Time-Management With Kids

I had 3 kids, 3 years apart. When they were younger, my house was immaculate. Now that they are 7, 9 & 10, my house is a bomb!!!! If you don't got it down now, just wait.

If your kindergartener doesn't get home until four you've got plenty of time to clean, prep dinner, see your friends/exercise and take care of a baby. Maybe you don't get it ALL done every day but otherwise it sounds like a nice schedule to me!

Lord, if I had 7 hours at home with a 9 month old...I could conquer the world. :-)

Put baby in the highchair, feed a jar of babyfood, hand over a sippy of "milk" and fingerfoods to busy himself and go clean the kitchen. Pull the highchair into view. When he's tired of the food, clean hands, face and tray with a washcloth and give him toys. Continue. Prep the next meal, clean up, and then go wear out the baby. While baby naps, clean other rooms. Once a room is clean, stay out of there. Put up a gate and stick to the main areas.

Use the same dishes over and over. They rinse. You don't need to use a different cup, bowl and spoon every time. Even while cooking, I'll use just one prep bowl and rinse it out. Pull the trash bin over to your work area so you save steps.

Clean as you go. Put it away. Streamline. Don't make more work for yourself. It's not complicated. I think you're making things more complicated than they really are.

i'm having a hard time relating. when i had kids that age i was working several jobs. cleaning and caring for one baby during the day would have been a dream come true.
khairete
S.

Can you purge/ declutter so your house is easier to clean? If you have less, there is less to maintain. Also we find that if we spend less time in the house, we generate less mess. Finally, we have long engaged kiddo to clean as he goes along. One toy comes out at time, and it gets put away before the next one comes out. Shoes and bags and coats get put away immediately upon coming home. Hubs loads and unloads the dishwasher, and I never do dishes by hand. Finally, we clean as we cook and we cook in batches so we don't cook daily. I have three gallon bags of chicken in marinade one in the fridge and two in the freezer. I bread and bake enough for a week at a time. add a microwave veg/ a starch and or a salad at the last minute and that is dinner and lunch and dinner again. I've got some beans in the crockpot now making into a veg soup which will serve as dinner and lunch and dinner again. last night it was sausage and peppers and a pot of rice pilaf. quick and easy peasy. also we use a roomba and a scooba to clean our floors. The machines do the cleaning, and clean floors make a cleaner home.

best,
F. B.

I have a loose schedule that I try to adhere to to outline the day and the week. Not saying I actually stick to that each day, but I try and it helps me stay focused. I also have a running to do list and try to check off at least one larger job each day. I also try to do one load of laundry a day, keep the dishes up after each meal, prep for the next day each night, etc. I am not great at planning and home management, so I really have to write things down and do my best to stick to it.

I know what you mean about the kitchen. I try to finish a meal, clean up and then remove myself from the kitchen for a while. I have announced on several occasions to my family that "the kitchen is closed!" or I feel like it just gets messed up again. I prepped the baby food from scratch, so it's pretty time consuming to keep that up on top of actual meals for the rest of us, so I get it. The only thing that helps me is to really work on cleaning up as I cook.

When my kids were little we always had breakfast, then a morning outing, home for lunch, an afternoon outing then home for nap. While baby napped I did my housework and made supper. When my older child got home from school he played outside for an hour before coming in for supper. I would throw a load of laundry in the wash right before we went on our morning outing, put it in the dryer before we went out for the afternoon and folded a naptime. I ran the dishwasher when I went to bed at night.

If you just have the 9 month old during the day I am sure baby naps. At 9 months old you can let the baby sit on the floor with some toys right by you while you get some things done. It doesn't have to be spotless, but you can certainly get things done.

The kindergartener can likely help too. Show them to load their cereal bowl, put their clothes in the hamper (and maybe help with getting them in the washer/dryer?), wiping tables, etc. 5 year olds can do a lot and like to do it!

I also cannot STAND anything in my sink, so that is always empty.

You could sit down and write up a plan that has daily duties in the morning and afternoon. Break them down by day as well. Soon you will have a routine where everything gets done and you have lots of time to do other things.

I made up a plan and did this. Certain days were laundry, certain days were vacuuming rooms and of course the bathroom. Meals were planned by the month so I knew which meal was to be made. Prep was done in late morning. A nap was taken by all and then when the weather was good, we all walked down to the park (dinner was in the oven cooking while we were out). Dad would pick us all up from the park in the truck and we would come home ready to eat. Oh, I also made bread two times a week

Good luck to you.

the other S.

Organize your day better... Get up at 6 like your older daughter and spend time with her, it'd be ideal if baby was up then too. Then baby shoukd be ready for morning nap when older daughter leaves for school, clean up kitchen, get showered and ready for the day while baby naps. Play with baby and run errands til 1:30ish, then put baby down for second nap. Clean house and prep dinner while baby naps. Plenty of time in that schedule to get it all done. Good luck!

I used to shoot for O. outing/errand each day--either before lunch or after lunch. And I used to try to keep a set nap schedule for my child.