question about cleaning

just curious because it seems like i never have a clean house, the bathrooms are always a mess, as is everything else. i generally end up cleaning once every 2-3 weeks when someone is home to watch the kids since it takes me 4-5 hours to get it done.

so how often do you clean your house and if it's weekly or even daily how to you juggle housework, playtime, feedings and babies that don't nap very long?

 

I clean up nightly and make sure the counters are clean and the dishes are done. My cleaning lady comes every 2 weeks to do everything else. It takes her about 3-4 hours to do my house.

 

I try to clean really well about once a week to once every 2 weeks. Whenever DH takes the girls out of the house so I can do it. On a daily basis I only pick up, I don't really clean. I do the dishes and laundry and wipe down the counters but that's about it.

 

yeah i mean i keep up with the laundry, dishes, counters in the kitchen and stove and pick up misc. items from around the house but that's about it...the major cleaning, like bathrooms, floors, dusting, and major kitchen cleaning oh and patio doesn't get done on a very regular basis at all...it takes so long to get it done that i just don't have the time. if i try and break it up and do it while they are napping i'll do part of it and loose interest in the rest by the time it's feeding and then i want a nap too because i'm so exhausted from cleaning, entertaining the babies before feeds and then feeding them.

ugh! i wish i could afford a cleaning lady!

my goal is to get it done tomorrow and monday...let's hope i have the energy and more importantly motivation!

 

Well, things being really messy or dirty are a problem for me. I wish I was the type who could just let things go, life would be so much easier, but I just can't do it. I can't relax if things aren't clean & tidy, which is ridiculous but it's how I am and I've just learned to live with it. So, take what I say with the understanding that I'm a bit of a clean freak. I always clean up things as I go. When breakfast is done, I make sure the dishes are cleaned (or in the dishwasher) and the counters are wiped down. The same with after lunch & dinner. Floors are vacuumed daily on the main floor, weekly upstairs & in the basement. Bathrooms are cleaned a couple of times a week, but wiped down quickly daily (if you use the disposable cleaning wipes it only takes a second). Floors are washed generally once a week. I don't do everything in one day like I would like but I try to tackle at least one big job every day (either I wash the floors, clean the bathrooms, clean out the fridge, etc. so that I don't ever have too much to do at once). By doing a bit every day I never have to spend 4 or 5 hours cleaning, I don't know the last time I had that much time uninterrupted to clean. When L&L were babies I would do it during naptime even if naptime was really short, I would just get as much done as I could. Then once they were in bed at night I would make a quick pass through to pick up things & put away to start the next day.

ETA - I totally don't believe everyone should be this way, I actually admire people who are more relaxed about it, but it's how I keep my sanity.

 

I am a lot like Tina. I can't relax if there is a mess, so I clean as I go. Downstairs bathroom gets cleaned everyday(boys!), and the rest, once a week. Downstairs floors are dust mopped everyday, and mopped about every 2nd day(can't stand dirty floors!). The rest is done on Wednesdays and Sundays, which are my designated cleaning/laundry days. I try to get one big job(the fridge/a shower or tub/blinds/wiping down cabinets/organizing drawers/etc) in on one of those days, so that I don't have to do it all in one day, which would be impossible.

 

Imagine that! :friends:

Ugh, me either, I feel like if the floors are dirty, everything is dirty. :wacko:

 

To be perfectly honest the first year my house was a mess!!! I think I got a couple hours a week to "clean" and I mostly cleaned bathrooms, kitchen and floors. I also made sure to take the time to change my sheets because that's a peeve of mine. But the first year it was HARD to find the time!
I also have 2 big dogs and the house was just messy. I don't think I was EVER caught up on laundry and my poor couch took the brunt of that LOL. We don't have a dishwasher so dishes were done every night or the next morning because if not it was a disaster. I really felt like the first year was survival, I did what I had to do to feel comfortable. For me that was a clean kitchen, bathrooms, and floors.
I do have a cleaning lady now that comes once a week and I cherish her.

 

Usually I pick up and do dishes and laundry after they go to bed. Otherwise they get send to Grandma's house and I hard core clean! My mom is actually coming over tomorrow for a few hours so I can do it! My DH helps a lot as well!!!

 

Oh and the reason we ended up with a cleaning lady? When I had my older son, I tried to work full time, clean the house and cook all the meals. My husband is incapable of cooking and gives me food poisoning when he tried (3 out of 3 tries and you stop letting him cook). He is also allergic to dust so he refuses to do any of the dusting. One day, I asked him to clean the bathroom. He went in with windex and 1 paper towel and somehow managed to get the whole room "clean". If I were at home every day, I would probably set up a system where every day I did one small thing. Like monday clean the surfaces in the bathroom. Tuesday do the kitchen surfaces, Wednesday do the floors and so on. I tried to do that before we hired the cleaning lady but I could never keep to a schedule.

 

I am also like Tina and it drives me nuts sometimes. I have to talk myself out of obsessing about cleaning. I either break up tasks daily, like vacuming today, toilets/bathrooms tomorrow etc. Or I will take babies downstairs and do funny dance moves while I vacum so they are entertained and quiet and I am in serenity with my clean carpet. Then I would take them upstairs and do the same. It does get to me sometimes and I wish I could let go but I feel like I'm obsessive compulsive about it. Also, when they nap I clean the dust, do counters, laundry anything.

 

Wow, I am amazed at how thorough Tina and Becky are in their cleaning even though they have twins! I've never been a clean freak though, even when we had no babies. When the twins were first born the house stayed a disaster. There was always dust and cat hair everywhere and it would sometimes take me 4-6 weeks to change our bedroom sheets. As for the toilets I only broke down and cleaned them when they got a ring around them, LOL. I have since hired a girl to come in and clean every other Monday, and that has been wonderful. We pay her $75 each time she cleans, but I realize not everybody has that option. Since we used to spend a lot of money going out to eat, something is pretty rare these days, I was able to justify the house cleaning expense.

If you can't afford to hire a house cleaner I would recommend stocking up on Clorox wipes to periodically wipe down kitchen and bathroom counters, and I also love a Dirt Devil cordless stick vac that I bought shortly after the boys came home (because I just could not find time to lug out the big vac and plug it in going from room to room). The handle of this stick vac folds down so it can sit behind the couch in the living room out of sight, but its within easy reach to do a super quick vacuum of the living room and kitchen. When the boys were newborns I used it probably 4 times a week because the noise didn't bother them then, but sometime after that they started crying when I would turn it on so our living room quickly went back to having huge furballs under the couches, tables, and chairs. And as others have suggested, if you want to try and stay on top of things just pick a room or area to focus on on certain days of the week and forget about everything else on those days. Like say on Mondays just focus on cleaning the floors, then on Wednesday maybe focus on bathrooms, etc. But trust me, I know that is easier said than done!!

 

Add me to the list of people who can't function if the house isn't clean. I have a cleaning lady who comes every two weeks and does a deep cleaning, but with four kids there is no way I could rely on just that. I clean the kitchen after every meal and I straighten up the house every night after all the kids are in bed. I wipe down the bathrooms every other day and it seems like I am vacuuming constantly, but the boys are starting to crawl so the first floor needs to be kept extra clean. I also have a shark steam mop and I clean my kitchen floor every other night. I also have a laundry schedule - sheets and towels on Monday, darks and boys stuff on T/R/S, whites and the girls on W/F/Sun

There is way too much going on in this house and the only way to keep things running smooth is for everything to have a place to be. The ballet bags have a special hook in the mud room, girl scout stuff needs to be in it's cubby, school bags go in one spot, shoes either on a mat by the door or in their bedrooms, ect. It's funny because when I had one kid I could barely get out the door or shower and now I do so much more with four.

 

I need some of you that have the cleaning genes to pass some my way. I do not like to clean and my house always feels totally chaotic. I think that it feels like such an overwhelming job that we don't know where to start. We do dishes and laundry everyday. My kids are 4 (twins) and 6 and most days at the end of the day I'm just too tired and overwhelmed by what needs to be done (and lazy I guess) that it's too much for me to get started on a project or take on cleaning. This is one of the things I want to work on this year though. If I can get a schedule going and stick to it, it will be hard the first few weeks while I get it started but I think it'll get easier as it's getting cleaned and organized more often. I always feel bad about not having a cleaner house or not changing the sheets as often as I should. I would be totally embarassed to have someone drop by. I'd love to have someone come in a clean every 2 weeks, but I also need to keep things picked up in between. So know that there are people that clean every day, people that hardly clean/when needed (like me) and all kinds in between. As long as your kids aren't laying in filth you're probably fine.

 

yep, i am also amazed at you ladies that have all of this extra energy to keep your houses so clean and tidy...no way could i do that everyday. i HATE cleaning bathrooms and scrubbing the shower and tub in the kids bathroom. we have wood floors so i have to sweep it first and then wipe it down with my swiffer mop, it's a real pain in the butt and takes me a lot longer then to just run the vaccum.

there's just no way i could handle cleaning something everday while the boys nap, it would drive me looney. i need me time away from chores and i can only do that when they are asleep. so i can go a week or two with a dirty house. right now it just feels cluttered more than anything else but the bathrooms are in desperate need of my attention...lol. oh and the dusting too. going to attempt to get some of it done today and tomorrow...just have to find the motivation. it's hard, i've got a two hour window to get things done and it takes two hours just to clean the bathrooms (i'm pretty thorough and anal about how clean they need to be) and then i wake the kids up to play for two hours before their next feed and lay them back down again.

ugh! it's exhausting!

 

During the FY, our house was a mess. We did have a cleaning lady come through once a week but that got too expensive. Once the kids got a little older, I was able to get on more of schedule with cleaning. I try to clean a room a day. Our house does not get too dusty, so I dust every two weeks. Laundry is 2x a week, the kitchen is cleaned up daily. I sweep if not every day, every other day and mop about 3x a week.

 

it will be amazing how much more you clean when they get mobile. watching them crawl across a dirty floor and eat random things will force you to rethink your definition of "dirty". it did for us in about a minute.

potty training also forces me to clean the bathroom several times a day now as well.

never say never! :laughing:

 

Ah ha a fellow sister who shares my plight! My friends all thought once we had kids I would relax on the cleaning and they admitted they couldn't wait to see the chaos erupt. NO WAY!!!! I cannot have a messy house, especially clutter. As soon and Christmas was over, down came the tree so that the house was back to normal and this weekend I have been reorganizing all the closets. My husband just shakes his head.He knows I clean instead of sleep sometimes, its a stress relief for me. First of all I try to always clean up after myself at the time. It is so much easier to do that then have it pile up. Kitchen gets done nightly. The bathrooms get a 2x weekly clean, but everyday I do a quick wipe of the sink and counter. The downstairs gets vacuumed a couple times a week since that is where we mainly hang out. The bedrooms upstairs about once a week. Depends on the sock fluff, my husband wears black socks to work that leave fuzz everywhere and drives me nuts! I try not to let piles of clutter pile up, like papers and things get dealt with asap. Laundry is a daily event. I do have a friend with twins who has a cleaner as well as someone to help her with the kids 2x week and this has worked well for her. I don't feel comfortable with someone else in my home doing it for me.

 

Actually, I have nothing but wood floors in my house too, but I find a quick vacuum gets up way more dust & dirt than sweeping and takes a lot less time.

Me either! I joke that I would probably have to clean the house before the cleaners came because I can't stand to have anyone over when the house isn't clean. Then I would probably clean after they left because they didn't do a good enough job. :lol:

 

clean freaks rejoice...i spent the entire morning with the boys on their playmat playing or sucking their thumbs cleaning house....everything but the tile on the patio is clean...bathrooms, kitchen, dusting, floors and i'm doing laundry now. only took 4 hours but man does it feel good to sit in a clean house with all the christmas stuff put away!

 

UGH! I hate cleaning, especially laundry. I always try to clean up right after myself so that things do not pile up. I vacuum downstairs every couple days, but really need to do it like 2x a day cause we have a dog that sheds like no other!! I only vacuum upstairs every other week cause we only sleep up there lol. Not to mention how dusty this house gets.

We have so many boxes (one for a 55 inch tv, 2 car seat boxes, dj hero box, and a bunch of other LARGE boxes) in our garage that need to be taken to get rid of. Our bulk pick up says no cardboard so I can't just set it out then.

We are pretty good about putting our dishes into the dish washer, the problem is getting it unloaded when they're clean. That's when they start stacking up lol.

My hubby is deployed until the end of February so my goal is to make so it's spotless when he comes home!