As most of you know, I went straight from living in an on-campus, small college apartment, to keeping up with a 3 bedroom house, while also taking care of a human child. I want to start this post by saying it took a WHILE before I got into a groove and found a routine that worked for me. For a while there, I wondered if I would ever cook or clean again. 

Even now, with Hollings being a 1 year old, there might be days where I can clean my entire house AND still find time for a nap. But, there are also days when the dishes don’t get done, the laundry doesn’t get folded, and all I’ve done was scrub one toilet. That’s okay. We’re all only human. I’m just here to provide my tips for how my house doesn’t get out of hand (I mean, never say never, but still).

Pick a “clean the house” day, and stick with it

For me, this is Monday. I designate all day Monday to cleaning my house. Of course, sometimes things get in the way. We have doctors appointments, mommy and me dates, etc. Just try your best to get as much done as you can on that day. If there’s a Monday that I don’t pay my house ANY attention, I move cleaning day to Tuesday. If I do clean on Monday, I go room by room, starting on the bottom floor and working my way up. I deep clean each room before moving on to the next. If I don’t finish the whole house in one day, I start where I left off next week. I don’t carry over my cleaning to the next day, because I know myself, and it stresses me out. I leave cleaning for cleaning day, so that I don’t get anxious about it for the rest of the week.

Don’t have an “I’ll do that later” attitude

If you are going to leave cleaning for cleaning day like I do, there will be days when you don’t finish the whole house, and that’s okay. But, I will say that the only way that this method works is if you really deep clean each room. Don’t look at the floors and say “oh I just don’t feel like mopping those today.” You need to leave the room that you do sparkling. I’m talking dust every surface, windex every mirror, scrub every toilet, clean out the fridge, etc. That way, if there are 2 (or 3) weeks in between before you get to that room again, you know that it was spotless when you got to it last time, and it will stay cleaner longer. 

You will still need to tidy up daily

I wish I could tell you this isn’t true, but when you have kids, you’ll know. This clean once a week method only really applies to the heavy duty deep cleaning (aka the kind that involves cleaning products and toilet brushes). I tidy up behind Hollings probably at least 10 times a day. At this stage in her life, she wants to open every drawer and take everything out. She wants to remove all of the toys out of the toy basket. She wants to take every book of the bookshelf, and she wants to unroll and shred the entire roll of toilet paper. To keep your sanity here, just keep reminding yourself of how fast this little curious stage will pass. Try to enjoy it, because it will be gone in a blink, and then you’ll be wishing you had toys in your house to put back in the toy basket.