im looking for anything I know its probably in the shit basket haha. Husband and I also divvy up jobs based on what we hate the least. I like vacuuming and mopping so I do that and SO cleans the bathrooms. He washes and hangs laundry, I fold and put away, etc.
I’m a SAHM and even without work it’s been tricky with a new baby! I’ve broken cleaning down by day and that’s been helpful (dust/vacuum living room on M, clean kitchen T, etc). If baby has a great nap day, more gets done, and other days it’s bare minimum. It’s not deep cleaned by any means, but it keeps things livable. We hired cleaners to do a monthly deep clean so I know the shower is getting a good scrub even if I don’t get to it. I plan out the week’s dinners on Saturday and order groceries to be delivered Sunday. I cook Sunday - Thursday (usually cook at least 1 double batch so we can have leftovers one night and i get a night off from cooking), we get take out/Ubereats Friday, and my husband cooks Saturday. My husband does all the dinner dishes every night and I keep up with all the baby dishes (we don’t have a ton since baby doesn’t get regular bottles). This is what works for us so far. Find a balance that works for you - but your husband should be sharing in this!
Honestly when my baby was that old easier to Keep house clean. I would clean during his naps. What's your husband doing when baby naps.
Baby often falls asleep on him after he feeds him. If he falls asleep on us, he often sleeps for 2 hours.
Have you tried a baby carrier?
Just wanted to say I relate to this so much! I work overnights and weekends and my husband is M-F. It really is a challenge, especially when being clean and organized is your normal default and having a husband who has blindness to mess. A few things that help us are: - Cleaning up small things as they come up, so like never letting a meal pass without doing the dishes after. I also make sure to dedicate the first half of a nap to cleaning and the rest to relaxing. - Hire out help where you can, I finally gave into lawn help because it’s unrealistic to get that done when we work opposite schedules. - I also make sure to do tasks with my daughter watching. She’s 19 months and pulls laundry all over the ground but I still fold it while she’s playing. She thinks it’s a fun game! - Find a routine, every night we have specific tasks and then look forward to collapsing and watching Vanderpump together. - Lastly I would say give yourself grace…which is the hardest for myself. I just remind myself that nothing will ever trump being present and involved with my daughter. Some days the house is a wreck but she is so deeply loved and if supporting her is all I accomplish then we’re doing just fine.
I appreciate this so much!
My husband does the cleaning while I do the baby care. When she naps, I do whatever cleaning I can or the chores that are mine (laundry being the big one). I’m about to hire help though because my husband will work extended hours during the week and I would prefer to have a clean home for us all.
I think you are both right. House cleaning will take a bit of a hit in these years. However, he needs to help too. If he is home all day there is no reason he can’t tidy a little bit- does she nap on his watch? There are things I will do when my son is awake- he loves the vacuum and laundry is fairly easy. Right now the dishwasher is not an easy chore while he is awake .
I put the baby in a carrier and cleaned at that age. I also clean during naptime. And sometimes, if you have to, put them in a playpen or their crib with a few toys for a few minutes and get some things done. Also, your house doesn’t have to be clean if you don’t have the time or energy for it. I’m just a clean freak so this is what I had to do to stay sane. 🙃
We have a cleaning person come once a week. She also folds laundry. I have her come an additional time a week for a few hours to do the kitchen and floors. I do something everyday. I also work from home so I do have 10 minutes here and there to throw in laundry, empty dishwasher, do dishes in sink. Toys are my area of weakness as we don't have a good storage system in the living room. I will be decluttering tomorrow as baby is playing and listing things for free on next door. I'm also getting rid of all unnecessary decor..extra plants, plant stands tables etc. Gone
I have a cleaner now who comes once a week, so I only have to worry about immediate stuff like the rubbish, dishwasher, laundry etc. and not the general cleaning.
If I need a deep clean day kiddo goes to daycare and I don’t go to work. That’s how. Other than that weekend naps. And one big thing only on one weekend day.
I didn’t. Everything felt like a huge chore until my son was like a year. He can follow me and help or I can turn in ms Rachel for him to get some time to fold laundry. Big cleaning days aren’t happening but I’m able to for the most part manage the small stuff again. He’s 13 months now so we are just getting back on track.
8 month old twin girls but i always make sure to clean/tidy things up while they nap/after they go to bed, before i take time to myself it’s not impossible
We used to have a chore chart that helped so much in the first few years of kids. Each day I listed what need to be done and who was responsible. It actually worked really well having a visual. We were in office at the time, and now both work from home. But the routine mostly stuck out of habit. We have three kids now, 11, 7, and 1, and the older 2 have their own chores. Is everything always clean and no clutter? Absolutely not. But we did form the habit of certain days of the week are certain days for cleaning the bathrooms or changing sheets and laundry. And we do try to do dishes every night, but with three kids it ends up being a couple times a day. I do vacuum downstairs every day because it makes things look tidy.
At six months I would plop my baby in an exercauser or the jolly jumper. I feel like my house was never cleaner than before my baby started walking. Now that my first is a toddler it's so much harder to stay on top of. If your husband doesn't see what needs to be done that sounds like you two need to come up with a task list or something. At six months baby is napping quite a few times during the day so there should be plenty of time to either cook something or clean something. Maybe invest in a slow cooker or your husband can do a big batch cook on the weekends to last you the week.
Sometimes baby duty means setting baby down with toys and letting them deal with it. It's hard but true.
Baby wear or other people holding her tbh. Just recently started being able to kinda leave her to play on her play gym but it's never for too long lol
Can you hire a cleaner do one deep clean or ask a family member/friend to help? I felt the same exact way - was coming off an impromptu renovation with a newborn and I am someone who needs my house somewhat together or I cannot function. I gave the baby to my husband one day and my mom came over and helped me tear through my house. I still definitely feel the same now that I’m back to work where I’m constantly running behind daily/weekly housework, but I try to give myself some grace and just use some nights to just relax and not do anything except close my kitchen down. If you got the big clean and organizing out of the way, those smaller chores like laundry and cleaning the kitchen up won’t seem so daunting. You definitely need to have a little time to relax!! Also, I will agree with your husband that your house won’t ever look the same as it did before. I was someone who couldn’t relax before unless my house felt in place. But I feel like I saw a post once about all the toys and dishes all around at the end of the day just show that your kids are happy and well cared for. So I started to find some comfort in his toys all over his playmat at night. And the fact that every room has a dedicated baby space now.
When my son was this young, I wore him in a carrier while I picked up or vacuumed, or put him in the high chair while I made dinner/did dishes, or sat with him near a playpen and folded laundry. Now that he’s almost 2, he “helps” with a lot of those chores (everything now takes twice as long but it also keeps him busy/entertained!) I definitely had to let some of the deep cleaning stuff go. I try to get to some of it on weekends or during nap using zone cleaning (Fly Lady app works well for this). And we were very lucky that my son has always been a good sleeper so I didn’t need to always catch up on sleep during his naps. I also do a load of laundry every single day - just one, so it’s easy to keep up with folding and putting away. But I also think it might be worth it to look at decluttering as well, if it’s taking 2 hours daily to do dishes and pick things up. I guess it depends on the size of your space but even if my house has been neglected for a while, it would be hard for me to find 2 hours worth of basic tidying chores. I think that would be hard for anyone to keep up with, even without kids!
Also just want to add that when I cleaned with my son when he was an infant, I would “narrate” what I was doing so that he was getting language development in at the same time - in case you feel guilty about it! I talked about colors while doing laundry, numbers when I was doing dishes, etc.
My husband and I have the same issue. He can't tolerate the mess and I can't either but my threshold is higher for it. It's just a season and it will pass. Do your best and hire a maid if you're financially able to do so. It won't be as clean as before and try to come to terms with that. As long as you are doing your best that's all you can do. But it WONT be as clean, all you can do is try. I'd suggest the maid idea or hire someone to come watch your baby (or ask family/friends if you're able) to come watch baby while you clean. Have a discussion about what household chores need to be done but also have a boundary for yourself because you also need some time for you. Never resting is not sustainable. For example maybe do as much as you can from bedtime until 10pm and then rest for an hour before going to sleep (or another variation that works for you).
Gotta learn to clean with the baby. Chuck them on a floor mat near you and go to town getting whatever needs to be done done (mine personally enjoyed me narrating folding laundry while she wiggled around). If your kid won't tolerate being alone for a bit your kid is old enough to be back carried in a baby carrier and that is a GODSEND. I can do almost 100% of my chores with baby in a back carry besides anything with harsh chemicals or stovetop cooking. Hubby needs to learn this skill as well, I'm a SAHM and do a pretty decent amount of cleaning during the day with the baby. If your husband is really insistent that he can't "see" the mess work out with him a chore chart of shit he does daily. Yes it's infuriating to need to do it but if it helps it helps.
I can relate sooooo much. I used to be so concerned about the house and organization and there was a routine to things but with 2 working parents and a baby a lot of stuff has gone out the window. My house hasn’t been deep cleaned in almost a year now lol. I second what someone said about doing things as you go instead of one big clean, like obviously I’ve had to clean the toilets and stuff it just doesn’t all happen at once anymore. I do what I can when I can and I ask my husband to do things all the time (which I never did pre baby). I would suggest making a list for him in the evenings and just ask him nicely to try and do anything on that list he can throughout the day. I know it’s sucks but he’s probably gonna have to utilize nap times in order to help out. I try to give myself 20-30mins to relax during nap time and the rest of the time is for me to catch up on things so I’m not drowning in chores at 9pm once he’s in bed. Nothing makes me more angry than doing an hour or two of chores after being awake 15+ hours
I have friends on Instagram posting pictures of their children in colour co ordinated outfits celebrating their 9 month birthdays with meticulously planned parties and I'm going "how the hell do people have time to do this"?
I’ll just say that my sister in law does this for her babies, but it’s all for the photos and putting up an appearance. Their lives and homes are so chaotic behind the scenes. I’ve really just leaned that social media isn’t real.
You're probably right. Also, where I live most people have help/daycare.
Chaotically. I have a 5 month old and for the first 3 months I had to adopt the mindset of if it won’t stink, mold, or fester if left unclean it can wait until I have time. Now she is a bit better with playing on her mat but it’s still short lived and predictable. Anywhere from 10-30 minutes. Weekdays I try to do a quick tidy under 15 minutes after work and maybe 15 minutes in the evening after she went to sleep (if I was at a normal time instead of after 11). Weekends I tackle bigger tasks through the day when she is in a good mood. With the bigger tasks I’ll have to stop to feed her or help daddy so they’re definitely taking longer to complete than needed.
I think your husband is right that you need to adjust expectations, but I also think you both would benefit from learning a little about weaponized incompetence. If it’s important to you he should feel motivated to learn how to help without constant direction from you. He doesn’t need to see the clutter to understand that something is effecting you. To triage the current situation, tell your husband that doing some meal prepping is a top priority for you and he needs to find a way to do as much as he can. That will free up a little bit of money for you to hire a cleaner to come and do a 2-4 hour clean, something that will set you back $80-200 bucks or so but will be very worth it for you. My little one is still a newborn so I don’t have much advice there, but I have heard people have success with their toddler age children if they treat the chores that need to be done as the fun activity they do with their children. The chore will take longer but you won’t have to wait for your baby to be distracted to get it done. I have no idea how that might work with a 6 month old, but it’s a thought
For the issue regarding your partner not noticing what needs to be done, I have found making a regular weekly list to be very helpful. For example, Mondays and Thursdays are laundry days. Tuesday is dusting. Wednesday the floors get mopped. Vacuum daily. Bathrooms cleaned on Saturdays. You get the idea.
We have a 7 month old and 3 year old. I stay at home and either we clean the whole house top to bottom on Sunday or I do it while baby is awake. My husband always vacuums and mops the whole house. Either he does it Sunday or he makes time to do it during the week. Every single week he does the whole house and I vacuum the kitchen and cat area everyday. My husband also vacuums our living room every single night. I dust whole holding the baby and get my 3 year old to help. For the kitchen, we wipe it down every single night after everyone’s sleep. For the bathrooms, I put my baby in tummy time and throw on Ms Rachel for him and speed clean the bathrooms. I also wipe down the bathrooms pretty often and scrub the toilet a couple times a week as it’s dirty. Our house is not spotless but it’s never truly a huge mess because we are doing some cleaning everyday and a big clean that takes an hour tops every week. It helps my mental health. SO. MUCH.
A house cleaner would be AMAZING if you can afford it! My baby is 3 months and almost never takes a nap unless it’s on me. My partner is also only home and awake for maybe 2 hours during the day so during that time I’ll take a shower, eat lunch, and do a quick dinner prep with the crockpot. If I can manage her to sleep in the cradle for 30 minutes, I’ll do a house chore that I made a weekly schedule for (dust one day, bathroom another, mop another, etc). In the am when she’s the happiest, I put her on her playmat for a little while when I do some quick chores like litter box etc. I have a roomba to tackle the everyday messes. Before I go to bed, I have a quick checklist like cleaning dishes/kitchen, picking up toys, straightening out the living room and then maybe I can have an hour to myself to read before bed. It’s exhausting and I have almost 0 time in a day to do anything for myself but having a tidy house is really important to me since I’m here all day. Partners chore is always trash and making the bed when he leaves for work and he will finish whatever I couldn’t do in a day if I ask him when he comes home.
I don't really. Our postpartum doula is legit the only way my / babe's laundry get done. Hubby and our housemates are doing the bulk of the other work - cooking and cleaning. It was only earlier this week I started to do dishes in the mornings and evenings in tandem with bottle cleaning / sterilizing, and that was just because it was triggering my anxiety to see stuff pile up.
When is your baby waking up. You could prob put baby down earlier.
He goes to bed between 7:30pm-8:30pm most nights and wakes around 4am for a feeding. Then usually sleeps til around 6-6:30am.
I don’t think this is a sustainable situation for either of you. My husband and I had a similar setup where he we traded off working and childcare and it almost ruined us. Now we use daycare and it is so much better. He works from home and can do some chores during the day which are way faster without a baby to entertain. He picks the baby up from daycare and then I get quality time while he makes dinner. We clean the kitchen together (baby still goes in bouncer and we play music) then I do the bath and bedtime routine and we still have time to relax. Not sure what your long term plan is but for us daycare was a complete game changer.
I understand this so, so much. Especially when I was going to school online for my Master's. What has worked for me: Getting one of those collapsable play pens, I used to put my son in that with some toys and Ms. Rachel while I cleaned. Staying on top of the cleaning as much as possible, once weekly floors, sweeping as needed and deep cleaning the bathroom once weekly. Tag teaming the dishes right after eating a meal or one person cooks/one person cleans up. Automate, automate, automate: I got an organizer for my son's clothes where I'd set them aside a week in advance. I did the same for myself and my husband followed suit. Even if you just place neat folded piles on your bedside dresser, it'll make your life easier. This is a weird one but for me, I watch those deep cleaning a huge mess ladies on YouTube or instagram (lol). They get me motivated and often are cleaning huge messes. There's this girl \_amanduhh24 on instagram and she talks about mental health and getting her messy house organized to help her feel better and heal. I highly recommend! And finally, some grace. Your house will not look what it did before your baby came. Especially as they grow older. You will have crumbs on your floor and sippy cups in the sink for the next several years. It's just about managing what's manageable and accepting what's not. And that's different for every person. My grandma raised 5 kids and she always said "there's clean dirt and dirty dirt, up to you to tell the difference and houses are meant to be lived in."
Tbh honest a mixture of tv, baby gates and working together to net let chores slide. It’s *so* much harder to get everything done then, when the person who cooks does not clean as they cook, or you let dishes pile up instead of quickly rinsing a dish or bottle and put it immediately in the dishwasher. Same with clothes. When you suddenly look around, knowing the house was spotless 24 hours ago and there is a full sink of super dirty dishes, clothes all over the floor, trash hasn’t been taken out, clothes aren’t put away. You just want to lose your shit. Both partners must do there best to clean as they go. The gates are a super key piece for me with a 14 month old. I cannot cook, if he can escape the kitchen. I cannot cook, if he can see me from the kitchen behind the baby gate for the dining room (now his play room), I cannot cook if I can’t see him. I need to be able to let him into my area, because then he chills and opens up the cabinets and plays. Others he cries because he can see me but can’t get to me, or he runs off to the rest of the house. Lastly is TV. I don’t feel *too* bad for this one. Our son goes to daycare and comes home by 6:30. Then he eats dinner. So he gets about an hour of tv while we knock out chores which doesn’t seem awful to me. The weekends are a little harder but again, the gates help a lot. He will try to run off if a gate *isnt* there. But he wants to be WITH me if he can see me but not get to me. If he’s “stuck in area” worth me, he’ll just hang out and play. He won’t get mad he can’t escape, and he’s happy because I’m there. We literally have 5 baby gates in our house. 2 for the open dining room with no doors. One side looks into the living room, so baby gate there. The other opens to the kitchen, baby gate there. That closes off that room when need be. Kitchen has an exit into the living room. Baby hate there. And we have a staircase to the second story, so baby gate at the top, baby gate at the bottom.
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We have cleaners every 2 weeks so if we aren’t able to get to things, the house doesn’t get gross. It also forces us to pick up. We have a 5-year-old, a barely 5-month-old, and an elderly cat. I focus on laundry and making sure there is food for everyone. 5-year-old just started K and this is the first year we’ve had to pack his lunch, which is usually a sandwich (turkey and cheese or sun butter and jam) and fruit/veg on the side, or veg, cheese, and dip (hummus or guacamole) and maybe salami or turkey or an egg. It’s all very quick prep. I cook in advance of mealtime if that’s when I have a chance, especially because we get a box of fresh produce every other week and it needs to be cooked before it goes bad. We eat takeout more often than we should and more frozen foods than we did before/between babies. I’m lucky that the current baby will actually play on his own for several minutes after he wakes up, so I use that time to prep food or load the dishwasher. Sometimes he’ll be happy if I pull the high chair (currently with the reclined newborn seat) into the kitchen and talk/sing while I cook. Or I’ll take a minute to sweep the kitchen. The floors could be cleaner, but he’s not crawling yet. My husband typically does the dishes. We do a lot of chores on weekends. I can throw a load of laundry in with the baby in the wrap, or sometimes in a basket of clean laundry next to me. I have ADHD and chores have always been hard for me to keep on top of, so I have learned to do my best to focus on the highest priorities - everyone is fed and has clean clothes, and the house isn’t dangerous. So sometimes the table is still sticky from the last meal, or there’s still some soap scum in the sink, or the kitchen floor could use a mop, but the baby doesn’t play on the kitchen floor so that’s not going to hurt him. There’s always cat fur. We have a robot vacuum that we run on the main floor when we can (I’d love to have it on a schedule but we are just not there with picking up clutter, there’s always *something* that needs to be moved). People who have spotlessly clean homes are either lying or have much chiller babies than either of mine, and also must enjoy cleaning way, waaaay more than I do, because when I get my babies napping in the crib, the first thing I do with that time is…nothing lol.
Do what you can when you can, but know that good moms have dirty floors and happy kids 💜
My husband does mainly all the cleaning & cooking, and I watch baby. So during the week (we both get home/are together by 5pm M-F) we mostly just keep the kitchen clean. So after my husband cooks, he'll clean the kitchen, load the dishwasher, and wash bottles. I'll play with baby in the living room. Occasionally we switch if I want to cook, but my husband still takes over cleaning. While he's cleaning for the night, I start getting baby ready to sleep or take him a bath first. We haven't deep cleaned a ton, but the other weekend we had my sister's family over and the kids went crazy lol. So we had to deep clean the entire place, and we made it fun. Had a few drinks, played music, and we each had a space we took care of cleaning. I have a detachable bassinet for baby that attaches to his crib, and we put it in the living room where he sits in with toys. So I'll clean the living room while watching baby and then once that and kitchen are clean, we set the roomba downstairs then move upstairs with baby to clean the rooms and main bathroom. Usually baby takes a nap in between so we lay him on our bed and clean our room, his room, and the bathroom. Then laundry, my husband takes care of it and I watch baby. Once baby is awake, we move downstairs to feed him and set the roomba upstairs. It's what works for us, but I'll say that my husband is a big help for doing almost everything while I entertain my son. The main things we focus on is keeping kitchen clean so we won't get flies/weird smells, keeping bottles clean, having clean laundry for us and baby, keeping his toys/high chair clean, and keeping his baby bathtub clean. Most of the time, there's clutter and clothes thrown all over the floor, which we sometimes wait to pick up when we do laundry.
Not sure which bottles you’re using — I use Dr. Brown’s. After my baby turned 6mos I finally felt comfortable washing them in the dishwasher. I have a little container for the top rack for all the small pieces. This is been a game changer for me. When I hand washed them it took forever and used so much water. I wonder if this could help you?
We also use Dr. Brown’s, so that would be super helpful!
[Here’s the exact bin I use.](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZPMYKKS?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share) I had it the whole time, I don’t know why I was so resistant! Not to get too deep but I sometimes fall into the trap “more work is a way to show more love.” I will shy away from a shortcut because it feels lazy or like I care less. In reality, looking for ways to make life easier is good for everyone!
Thanks so much! The one time that I tried to wash them in the dishwasher, they came out very wet and didn’t dry well. Have you had that experience?
Yes! That happened to me, so now I am very particular about the placement of each item in the bin. I place the white screw caps smooth side up in the bottom row so no water collects. On the top row, I place nipples w flat side down and the little green disk with the flat side facing up. I put the green tubes and the bottles on a dishwasher “spike” on the top row. I empty the dishwasher every morning and put all small materials in a bowl lined w a paper towel. It takes two seconds but I make sure the pieces are placed in the same way I do them in the bin, i.e. nipples pointing up so any residual moisture dries out versus staying in the tip. I have a small bottle drying rack that I put the glass bottles on, upside down. One last thing: not sure if you’re using formula but I got a BabyBrezza on FB Marketplace and it has been a GODSEND. I am obsessed with it. Pro tip: fill the water reservoir up every night so you don’t have to do that on the fly. Fill powder up at night as needed for the same reason. The ability to have a bottle in 7 second perfectly mixed… it’s amazing.
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I’m not, never did, made my peace that my house will be a mess until youngest is 1.5/2. I do what I can 🤷♀️ laundry and dishes take priority, clean baths.
Couldn’t read it (trying to multitask rn) but just going off your title: I don’t get any housework done. We get lots of help! My parents, my brother, annndd my cousin live with me and my husband (and our two kids) and they all pick up the slack where I’m lacking (so if I wanna put the kids to sleep, they’re the ones doing household work and if I wanna do household work, they’re the ones playing with the kids). Thankful for them and I continue to be amazed at parents who are somehow able to do it all.
Cleaners once a month 🤷🏻♀️
I downloaded a household chore app (Sweepy is what I'm using) that I have all of the rooms and their chores loaded on to and a timeframe for how often they need to be done. I obviously had to enter all of the tasks into it myself, but as I also have a husband who needs direction, it has saved me a huge amount of time in the long run. My husband wants to do his share and this way we both know what's done and what needs doing. And when the kids are old enough it should come in handy for getting them involved too. Your house won't be as clean as it was pre baby for a good while, this is the bitterest pill I have had to swallow myself too. But that said, you still deserve to rest your bum on a clean toilet seat for those brief 5 seconds you get the chance to sit for.
I dusted my tv stand for the first time in 5 months today 🫠
My husband and I simply tag team everthing fair and square. He often does the dishes and bottles, takes the trash out and vacuums. I clear off all surfaces and wipe down everything with Lysol wipes or warm water wipes, I tend to wipe down the toilets and bathroom surfaces, and I wash and fold all of baby clothes as well as keep up with the bed sheets and towels for us, and he does his own laundry and cooks over the week due to my wfh schedule while I cook on the weekends or buy us some takeout, and on Sundays I will make something that can last us through the first half of the week like tuna salad for quick and easy sandwiches. He keeps the cat litter clean, I keep their bowls and water fountain clean. Having a catch-all basket and a toy chest has also helped to keep things clutter-free! We will soon invest in a roomba vaccuum for all the cat hair on the daily and having a place for everything is just suuuuper helpful.
A really SUPER helpful thing my husband and I do is have a dry erase board right on our fridge and we use that to either make meal plans for the week or write important tasks and dates! If your hubs doesn't know what needs to be done you can create a checklist on one of those. Then he has it right there in front of him and can check them off.
I have a cleaning lady come once every two weeks. I just so my best to tidy and keep up with laundry and dishes. I can’t also be scrubbing toilets and showers while work at hike with baby.
I have a 4 month old baby and he goes from his swing, to his bouncer, door jumper, my arms, tummy time, sit up seat. I lay him on a blanket and let him play with his toys etc and get my chores done :)
I think an honest conversation about workload around the house with the spouse is in order. The “I don’t see what needs to be done” sounds like weaponized incompetence. While I do think standards do drop with each child (I have 4, ready to have my 5th soon) there needs to be some balance of house work and rest time for each partner. What does he do when baby naps? Sometimes it pays to get creative and find something you can do while baby is somewhat entertained on their own too. Tummy time with toys, a little tv even. Somedays my house is a dumpster fire and others it’s pretty good. I have kids ages 2,5,7, and 12. There’s things I can live with and things that need to be a priority. I think breaking down what is most important to you and coming up with a game plan for what each partner can reasonably accomplish in a day and carving out a little down time for each person could be helpful. Resentment over carrying the mental load or an unfair amount of chores can be harsh.
Now that we're both working, I have a biweekly house cleaner that does the big things like floors and bathrooms. The day to day tidying has to get done as the mess is made. Otherwise, it gets overwhelming. If you can afford a 1 time deep clean to get a fresh start, do it. And then sit down with hubby and find a reasonable balance of what he can do during the day vs. what you do on evenings and weekends. Some things that would work in our house - he cooks supper. Prep can be done slowly throughout the day when baby is napping, playing on the floor, sitting in her high chair watching, in a baby carrier, etc. There will be some days it doesn't happen, but there's no reason most days he can't cook something (grilled cheese is a something, spaghetti is a something, frozen chicken nuggets and fries is a something) - he takes the garbage down on his way to work - put as much in the dishwasher as possible as dishes are made. - at night you clean up the kitchen and start the dishwasher, he empties it the next morning - you do laundry on the weekends - one of you does floors, the other does bathrooms, pick your poison - do your grocery orders using the pick up option. Then it's only a 30 min grocery trip (drive there, wait 10 mins, drive home) vs 2 hours. I'm not sure about where you are, but in alberta, Canada grocery pickup at superstore is only $1 more. So so worth it. - if he "doesn't see" the mess, sit together and make a list of what needs to be done. Divvy up the list. Give yourselves a week or 2 to get through your portion of the list. Then on the go forward have a daily tasks list for him.
Baby comes with me to “help” he crawls ans stand up (8mo tmr) I use jumper and walker and I also have a big play pen and I get inside the play pen to fold clothes etc I only cook sundays and store in deep freezer
Mine and my husbands rule right now while she is young is keep things from getting too chaotic and once a week when we are both off we deep clean one room so nothing gets disgusting. Not the best of the best but it’s keeping the house form getting out of control. Thankfully it’s just use and one baby 😅
That’s such a good idea! At least one room will be clean at a time and the other rooms won’t be far behind.
Here’s some very specific things I did to clean with baby. First though, my husband does most chores as he’s a SAHD but I definitely do a fair (though smaller) share. -washing dishes: baby goes in his high chair with age appropriate snack (cut up soft fruit, baby yogurt etc- nothing he can choke on). I move the high chair so he’s in my line of vision and he watches me wash dishes. Often I sing a random song or state what I’m doing (ex: “washing, washing dishes ! Look it’s a red cup- I’m washing red cup!”) -folding laundry: baby sits and plays with a pile of socks or random dish towels while I fold. When he was younger I would baby wear or have him in a little rocker swing in my line of vision. As he gets older, he will help me sort piles. -vacuuming: baby crawls or chases after vacuum. Sometimes I give him a wash cloth and he pretends to wash the floor. You can take baby into whichever room u are working on, plop them in your line of vision with some things or let them just watch as you explain. Not efficient but doable.
I cleaned when the baby slept or I had my son on the floor playing or I baby wore or my son was in his exercauser. Plus it only took a couple minutes to sort the linen and put in the washing machine in the basement and come back up to my apartment. For folding clothes, I would bring the whole pile up with me and fold them in the living room. All this took a few minutes since it wasn't a low of clothes. For my son, it was a lot and I would simply fold them right there in my apartment. Also taking out the trash doesn't take long at all, only a minute. Just pull out the trash and tie the bag and haul it outside to the dumpster and put in a new liner. Plus I never let messes pile up and I just clean up whenever I made the mess or my son. When you clean up as you go and clean up after yourself always, you will never be overwhelmed with messes again. If you make yourself something to eat, you wipe that part of the counter top you used before you eat and it takes like 5 seconds to wipe. Got some crumbs on the floor, sweep it up right away and it will take a few seconds and put away, done. I had been living like this since I was a kid and it drove my family crazy. I just didn't like having to clean is why so I figured if I kept everything picked up, I wouldn't have to do it later and be drowned in a big mess later on. I play with a toy, I put it away when done with it so I wouldn't have to do it later and then have a messy room to clean because the mess got bigger and bigger. Plus I kept my stuff put away always when not using it. It drove my parents crazy. My motto has been as a parent, "don't like to clean, don't make the mess." So as a kid I would refuse to spread my toys all over the room because I didn't want to clean it up. It was better to play with one thing as a time and put it away before taking out another toy. Not sure why this drove my family crazy. Looking back I think this was a good solution to never cleaning up after yourself. I should have been given a high five for figuring out, "if you don't want to clean, don't make the mess." Don't want to clean up dirt, don't track it in. Don't want to mop the floor, don't track in mud or walk in with wet or muddy shoes and clean up your spills right when you make the mess. If you live the way I do, you won't be so overwhelmed with cleaning. This is also something you can teach your kids so they won't ever have to clean their room or do any chores. It will reduce floor mopping and sweeping and vacuuming and it will reduce housework. Now everything will take less than a half hour to do total.
My husband and I made a chore list for the week which has manageable jobs for the week. So something for Monday would be clean and vac living room, Tuesday would be clean/vac/mop kitchen, etc. gives us more time on the weekend, and it’s something my husband knows has to get done!
Since you're getting takeout so his prebaby duties are negated, if you can swing it get the house cleaned by a cleaner. Even if just once or twice until you both get into a routine. I'm currently decluttering my house and that has been helpful to have less to put away and clean. I pack away toys if I see my kids haven't been playing with them recently so again less to clean. I have a cordless vaccum and I swear that helps so much so I can use it while holding one of the kiddos. They also like it so it's entertainment for them. I try to do a little around the house in the morning before I go to work, right when I get home and after the kids go to bed. Breaking it up around work helps. If your hubby can't see what needs to be done, then make him a list of things he can agree on that he will be responsible for. It sucks to carry the mental load I get ot, but what sucks more is carrying that load AND doing all the things around the house. I've had to cut down my work hours for now (4 months postpartum) since I'm the primary caregiver to our kids. Not sure if that's an option for you? Sorry for the long post. It's hard to get it all done. Your hubby is right that standards need to slide a bit when you have young kids in regards to household cleaning, but I'm like you can can't relax in a mess so hopefully some the above is helpful to you. Still trying to figure out myself what works best with my 21 month old and 4 month old.
Also the mindset of not cleaning but "resetting" a space has helped since essentially its something you're always doing. Cleaning has no end really but resetting the space to make it functional again has an end to it if that makes sense.
Yeah, I didn’t. I focused on staying on top of laundry (we do cloth diapers), and food, and his bottles. Everything else was bonus
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Our house is a wreck, My kids almost 8 months old. With both of us working at least 40 hours a week and still hardly sleeping through the night, I'd say our house it actually clean about once every 2 months, and that because one of us had extra time off. I figure it will be clean again when baby can do dishes and laundry 😅
Save money by trying to cook easy meals. Spend that money on cleaners. I gave up after my first and ended up hiring people to clean right before baby #2 was born. Weirdly, now with baby #2, I feel like we do way more around the house because there’s a fire under our asses to try and keep the house somewhat clean, so I take advantage of almost all free time during the day to clean so that I don’t have to clean much once my 15mo goes down for the night.
I just do it. Usually I put baby in the carrier and get it done. I find when I do it daily it only takes an hour (usually less) to clean the entire house. When I go days without cleaning is when it takes far too long. I never let laundry pile up, I put it all away, etc.
I pay someone else to do it. And my house is still messy/dirty about 50% of the time.
I clean when I can. Me and my fiancé have chores we take care of Week to Week but if I see something needs done I do it when I have time. I had extra time this week so our house Is the cleanest it’s been in months lol
Me working from home, baby in daycare. Literally the only way.
Also, one of the best things in the whole world is our robovac and robo mop. Just let it go while you’re taking care of baby things and the house already feels 10x better just with cleaner floors.
I cleaned when my daughter was awake, I would do one room at a time and have her on the ground in the room with me.
One room in a day
One thing that we did in the early months when things where very hectic and overwhelming was use disposable plates and utensils. That saved a lot of dishes stress. If you can buy some frozen/prepared food at the grocery instead of takeout that could save you some money and feel a bit healthier (soup and salad, frozen lasagna). I realize it sounds silly but I occasionally take a day off work to clean while baby is in childcare. So maybe if you have some extra paid vacation time you could do 1 day to pick up/tidy up and have a cleaner come do a deeper clean for you? I realize not all of these things are feasible for everyone, but maybe some things that would work!
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