Is everyone's housework endless?

[sugarmouse]

I've just sat down for five minutes before picking my bigger one up from school. Since I dropped him off this morning, I've done a Sainsbury's shop, put on - and hung out - three loads of washing, cooked a stew, taken the three year old swimming, talked incessantly to three year old, played Twister with three year old, made a few boring but necessary phonecalls to banks etc, washed up.

And the result? I'm crabby and the house is still an absolute tip as I've not had any time to actually tidy up. And I've not even had time to wash my hair. Now the big one's coming home and I know it's going to get even messier.

Is this normal? I can't work out how I can constantly do housework and yet still live in a pigsty. Short of getting a cleaner (which I can't afford), what does everyone else do - give up and live in happy relaxed chaos? Give up cooking evening meals?

Do other three year olds and five year olds create this much mess or do some help tidy up?

Just curious as feel SNOWED UNDER with housework!!!! (work three days a week too)

Any tips appreciated!

[pommie]

I feel exactly the same, mine seems never ending. I am constantly tidying up and cleaning, only for me to leave one room to then come back and it looks like I haven't done it!!

[midivydale]

Me too!

[oimissus]

well, being slovenly, which I am, helps. You don't mention your partner in this, I assume he contributes (to the housework, not the mess!) as you both work - if not, he should! Also, I think both your children are of an age to tidy up after themselves when asked - we don't get out another thing if, for example, a completed jigsaw isn't put away, and if Miss Oi won't help then I walk away. Threatening no television often helps! I also don't think it shows a good example to children if their parents always pick up after them - I'm not anyone's skivvy, least of all a 3-year-old's!

I never get the endless washing, OK there's only 3 of us (1 child) but I do 3 loads a week (whites, coloureds, towels etc) and now I'm working 3 days too I try to get it done at the weekend so we start the week with clean stuff. I just have a load of cheap clobber for Miss Oi, loads of pants etc, so I don't HAVE to keep doing washing, I couldn't stand it.

I think your house layout can help or hinder - we have a through lounge and as long as the front bit when Mr Oi and I park of an evening is fairly clear, I don't care about the back bit so much. We do need to get one of those organiser Ikea storage things though.

[Pickle]

Washing is endless in my house, 3 kids, one in cloth nappies, and I wash all towels and bedding weekly (some of my friends don't - I always assumed it was the norm?). I do at least one load a day, and force myself to "deal" with it as soon as it's dry, so it gets ironed/folded/put away ASAP.

I do get my older kids to tidy up after themselves to a certain extent, they know they don't get to watch tv in the evening until everything is put away. They have to do it at school (and often come home with stickers for doing it well), so no reason why they shouldn't do it at home!

We have a cleaner who comes once a week and tackles the bathrooms etc, which helps a lot.

[canela]

mmm, sounds familiar. think that realistic standards help - things will get better in a few years. think everyone has their own pet domestic needs. mine is food. i will stay up til midnight a few nights a week cooking healthy stews, soups etc so I know I'll be able to just heat something up quickly and we all get good food. my sis thinks I am crazy...

for both cleaning and washing, I tend to save it up til the weekend. just do the absolute bare minimum kitchen cleaning and tidying up during the week, and at some point over the weekend the kids will be chilling out with some telly or (gasp of wonder) actually playing nicely together and I'll be able to get the bulk of it done. or they can help. If not, Sunday night we tend to have a beer, put the music on and get the house ready for the week. I can live with some chaos during the week if I know for Monday morning I'll have that clean house feeling again.

I tend to live with a whole long list of things I'd like to get done sometime - clean the loft etc - but short of taking annual leave off work (I work full time) to do house chores, I'm happy just to get the bare basics done each week!

I tend to find that if I'm getting crabby, it's time to call it quits for the day and have a glass of wine. this is all meant to be fun, isn't it???

[Pickle]

Just to add, I get up quite early and we are organised in the mornings (generally we have a good 40/45 minutes to spare once breakfast is over before we leave for school). I make sure everything is done (breakfast dishes away, big kids toys away, which they do, washing on etc) before we do the school run. To me there's nothing more depressing than returning from school with a scratchy 16 month old to be faced with all the breakfast mess!

[oimissus]

one load of washing every day??? Ironing???? I need a glass of wine just reading that!

[womanofdulwich]

Sheets every 2 weeks. Maybe some towels too- depending- I think sniffing them is a good test ;)

Get your children to help you now. It will only get worse unless you start to train them NOW.

ALways cook double portions of stew and freeze half.

One big basket to throw toys in is a help.

A glass of wine at this time of day is always a help.................

[srisky]

Having a cleaner creates it's own list of chores - I spend the previous night/that morning tidying so the cleaner can clean later that day. Is that normal??

ETA: I don't iron anything. My husband does his shirts for that week whilst watching match of the day and I occasionally ask him to iron a couple of bits for me.

[mrs f]

I tend to tidy up once the babies are in bed, whizz round & put everything away then I can relax & cook. Cleaning et gets done when older one (2) is at nursery or when they are both napping, I work for myself so also try & fit that into the days.

But yes, sheets & towels every week, but I iron nothing

[Beagle]

Yes, my constant refrain to husband is " I didn't live like this when I was a student!".

Just gone on maternity leave and finally getting round to cleaning things that have bothered me for ages - dirt down side of cooker etc - and have managed to turn a posterior baby while doing it so double benefit.

Storage baskets that all the toys can go into and trying to keep on top of the washing up (that breeds behind my back). Also have doscovered nothing looks clean until the floors do, so a sweep or a hoover seems to really improve the situation.

I ignore looking at the bookshelves which are a repository for anything not on the floor.

I feel like Sisyphus most days reassuring I am not alone.

[Bellenden Belle]

srisky Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Having a cleaner creates it's own list of chores -

> I spend the previous night/that morning tidying so

> the cleaner can clean later that day. Is that

> normal??

I could have written that paragraph. I drive the other half NUTS with my incessanttidying before the cleaner arrives. But as I say every week (and said before having a child was even a thought)- I am not paying them to tidy!!!! But in a way I need that deadline it else things would get really out of hand.

I think I was curiously more relaxed about living in chaos before kids - is this just further evidence I'm turning into my Mother?

[Pickle]

Yes, I make sure I tidy before the cleaner comes, as I'd much rather they spend their time actually cleaning than tidying up.

[fmay]

Yes, I have to tidy before the cleaner comes so she can deep clean properly (can only afford to have her help a couple of hours, every 2-3 weeks) and otherwise I hoover, usually twice a day, mop floors and do at least one load of laundry and ironing (3 small kids!) every single day, weekends too. The cooking and clearing up from meals is, of course endless.... Then there's squeezing in phone calls, apts, paperwork etc, around chauffeuring small people around to school and nursery and so on.

Yes my other half does what he can to help when he's off work at weekends, but I have to say, it's usually easier to just do things quickly and properly myself ;-) He is somewhat messy so only adds to the workload! I tend to feel like a hamster on a wheel but I have to be up early and super organised to make everything run smoothly for the whole family otherwise I would be seriously stressed out in utter chaos each day. Busy family life I suppose. I feel I should be grateful for being in a position to be able to look after the house and the kids myself, but it would be nice to get a break from it occasionally. Never enough hours in the day. My fault though, I have friends who can sit and sip tea or watch tv in the evenings with mess piling up around them but I would never be able to relax with lists of chores left to do!

At the end of the day, nobody forced me to have 3 babies in as many years so I can hardly complain eh!?!

[Pickle]

My take on it, which is probably extremely old fashioned and goes against everything the feminist movement stands for, is that it (being everything mentioned above and more) is my job. Whether for or against it, I'm a stay at home Mum, that's a choice that I made and my husband supports, and I love what I do.

Take today - I'm knackered but buzzing from what I've achieved, just as I would be if I was still in the city working as a CA like I did pre kids.

Up at 6am to do an exercise DVD before the kids got up. Shower, 3 kids up, dressed and fed (hubby leaves for work just as they're getting up). Helped with homework. School run, straight to a party venue to sort out middle child's birthday party, home to spend some time with littlest one rolling a ball round the floor and dodging showers to bounce on the trampoline with her. Two loads of washing done and hung to dry, yesterday's nappies folded and put away. Two batches of biscuits made ready for an event at school tomorrow, 16 party invites written out, lunch for baby and put her for a nap. I've now made dinner ready for tonight, sorted out some appointments for my week off next week (hooray), ordered party bag tat online, and now I'm sitting down for lunch and to do a bit of work (knitting, so it's fun really!). When I get the kids from school we go straight to a music lesson and don't get home again until dinner time.

If I was trying to hold down a job a few days a week on top of what I do I know I wouldn't enjoy having to do the domestic stuff, and I take my hat off to the many of you who juggle motherhood and work!

I always make sure everything is done by the time my kids go to bed at 7pm, so that the evening is completely mine and I can sit and watch tv/knit on the nights I don't have rehearsals.

[Mrs TP]

When my older two were in the infants I used to work in an office with amongst a crowd of lovely people a rather annoying Essex Princess (sorry Essex) who used to preach about her immaculate house and the hours of endless housework she did in the evenings and at the weekend. She did bugger all at work and so probably had plenty of energy left for attending to her mansion (no kids, 40+, mortgage paid off and plenty of money to spend on decor plus her mum and dad on hand constantly helping her out - I'm not bitter honest).

Anyway, one day she took it upon herself to conduct a survey of how often everyone changed their bed sheets, hoping to catch out the slovenlies who didn't live up to her own weekly standard. An entire office of grown up sensible people all stopped work to contribute to this discussion except me who kept my head down (slightly in shame) and carried on working / listening to the drivel around me. Most of her cohort of adoring fans all said along the lines of once a week and the odd person tried to be more honest with 'sometimes maybe every two weeks' to her shocks and gasps of repulsion.

Finally, she could stand it no longer and dragged me into the conversation 'how often do you change the bedsheets?'. Much as I wanted to tell her to f* off and mind her own business, without looking up I replied 'when the kids sh*t and p*ss on them'.

There were a few sniggers and all returned to work.

Honestly, don't sweat the small stuff. I am sure we all do what we can and if time were endless and the kids didn't have personalities then maybe we could do a bit more.

I would rather be in my shabby base camp than her immaculate empty mansion.

The day my house is perfect and all done, will be a very sad day as it will be a sign there is just me left in it.

[oimissus]

aaaaahahahahaaaaa!

I was astonished to find out, via the medium that is Mumsnet, that a surprising number of people wash their towels after one use. And then couldn't understand why their laundry was never-ending. Well, durrr!

I'm guessing, Pickle, that you had a fairly high-flying job pre-kids (sorry, I don't know what a CA is)? You sound impressively organised and focussed in a way I can only dream of (getting up at 6 to do an exercise session??). But the OP does work, so I do think she shouldn't have to do it all (if she does) and that it's not unreasonable for some things to slide.

I'm still astounded (cloth nappies and number of children aside) how so much laundry is generated - my parents had 2 kids and I never remember my mum doing more than 4 loads a week (3 on Saturday, one on Sunday), though she didn't do bedding weekly, that's for sure. Did we just wear our clothes more than once in the 70s? I know that, up to our teens, we had 2 or 3 school blouses to last a week, and one skirt and maybe one jumper. But I always feel in a minority that I don't have a wash on every day!

[Pickle]

CA = chartered accountant. High flying to an extent, bit not something I particularly enjoyed, and I'd actually given it up and worked as a WeightWatchers leader for a while before I had my first. I also worked for many years as a professional flautist.

I am organised, always have been, it's what works for me but completely realise its not for everyone :-)

Absolutely agree that the OP shouldn't be expected to do it all while also holding down a job, guess I just wanted to highlight that as a SAHM there's a lot more time in the day to be able to do it if you're organised.

Washing towels after one use? Seriously? That's madness.

Someone earlier mentioned hoovering twice in a day, that's extreme in my books! Mine gets done once a week by the cleaners (properly), and I'll sometimes do a quick once over one other time in the week.

As for exercising at 6am, if I don't do it then, I don't get a chance I'm afraid. After the initial shock of getting out of bed I quite enjoy it! It's one of the things I have to put in my diary to make sure I do it, along with music practise if I have a particularly tricky concert coming up.

[Pickle]

When I was at school we didn't wear uniform until secondary school, at which point we had to wear kilts that were dry clean only - I don't think it got done more than once a year!

Washing in our house (apart from nappies)... Well, two loads today - cleaners came yesterday, so one load of towels, one of sheets from my bed. Another load consisting of kids bedding for another day.

If I'm lucky my big kids will get two wears out of a uniform before getting covered in food/paint, and as both hubby and I do a lot of exercise there's always workout gear to be washed. Whites done once a week. Littlest is a bottom shuffler so every day whatever she was wearing on the bottom gets filthy. Swimming stuff, PE kits, ballet gear, it all adds up!

When I only had one child I didn't have to wash nearly as often.

[sugarmouse]

Well it was a very bad washing day - three loads isn't normal. My five year old is still wearing 'night nappies' and managed to wee on our bed the night before during story time (night nappy leaked) then without telling me, took the npy off and went to bed without one on, waking up three hours later with a soaking bed. But that's another thread - (please do PM me if your five year old constantly wets the bed) Believe me, bedsheets normally get changed, um, once a month??! Or, as Mrs TP says, when they get weed on!

Yes, I don't think our house layout helps - small 30s terrace, open plan lounge - if one area is messy, the whole downstairs is. And yes, husband isn't as good as he could be but he works very long hours. I certainly don't think I'm as good as I could be at getting the kids to tidy up - it doesn't seem worth the aggro. But I'll try and be better from now on. I'm with you Canela - I can't stop cooking as actually really enjoy it. Point noted about double portions though.

Love the idea of tidying up on a Sunday with a beer, though. Thanks everyone!

[Belle]

if your husband wears shirts that's a lot of washing too...my kids PJs never seem to last rmore than one wear because they get covered in breakfast stuff. It IS neverending, esp if your kids are of the messy type...

[Goodliz]

I live in a messy house and I don't have a cleaner. After battling with the mess I've decided there are 2 types of people:

1. tidy and organised

2. messy and disorganised

I am defo in the 2nd category. I would love, love, love to be in the first but it is never going to happen. Just as I will never be one of those women who are always nicely accessorized and have lovely hair - I just can't. I wish I could though!

Someone mentioned about our parents never doing the washing so much. I think it is because they did not have automatic washing machines back then. We had a twin tub. My mum worked full time, had 5 girls and my granny lived with us. There was soooo much washing.

Mrs TP - love the work story and I can just imagine you saying that! Your house is lovely anyway.

Sugarmouse I will pM you re the bed wetting.

[Goodliz]

Oh yes - my husband washes his own shirts and irons them too. Wouldn't trust me near them!

[Pickle]

Goodliz - on the days you aren't in your sports kit you are one of the most stylish Mums in the playground!