What to outsource, what to let go, what to start doing? For marriage happiness with a new baby
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Anonymous
| DH and I are married ten years, two elementary kids and a new baby (five months today!). We are not adjusting very well to the new reality of my being back at work. I want to get weekly cleaners to take some of the load off, but what else would you prioritize for the health of the marriage? Date nights (how often)? Any other domestic help? We are having a rough time and have money to throw at the problem, but I am new to this as I’ve never really outsourced much. |
Anonymous
| We only have two kids and have twice-weekly cleaners plus a nanny who carts the kids around to after-school activities and helps them prep part of dinner. The nanny does the kids laundry and the cleaners do sheets & towels. We hire a landscaper. |
Anonymous
OP here. This sounds dreamy. |
Anonymous
So, you pretty much outsourced everything except cooking and banging. |
Anonymous
Please do not derail my thread |
Anonymous
No derailing, just clarifying. |
Anonymous
We had a similar experience, though only one elementary schooler and a new baby but complete with difficult transition back to work. Weekly cleaners saved my marriage. What took them 2 hours on a Friday afternoon ended up being, at the end of the day, the topic of most contention in our family/relationship. I did not change my own sheets or clean my own bathroom once between 2017 and 2020 when the pandemic shut it all down. Because of the timing of when we'd been doing basic maintenance chores (nights & weekends), we got all that time back for quality time, which we spent getting to know each other again, reading things together, talking about new things - not just the kids, which is how it had been for a couple years at that point. Had a ton more s*x than I expected with a baby (YMMV obviously, this was NOT my experience with my first child). I think it depends on your relationship and where the stressors are. |
Anonymous
|
Laundry service?
We've been busy with work lately so I've started outsourcing our laundry. I still wash the delicates but everything else goes to the laundry service. The company is HappyNest. |
Anonymous
| Grocery delivery. |
Anonymous
If our kids were in aftercare instead of with the nanny after school, we would still spend the exact same number of hours with them as we do now. |
Anonymous
| Night nanny |
Anonymous
| House cleaners and lawn care, OP. Nanny who does laundry if it’s in your budget. Good luck. It will get better. You all are still new to this. |
Anonymous
|
It would be easier to know what kind of help you might hire if we understood exactly what aspects of life are “rough” right now.
My cleaning service is essential for my sanity. Start getting your elementary school children to do chores. This is good for them. They can empty the dishwasher. Or take out the trash. Or sort laundry. Have them do it every day. At first it will seem like more work to have them do it, but then seriously they will do it without you’re even having to tell them and it is a miracle. Do you have to supervise homework? You could hire a tutor. I went to marriage counseling with my spouse. It was a good thing for us. Finding a sitter you trust and scheduling regular date nights would be a good thing too. Do you get any time alone, for just you? You could hire a regular person to come on the weekend or at some point when you would want to do things like go for a jog, just go to a café and sit and read, etc |
Anonymous
| Just don't fall into the trap of YOU doing all the household management. I work full-time, but I am also the one who finds and hires the housekeepers, landscapers, babysitters, etc. I already do all the child-related management (finding and doing the forms and scheduling) for sports, music, summer camps, doctors, dentist, etc. It's tough, because on the one hand, I am glad we can afford help; but on the other hand, I am still the one who is carrying the responsibility around making sure that things get done on time and following up. The burden of household work and childcare is still not even, even though it's less. |
Anonymous
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Number one would definitely be to hire a cleaning service - ideally 1x/wk but even every two wks is fine.
And yes, you may find a Nanny who is willing to do your children’s laundry but not the adult’s. Perhaps consider taking your clothes to a Fluff + Fold service. A babysitter for weekly or bi-weekly date nights is also essential as well as a gardener to mow your lawn. |