Toys scattered across the floor, things shuffled around, clothes strewn on and under the chairs…These are all obvious signs there’s a toddler in the house. “How to keep the house clean with kids?” is a question both stay-at-home and working moms ask.
In this article, we’ll answer your questions and provide you with some time-saving mom hacks to keep your kid-loving home clean without losing your cool.
Keep the House Clean and Organized: Define Your Standards
Determine Your Cleaning Priorities
Keeping the house neat and tidy helps us feel calmer and more confident. Knowing where we can find things we need and how they’re arranged helps us feel in control over our lives.
With a toddler, this feeling is critical. During this period, the child becomes very active in exploring their world, and it can seem like our lives are becoming chaotic.
However, when talking about keeping the house clean with toddlers, it’s crucial to identify your priorities.
Cleaning isn’t the most important thing in the world. You certainly don’t want the cleaning stress to turn you into an angry mom. The main goal is to find a balance between three things: taking care of your child, keeping the house clean, and maintaining your mental health.
By focusing solely on one thing, you risk losing the other two.
Therefore, ask yourself what level of cleanliness you consider acceptable. Identify what things you absolutely need to do to keep your home in order and what things are optional, then prioritize accordingly.
For example:
- Wiping and dusting daily is important because dust causes allergies
- Washing dishes can be put off until the dishwasher is filled
- Cleaning the floor depends on the child’s age. If your baby’s still crawling, you’d better keep floors clean and wash them daily, as dirty floors can pose choking and health hazards. If the child’s older, once every 3-4 days may be enough.
- Cleaning the bathroom when it becomes dirty is okay, but cleaning it at least once a week is better
- Deep cleaning is also necessary but does not have to happen daily
Decide What Level Of Organization Is Acceptable
Next, think about what level of organization is acceptable to you.
Perhaps you need everything to be in its place.
Or maybe you’re ready to accept that things are out of their place, as long as they don’t make it difficult to move around the house.
Or the third option – it doesn’t matter how things are arranged, as long as you know exactly where to find what you need.
Once you’ve determined the level of organization you’re comfortable with, you can use one or both of the following strategies:
- Always put things back in their place (or somewhere they don’t cause clutter) as soon as they’re no longer needed. Remember that it’s easier to keep the house clean and organized a little at a time, than to clean up a huge mess.
- Purge unnecessary items so they don’t clutter your home. Less stuff means fewer headaches.
Next, let’s discuss some tips for keeping a house clean for families with young kids.
5 Sneaky Ways to Keep Your House Clean With Kids
Those wondering how to keep the house clean with a baby might be surprised by how simple the answer can be. All you have to do is develop some new habits. Here are a few that will help you keep your home clean and organized without putting in a lot of effort.
1. Get The Kids Involved
Of course, you can’t teach a one-year-old or even a three-year-old child to put everything in its place, but you can serve as an example. Have your child clean up after he’s done playing in an area. Over time, your child will also develop the habit of picking up after himself.
2. Use Storage Containers
Storage containers can be made of plastic, wood, or fabric. They can be large or small. It’s one of the best ways to organize your home.
Using the “clean up with the child” rule mentioned above, you can sort the children’s belongings into boxes. Use one box for toys, another for kid’s books, another for crayons and paints, and so on.
3. Decide On A Play Zone
It isn’t easy to keep a house tidy with toddlers scattering toys everywhere. However, there’s a solution.
You can limit areas where the child plays, so the child’s mess can be confined to designated areas. Most of the child’s toys will be there, and you won’t have to go around the house collecting them.
4. Rotate Your Kid’s Toys
Children often have many toys, but they can’t play with them all at once. Moreover, kids sometimes have to turn the whole toy box upside down to find the ones they need, creating a mess you have to clean up.
To solve this problem, you can rotate your kid’s toys. Hide some of them for a while, and when the baby gets tired of playing with the ones they have, give them the hidden ones and hide the ones they’re bored with.
5. Use Gadgets To Save Time
You may only have 15 minutes to clean up, which is common with toddlers in the house. During this time, you can typically clean the floors in your living room. And that’s all.
But you can do more if you have a gadget, for instance, a robot vacuum. While it’s cleaning the floors, you can quickly wipe, dust, and load the washing machine.
Therefore, delegate everything you can to household appliances. It will save you time and energy that can be spent in a more beneficial way, such as playing with your child.
Final Words
Cleaning is one of those things that families rethink when a baby comes into their lives and homes. On the one hand, keeping the house clean is an easy task (you just clean it, and that’s all). However, on the other hand, questions arise about where to find the time to get things done and whether it’s really necessary to achieve perfect cleanliness?
We’ve tried to answer the “How do moms keep a clean house with toddlers?” question, by providing you with the top working tips. But keep in mind that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, as each mom determines what works for her.
And remember one more important thing, no degree of cleanliness can replace the family harmony a child needs. So let that be your priority.
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