Working mums, how do you keep ontop of the housework?

[danniellabella]

I work about 38 hours a week in paid employment and I'm a mum to a very active 15 month old. I'm really struggling to keep on top of the housework and my home is a shambles because after a long day at work, both me and my husband (who works 12 hour days) are too exhausted and lazy to do anything.

If you are in a similar boat to me, I would love to know how you cope with the housework? In our house I seem to do most of it.

What systems do you have? do you have time to watch TV or do you just forgo your own relaxation needs so you can have a clean house instead?

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

Danni, I'm not a mum, but (until recently) I was working fulltime plus driving DH into work as he's on crutches - leaving the house at 6.30am and not getting back til about 7pm. I considered it a good night if I cooked dinner instead of buying on the way home! Honestly, if I felt up to doing some housework through the week then I did, but the majority of it was left for the weekends.

I'm not sure how that would work with a child, but for us it was fine. As long as the mess was contained in the correct rooms - not leaving our clothes in the lounge, not leaving dishes in front of the tv - the house didn't look too bad. I just had to be strict and make sure my housework was done on Saturday before I did anything else!

[Neenee Jellybeanie]

I don't keep on top of the housework lol! Even when I'm not working (I'm part time) I still can't get it done. E.g. I spend 10 minutes washing the dishes, turn around and DD has spilt her drink, grabbed the jam and started eating it with her fingers and put sticky jam hands all over the walls. So I clean up her hands, wipe up the spill, wipe the jam off the walls . . . and DD has tipped her blocks all over the floor, pulled the pillows and blankets off the beds and pulled all of the baby wipes out of the container . . . you see where I'm going with this

I have a philosophy; it doesn't matter if the house is messy as long as it's not dirty. Even if there are clothes and toys all over the floors I try to have all the rubbish in the bin, spills cleaned up, dirty clothes in the washing basket, dishes done etc. Then when I get time and energy to do more, I do. My house is about as clean as it gets tonight and there are still clothes spilling out of the hamper and crap all over the table, toys on the floor . . .

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I find it easier then when I was a SAHM! Weekends are the worst.

DH and I have a manic time at 7pm. One of us does bedtime, which is usually fought against. The other one washes dishes, wipes surfaces, sweeps the floor in the living area and tidies up the worst of the toys. They live out on the floor, but in one area.

If there's washing to be done you can put that in the machine at night and turn on the machine in the morning. Hang it out when you can - DS likes handing me pegs so he "helps". DH puts his own clothes away, I put DS's away when he's in his bath. TBH my clothes and DH's clothes tend to go from the clean basket to being worn without going away a lot of the time.

Basket for paperwork that needs to get done - and sort it out one evening every week or every other week.

BTW, DH is out the house 7am-6pm weekdays, I leave at 8am but study full-time so often don't finish until well after DS is in bed, only I study at home. I also cook a nutritious meal at least half the nights - the other half we'll just have something easy, like tonight it's sausage, mash and veg. Tuesday I'm planning on fish and chips to maximise revision time for Wednesday morning's exam. But I do cook proper meals with fresh food half the time!

TBH, I'd rather have a half-hour less relaxation than have a house that didn't invite me to relax. I find I do a lot better with a neat house. Or at least neat living space: we're in the middle of renos atm so that house is a bit of a tip, but it's a tip that's causing the minimal mess possible.

[Liviam]

Good luck finding a way to keep on top of your housework because I'm yet to find a way to keep my house respectable. We are like RF. One of us done the bath/dress while the other does the dishes/kitchen. We both put the toys away after DD has gone to bed. I try to do washing every second day to keep on top of that. Bathrooms get wiped over when being used like I clean DD's when she is having a bath. Realistically I try to vacuum during the week but it usually ends up a weekend job. My whole house gets cleaned over the weekend while DH is here to distract DD.
Just do the best you can that's all we can do isn't it???

[Fleur]

I don't keep on top of the housework lol!

:yeahthat:

We are in a bit of a different boat as we have older children who 'should' be helping... having said that they weren't & DH & I decided it was too stressful nagging them all the time, so we canned their pocket money & said, right, we'll do it ourselves.

At that stage I was still working roughly 37 hrs /week (I have since cut back to about 32 at this stage of my pregnancy, and some of that is at home)...and yeah it's hard!

Most of it gets left for the weekend, we just do what we can at night. Occasionally I will sweep the floor or whatever, but usually it's just dishes, washing & mess, if we can keep on top of that we are doing well. We just prioritise what needs doing vs our rest & relaxation time.

And I don't (anymore) stress too much about what others think. It's different if I know we have people coming, I will try to get things sorted but if they drop in on a mess, well that's just how you find us

I dread to think what will happen after bub gets here and I go back to work!

But I think the best rule to live by is go with what you can live with..if you need it tidy to be able to relax (and it does make it easier for sure) then do it...but don't kill yourself with housework for the sake of others (I used to).

Most working mothers are in the same boat. Actually, so was I before I was working...so let me amend that - most mothers are in the same boat

[DoubleK]

I have a philosophy; it doesn't matter if the house is messy as long as it's not dirty. Even if there are clothes and toys all over the floors I try to have all the rubbish in the bin, spills cleaned up, dirty clothes in the washing basket, dishes done etc. Then when I get time and energy to do more, I do. My house is about as clean as it gets tonight and there are still clothes spilling out of the hamper and crap all over the table, toys on the floor . . .

Yep! this was my aim as well! i worked 25 hours a week/4 nights.
as long as there are no dirty dishes around the house, leftover food in the bin, and rubbish bags taken out, dishes done (or at least rinsed and stacked neatly!) im happy. also clothes. i try to wash everyday, so i tend to do a quick clothes pick up forst thing in the morning. anything else is a bonus!
i find that i can spend all day cleaning and tidying.... only to have a clean but messy house by the end of the day!

[~Kim~]

I find it's harder now that I'm at home....just do one job/room/task each night. Then there's rarely much on the weekend except washing. Even that can be done in chunks if you have an airer.
That said I don't have much interest in the TV, so if everyone else is distracted by it, I liked to do a few jobs so I didn't have to do them on my days off.
Oh and often I would cook a few meals on Sundays so that the weeknights weren't so hard.

[BabyMama]

We're the same - not too bothered about mess, as long as the house is clean.

I work from home so in some ways it makes things easier but DS is a very light sleeper so it limits what I can do while he sleeps.

The evening rush is hammer time for housework. DH plays with DS and baths him while I do the dinner/dishes/clean-up runaround. It works well - we both collapse on the couch once DS is asleep.

I also do at least one load of washing per day.

I've found asking someone to come around once per week to look after DS helps me to do the 'once over' on the bathroom, toilet, floors etc. Can't always happen though so we just manage the best we can - no-one is dying from poor sanitation so we're ok I think!

[Kazbah]

We do things like tidy the lounge before we watch TV for the night .. the kitchen gets done while I'm cooking tea (so usually a night behind all the time) and the bathroom about every 3 days. Washing I try to do 2 loads a night - one load's in the machine and another in the dryer at all times! we also have a cleaning lady, just 2 hours / week but it really helps, and I'd rather have her than bought lunch every day!

[turner]

I book myself each Thursday night for 3 hours to do the housework. I throw washing in every morning and either put it the dryer that night or hang it outside. Kitchen is cleaned every night.