Mommy Musings

Clean home, happy home!

How is it possible for something so small to completely take over your entire house?! My house looks like a tornado hit it on a daily basis, and Little Man is not even six months yet! I have no idea how I will ever keep it clean with more than one child! So, now that Little Man is getting older and becoming more independent, I guess I can no longer use the excuse that I have no time to clean. Although, I will say, little man is a horrible napper! I get a maximum of three, 20-30 minute naps a day, and getting him down for those naps is a real struggle! So for those moms that work, have horrible nappers, or because you deserve a break too, this post is for you!

Weekly Chores:

First things first, decide what needs to be done on a weekly basis. For me, it’s vacuuming, scrubbing the floor, cleaning the bathrooms, and maybe dusting (my least favorite chore).  Then, group the items into 30-45 minute time intervals. For example, it takes me about 30 minutes to vacuum all the carpets in my house, so that would be one interval. Scrubbing the floor would be my second 30 minute interval, and so on. Once you have these in place, choose one interval for each day of the week. I try really hard to get all of my cleaning done on Monday-Friday. This way I can do yard work, monthly chores (more on that later), and spend time with my family on the weekends. So, my weekly chore chart looks like this:

thumbnail of MY CHORE CHARTthumbnail of CHORE CHARTClick on the blank copy above to get your FREE, EDITABLE, chore chart! You can also choose to leave the chart blank and put it in a picture frame to use as a dry erase board. I have a blank one in a frame to write my daily to-do-list on (you know for the million other things besides chores that need to be done)! If you do choose to put it in a frame, it will need to be cut to fit an 8×10, but I bought a certificate frame for a dollar at my local dollar store, and it fits an 8.5×11 perfectly. Side note: I buy frames from my dollar store all the time; then I paint them, and spray them with sealer or use mod podge, and they look great!

Finding the Time to Clean:

So, now you have this great looking chore chart, but how do you find the time to do the chores?! My suggestion is to break the intervals up into three parts. Example – I chose to vacuum all my carpets on Monday, so the upstairs is part one, the downstairs is part two, and the basement is part three. Some of you may find that you don’t want to break them into parts, and can just knock it out all at one time. This personally doesn’t work for me for two reasons – I hate to clean, and other than when little man is sleeping, I don’t think I have a non-interrupted, consecutive, 30 minutes throughout my day! Therefore, it gets broken into parts!

Part one is done during a time when little man is asleep. For me, this is when he naps, but I know for a lot of moms this part happens once their child is asleep for the night. Part two is completed while little man is awake and occupied. At this age, he stays in his crib or playpen, for older children this might be a little trickier, but hopefully they can entertain themselves for ten minutes! Lastly, part three is taken care of while my husband is watching our little man.

I realize that not everyone has the convenience of having someone to watch their child, and my suggestion for you is to only split your work into two parts, both being about 15 minutes. This schedule has worked really well for me, but please don’t think that it actually works every day! Our life can get pretty hectic and busy sometimes, but I really do try to stick to this as much as possible.

Monthly Chores:

Now, remember when I said we’d get back to those monthly chores? Below you will see a FREE printout of my cleaning calendar, which shows what I feel I need to clean in my house on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. On the weekend, I usually choose four (two on Saturday, two on Sunday) of my monthly chores and get them done. Also, depending on the time of year (I’m not going to wash windows in December), I will do my yearly chores as well. Keep in mind some of the yearly chores will take more than one weekend.

thumbnail of CLEANING CALENDAR

My daily chores are actually the hardest to get done because I have to fit them in whenever I can, and that doesn’t always work for me! One quick note before you look at the calendar; you will see both scrubbing and mopping the floor. With my little man crawling and putting everything in his mouth, I like to keep my floors really clean. So, I scrub the floors once a week, and then I swiffer them daily after dinner. That’s just me being extra picky, you can do whatever works best in your home! That’s it, so… On your mark, get set, clean! And enjoy the freebies!

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