share your tips for keeping house during the first months!

I thought it would be fun to share tips for keeping a reasonably organized home when you have newborns. Please share your tips!!!

These tips are from my first, who was a singleton:

1. Eat off of paper plates for the first month. Silverware can be dumped right into the dishwasher, but plates have to be rinsed, and it also saves on time unloading the dishwasher.

2. When you prepare ANYTHING, double or triple the recipe and freeze the remainder for a future meal. It isn't much more work at the time, and saves lots of time later. You can freeze almost anything once you get good at it. This is particularly helpful if you start before the baby comes.

3. Hire a housekeeper to come twice a month to do the heavy cleaning. We hired ours when our son was about a month old and now can't imagine living without her. I used to find cleaning to be therapeutic, but I found that I just plain resented the time it took away from being a mom.

4. spend just ten minutes picking up the clutter in the house before you go to bed each night. If it helps, set the timer for 10 minutes so you don't feel overwhelmed by this task. Ten minutes less of sleep won't make much of a difference (hey, you're sleep deprived anyway!), but it makes a huge difference mentally to not live in clutter. DH and I used to use the timer, but it's become such a habit now that we do it without even thinking. Obviously this is most effective if you start on a day that you have a reasonably uncluttered home, but I guess it could work over the long run even in a cluttered one.

5. If you use DREFT, do yourself a favor and just wash everyone's stuff in it so that you don't have to keep the baby clothes separate.

6. Keep the baby changing supplies in the baby changing area. If you find that you are constantly dragging changing supplies around, set up a second "official" baby changing area in your home with it's own set of supplies. Baby changing supplies create a lot of clutter, plus it's really upsetting to start changing the baby and realize that some important item isn't there.

7. Try to find a place for all your baby stuff to "live" before the baby comes (particularly the bulky stuff like strollers, bouncies, swings, carseats, etc). If it never had a home in the first place, it will always be clutter. This can be a huge challenge even in a large home, let alone a small one!

OK - that's all I can think of for now! Anyone else?

 

Those are great tips!

I had a VERY hard time with my house after 12 1/2 weeks of bedrest (house was not in any order how I left it months before) along with recovering from a c-section. The best thing I did was join the site 'Fly Lady' (see LINK). It was so helpful in walking me back through ways to get my house under control again. I didn't do everything recommended on the site, but it was REALLY really helpful.

The biggest thing I remember it recommended is what she calls 'shine your sink'...the idea is that if you keep your sink clean, then other people will be less likely to just 'dump' their dirty dishes in the sink when they're done. It also makes you feel GREAT. She also recommends that you actually get dressed and put shoes ON in the morning, since you'll be much more likely to take the garbage out to the garage/outdoors, spend less time 'lounging'. Lots more great tips on there!

But honestly, the best advice I got when I had my singleton and was trying to keep up the house was from a mother of 5 who told me to 'Lower my standards'...seriously, VERY realistic the first few months anyway!

 

I'm definitely going to use these tips. Thank you for posting.

One of my twin mom friends suggested showering with a baby as a way to kill two birds with one stone.

These are our first children, so I don't have any tips other than I finally set up auto-bill pay services on all eligible bills after forgetting to pay my mortgage and two credit card bills when pregnancy-brain hit.

 

I have a routine which helps me stay on top of the laundry... every other morning is bath day. Directly after said bath, I stick all baby stuff in the washer & turn it on. I bought a small basket to sit on top of the washer (ours is centrally located) which has all the dirty baby stuff in it. It never piles up too bad, I always have enough receiving blankets, etc, & I know I only have to get 1 load folded every other day. If that day is a challenge, my goal is to get it folded before the bath process starts the laundry again. There have been just a couple of times where it hasn't been done in 2 days and it's bath time again so it's 2 loads to fold. I try not to beat myself up about it.

The biggest thing I know to keep your house clean is to involve your DH. I approached the baby care stuff from the beginning as a team sport. It's us v. the babies & I don't want to lose. My DH many times would rather hold a baby than load the dishwasher... well, I breastfeed, so I hold them A LOT. I like getting up (& after a C-Section, needed to every once in a while) so I would load the dishwasher. Happily. Figure out what each person can take on. DH didn't want to clean the cat box every day... I said fine, you can clean both human bathrooms every week. He's sticking with the cat box, LOL.

Honestly, with DH home, it's been wonderful for me. It strengthens us to be a team together.

 

Keep in mind that you have only a few main goals to manage a 'successful' day in the life of twinfancy...

1. Feed the babies
2. Feed the mommy
3. Keep the babies clean (this means dry...not necessarily bathed!!)
4. Keep the mommy clean...(ditto!!)

If you can accomplish these 4 main goals (in that order!) then you've had a successful day!! Everything else is just bonus!

 

We've been using paper plates, bowls, and plastic flatware fairly regularly ever since around my second pregnancy. With the muscle and energy problems I have, then being compounded by having babies, it's just not worth the trouble to use "real" dishes. I'm constantly trying to find new shortcuts to get things done. And my DH is a BIG help, especially now. Frankly, he does most of the kid care and housework most days.