Can't stand the mess no $ for cleaning help

amother

Papaya

Tue, Jul 04 2017, 10:28 am

My hardest thing is not necessarily the routine mess, from dinner and laundry, but the mess that toddlers make without thinking. For example, when several toy buckets are dumped out simultaneously (and then the toys spread into a few rooms). Or when a few kids mischeviously get together and spread ketchup throughout the house (including carpeted rooms) and then sprinkle garlic powder on top of that ketchup. Takes three minutes to do the damage and over an hour to scrub clean.
And when older kids come home with stacks of papers from school and dump on the kitchen counters, etc. Or do a project with paper and scizzors and there are paper tidbits everywhere. My list goes on.
With a large family, kah, I can't be in 10 places at once. I didn't catch the ketchup rampage early enough to stop it in it's tracks, etc.
Routine laundry and dishes I can handle with routines, but it's all these extra messes that sap all my time and energy and make my home a wreck and leave me with an enormous cleanup job when the kids are finally asleep.

zigi

Tue, Jul 04 2017, 10:34 am

hid the buckets of toys, the bigger toys keep out but the buckets of a million pieces keep them somewhere else so it is only when kids are playing with it that it is messy. if you do a project put down a plastic table cloth on the table and also the floor. tell the older kids to put away the toys that they play with. if you make them clean up the dumped toys, they learn that it is easier to clean it up once and not a million times b/c of the little kids.

WastingTime

Tue, Jul 04 2017, 11:16 am

amother wrote:

My house is always messy - except when I light the shabbos candles. Even then, it is so so.

I wish I could afford cleaning help, but I can't. The kids do help some, but not nearly enough.

I just can't keep up with it all... and I don't have the strength to work on cleaning up all night long every single night.

Advice?

Without reading the rest of the thread, just want to tell you that if your house looks anything like mine a once a week cleaning lady did almost nothing. She would have to pick up all our junk to clean the house but not really put it away. Then 3 hours after she was gone, it was messy again....If I had full time (daily or almost daily) cleaning help may be a different story. My point is that you don't have to feel bad that you can't afford a cleaning lady as who knows if it would help!

Last edited by WastingTime on Tue, Jul 04 2017, 12:09 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Bronze

Tue, Jul 04 2017, 11:54 am

amother wrote:

Can you put a 10 - 15 minute per child cleanup time into your nightime routine. It really helps.

33055

Tue, Jul 04 2017, 12:13 pm

amother wrote:

It sounds like you need to organize your house.

Don't have toy buckets. We had a rule that only one toy could be out at a time. No eating off the table. Also, you must have your food not accessible to the little ones.

Also, if the kids left their stuff out, it gets tossed out. (The stuff was always retrievable.) It sounds harsh, but the kids quickly learned to put their stuff away.

Have a place for every thing - bookbags, stacks of papers, etc. Nothing is allowed to be dumped. If it is, it gets tossed.

yksraya

Tue, Jul 04 2017, 2:22 pm

Keep all toys locked up, and take out only one bucket at a time. Change it every few days so they don't get bored. If a kid wants a different toy, he/she only gets it if the current toy is put away into bucket so you can make the switch.

In regard to the ketchup mess, can you lock the fridge and cabinets with baby lockes so that only older kids can open them?

The older kids need to put their papers away where it belongs, and can't dump it on counter. Make it clear to them that you expect of them to keep the place neat and not dump stuff. I usually ask dd, "do you still need xyz" if she says yes she needs to put it where it belongs,, if she says no, it goes into the garbage.