Keeping a house clean is hard. But keeping a house clean with children is nearly impossible. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children and the messes they make. It reminds me of the carefree joy of childhood. I cherish the messiness, as in a few years they won’t want to hang out and play with their mom anymore. Can’t they stay young forever?! This being said, I also do enjoy having a clean and organized home. Over my time as a mom, I think I’ve struck a pretty good balance between tidiness and chaos. It is possible, I swear! Here are just a few of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way.
Take Inventory of What’s Important The first step in keeping a clean home is figuring out what is important. You might be thinking that everything is important, but when you start going through all your stuff you realize that there really is a lot of “extra” stuff. I generally prioritize two categories of things: sentimental and functional. I am a very sentimental person, so keeping things that have emotional meaning to me is important. These generally include my childrens’ first stuffed animals, blankets, socks, etc. While they may not play with them or use them anymore, I think they’re worth keeping. The other category, functional items, is pretty self-explanatory. These are items that serve a function. Often these include the toys my children actively play with, books that I read to them, their bikes, the main clothes they wear, etc. Once I have outlined what is important I go through all the rest of the stuff and decide what I want to keep and what I want to donate. Separating the important items first helps with donating more because I know all the necessary items are accounted for. Declutter The next step after the inventory is to declutter. Now that all the main items are sorted into keep or donate, I can move on to the “clutter items”. I define clutter items as smaller things that sit around in drawers and shelves that just take up space. These are things like marbles, little figurines, bouncy balls, loose crayons, and other stuff of that nature. I particularly like this step because it’s pretty easy to get rid of a lot of these things. Half the time they are so insignificant, my kids never even notice they went missing. I normally go shelf by shelf and pick through all items until I feel like the clutter has subsided. Clutter is one of those things that make or break a room in my opinion. The space itself could be very clean, but the littered shelves are just an eyesore. But, I don’t want you to think I just throw away all my kids’ clutter items. For the ones I decide to keep, I pick out a cute basket to put on the shelf and toss all the little toys in there. This looks like being organized but makes it so my kids still have some little things to play with. Contain The Mess Makers If you’re reading this subheading, yes, the mess makers are another term I call my children! I’m not sure how different it is with girls, but my boys can surely be two little tornadoes of destruction. I’m kidding!… sort of. One of the biggest things I have learned is why clean an entire house when you can clean just one room. When it comes to playtime, we have a few rules. The first is that all toys must stay in the playroom. This helps contain the mess. While the playroom looks like disaster struck, the rest of the house stays fairly clean. And if I’m just not in the mood to clean, I shut the door and pretend nothing is there. We also have a rule of only two or three toys out at a time. This keeps the mess fairly manageable as they have to put a toy back if they want to bring another one out. We also encourage a lot of playing to be done in the backyard. By confining them to an outside space, the indoor play area stays much cleaner. Plus the fresh air and sunshine are just more added benefits! Take A Trip To The Container Store If I had to pick a trinity of motherhood stores that bring me joy it would be Costco, Target, and of course, the Container Store. If you’re a mom who loves having an organized home, The Container Store is for you. If you’ve been living under a rock, the Container Store is essentially a retailer dedicated to organization materials. They have storage containers in every size and color for nearly anything you could want. I use them in every area of my home. They have food storage options, clothing options, toy options, and even individual drawer organizers. They’re especially handy when it comes to storing my kids’ toys. Not only do I like the cohesiveness of how they look stacked next to each other, but they have styles that come with spots for labeling! Aside from the tidiness aspect, I love watching my kids get excited about pulling out the bins and seeing what’s inside. I think writing the category names on them has even helped with their reading skills. Embrace The “Tidy Up” While deep cleaning a house is necessary, it is not always feasible. Personally, I think it’s okay to just clean individual rooms as they need them. One thing that my husband, Erik, and I have done is embrace the “tidy up”. Tidying up differs from cleaning in that it is just a quick clean-up of the clutter and less of a deep cleansing of the space. We set a 20-minute timer every morning before the boys are up and a 20-minute timer after the boys have gone to bed and we go through the house and tidy up our things. This could be making sure all the dishes are out of the sink and into the dishwasher, grabbing knick-knacks off counters and putting them in their place, a quick Swiffer clean of the floors, or tossing Amazon boxes into the recycling bin. Having these timed clean-ups twice a day has been beneficial in so many ways. The first is we don’t really take up time during the day to clean because we know we’ll have 40 minutes dedicated to that. Doing it once in the morning and once a night also diminishes the amount of clean that needs to be done. Plus, waking up to a clean-ish home is so much nicer than a cluttered home. I also think that cleaning in the morning sets a good tone for my day, but that just might be my type A personality talking. Make Cleaning Fun The last thing that I liked to do is involve my kids in the cleaning process. I want my children to not only get used to helping around the house but to appreciate the benefits of keeping a clean space. Studies show that if your main environments are kept clean and clutter-free it can help keep your mind at ease and diminish unnecessary stress. About once a day we have “fun clean up time” with the boys. We throw on a playlist of their favorite Disney jams and get cleaning. The boys are in charge of putting all their toys into the correct bins, stacking books back on the shelf, and putting away their arts and crafts tools into the proper drawers. We only do this for about 15 minutes as their attention spans aren’t exactly the best just yet. Having them contribute not only teaches them the responsibility that comes with owning things, but also the responsibility of contributing to a shared space. I think often kids rely on their parents for keeping track of their stuff and then have to learn all too quickly. Erik and I hope that by slowly integrating these habits, they’ll keep them for many years to come (... fingers crossed!)
0 Comments
|
AuthorHi there, I'm Molly! I am a business owner and devoted mother to two boys, Lukas and Henry, and wife to my husband, Erik. ArchivesCategories |