FT working moms: how do you stay organized so weekends aren’t a shitshow?
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Anonymous
Since Covid, DH and I work from home. He owns his own business and goes to his office for mail every other week. I go in maybe once every other month. We don't do meal prep. DH does all the cooking but it rarely takes him more than a half hour. Generally when we stop working the nanny leaves and I take one kid with me to walk the dog and he takes one kid to help him in the kitchen. The only errand we have this weekend is to deliver all the docs to our accountant and receive an Instacart delivery - both of which were done before 10:30. We have cleaning people in twice a week. The kids make their own breakfast, sometimes their own lunch (elementary school). |
Anonymous
| Nanny handles all laundry, plus dishes during the weekdays. I cook for an hour every morning, and block off an afternoon every week to go grocery shopping. Cleaners 2x/week. My retired parents live nearby and often drop off food. Therefore we only need to get takeout 1x/week |
Anonymous
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One thing we started doing is daily-ish laundry. We keep a kid hamper outside my kids’ rooms, not in it, so all the random clothing items that come off around the house are easier to get thrown in a hamper. At night, we throw a load in, add detergent, but don’t start the load. In the morning before going to make breakfast/coffee, I hit start. By the time we are all up/dressed/fed the load is ready to put in the dryer. It might sit in the dryer for a day or too but the timing of this routine is almost exact so it works really well (eg roughly 45 min from up to getting kids up and ready for day).
We spend about an hour Saturday morning to clean - mostly worrying about kitchen floors and vacuuming. We clean the kitchen every night before we go to bed and kid toys must be put away by 5. We don’t have a ton of toys so it is never overwhelming. I do have cleaners every 2-3 weeks but our house feels clean without it. The real key is to not go to bed, ever, with your house a mess. Then it never builds. And have less stuff. |
Anonymous
| ^day or *two... gah. I need to stop commenting from my phone |
Anonymous
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We throw a load of laundry in at night before bed then throw it in the dryer in the morning when we wake up, meal plan and menu plan for at least Mon - Thursday and place the delivery order. We'll either order again mid-week for the weekend or leave the weekend open to make what we have around the house and/or order in.
Every night the kitchen gets cleaned and the living room gets straightened up so they are ready to go in the morning to start all over again. We're really firm about this because we both WFH so coming out to start our days with meetings and whatnot would be a pain if we had to clean up then. So no matter how tired we are, we do straighten up those rooms, clean all of the counters/breakfast table/stovetop and load the dishwasher. DS 13 puts his own laundry away, picks up his room before bed every night, cleans his own bathroom once a week, cleans out the cat litter daily, feeds the cat and unloads the dishwasher. |
Anonymous
OP, can you give more information as to (1) your childcare situation, (2) your husband's work situation (i.e. working at home or outside the house, working 9-5 or shift work, etc.), and (3), the exact kinds of chores you're talking about? We both work from home in 9-5ish jobs with some flexibility and we have a nanny and a maid so my answers may not be useful to you. But a few things, for chores, we have our nanny do our kids laundry, all the beds, and all the towels. That leaves only our laundry, which I do randomly during the week as needed, which is far easier now that I work from home full-time. For cleaning, we have a maid who comes once a week, but otherwise we try to keep things neat by cleaning up every night before bed, which both my husband and I do. Generally speaking by the morning of the day the maid comes everything is picked up and ready to be cleaned, so I maybe spend 30 minutes putting some things away that have sat out a day or two. For other house, we can also generally get that done during the week now that we're home, and that's mostly my husband's area. I'm trying to think of other chores we do so any you list may encourage a response. For meal prep, we try to have some standard meals that we cook on a regular basis, as well as things with "pieces" that allow for flexibility. For example, we like Mexican food, so about every week we have grilled chicken, ground beef, barbacoa or steak, grilled peppers and onions, guacamole, rice, black beans, plus all the fixings (cheese, tortillas, chips, refried beans, salsa, sour cream), needed to make multiple different meals (fajitas, tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, burrito bowls, etc.). Then we have other staples like some kind of pasta, some kind of sauce, and some kind of meat. We change it up so we don't get bored, but that's always one dinner a week. Add in whatever vegetable makes sense or do a salad on the side. We also have an Asian dish one day a week, so that could be stir fry, fried rice, or some other meat served on rice. Then we do homemade pizza once a week with different sauces and toppings. One week it's pepperoni and sausage with red sauce, the next week it's chicken and cheddar cheese with BBQ sauce, the next week it's black beans and cheddar with salad and salsa on top, the next week it's pesto and chicken and tomatoes, the next week it's white sauce and prosciutto, etc. That takes care of most dinners and because the grocery list stays relatively consistent, minus the changing pizza toppings, it's super easy to reorder. Also, most of the sauces and toppings can do double duty, so last week's alfredo sauce can be this week's pizza sauce. This week's marinara sauce can be next week's pizza sauce. The left over black beans from Mexican food become next week's pizza topping, etc. We try to have a good mix of meals that we eat all in one sitting with no leftovers and meals that will provide leftovers that can be repurposed so we don't get bored. We also premake breakfast items such as muffins, pancakes, french toast, waffles, bacon, sausage, and breakfast burrito parts on the weekends when we have time so that weekday breakfasts are faster since we need to get to work. In terms of cooking, breakfast as I said is generally reheated during the week and we take turns making it on the weekends (I sleep in on Saturday mornings so my husband cooks then, he sleeps in on Sunday mornings, so I cook then). If you're willing to do multiple things at once, you can actually make multiple breakfasts at one time. Lunch is something easy, either leftovers or a salad, often made from leftovers, or Mexican pieces above, or soup and grilled cheese, except for once a week when we order Door Dash. We can make, eat, and clean up from lunch in an hour (I realize we are both very lucky to be able to do that, and there are some days we can't take a full hour and need to do something faster like plain old sandwiches). For dinners we stop working at 5 unless we aren't able to and then we start cooking. Sometimes we have stuff from other nights left over, which makes it go faster. Cooking, eating, and cleaning up from dinner probably takes more like an hour and a half, but we eat a lot slower at night. When we make lunches and dinners on the weekend we do the same thing as with breakfast - make multiple things at once. So even though we may be eating tacos for lunch, I can also make the black beans, pizza sauce, and pasta sauce at the same time, since those mostly just require simmering and stirring. I used to want everything freshly cooked, but I've realized that (1) that's not realistic and (2) many things taste the same reheated if you just do it right. The things that don't work for reheating are the things we make fresh. Finally, and I'm sorry this is so long, but the last thing we do is schedule our weekends. I know that sounds horrible, and we actually started doing it for our kids (young elementary) because they would ask what they could do and we got tired of hearing it. So now we ask them to write down three things they want to do (i.e. play in the play room, play games with mom and dad, and watch a movie), and we write down three things they have to do (i.e. take a bath, shower, walk the dogs) and then we schedule it all out so that everyone knows what they're doing and when. It allows them to feel like they have control and to not ever wonder what's next, it keeps them from complaining when it's time to do something, and it lets us schedule time for things we want to do as well. You have a toddler so the schedule would be more for you, but even when they were younger I found it helpful to know that I would be meal prepping from 10-11 on Saturday, for example, because then I didn't have to worry about when I was going to get it done/feel like it was hanging over my head the whole time. Hope this helps some! |
Anonymous
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WFH full time now.
-I run laundry during the day. I can easily push it from washer to dryer. I usually fold and hang during my lunch break. I like it ALL put away before my toddlers come home or it gets strewn everywhere. -I have a 4pm daily meeting where I'm listening in. I usually pop something on the stove then or cut up vegetables. -I don't work every other friday, but still send kids to daycare during that day (didn't used to, but covid just has me exhausted). That's my cleaning day. -Kids clean up for 15 min every night before books. -DH does all grocery shopping and most of the cooking. I don't do any cleaning or meal prep on weekends (I mean other than the usual dinner cleanup or craft cleanup). We play and have activities all weekend. |
Anonymous
| Why is this just for working moms? My DH cooks most meals and does most of our laundry (although the kids and I fold it). We clean a little bit every day so we don't have to do it all on the weekend. We don't really meal prep, no need for that now that we're working from home anyway. |
Anonymous
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I let a lot go like cleaning. We do pickup kid toys every night (with the kids) from the living room. Dh does all laundry for the house so thats on him (i put away mine and thats it).
Dishes are usually dh but i do them faster so it depends. I cook a hot lunch for the kids for the week (we have a nanny) sometime sunday (nap time or post their bed time). Both dh and i enjoy grocery shopping. We almost never shop on weekends. I shop 7-8 am on a weekday on the way to the office and dh takes a lunchtime break (he is wfh) during the week to a different store. Kids enjoy chasing the vacuum so thats a game. When dh does kid bedtime a couple times a week i mop the kitchen/bathroom floors. Pretty much as few chores on weekends as possible. We play, cook and eat and hike and rest (kids nap so i nap). |
Anonymous
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Some things that helped me (clearly this was pre-covid)
- “uniform” outfit for work. So like 5 pairs of fav work pants in 2 colors, bunch of similar jackets, bunch of similar shirts, few pairs of same shoes in shades. I know BORING but I tried to ones I loved. - “uniform” work out clothes - cleaning lady - at least one weekend day with NO scheduled commitments - pack all bags for kid and me night before. Kid outfit laid out night before. - review schedule for next day night before That’s all I have. Was still nuts. |
Anonymous
Oh also - - ready to go birthday presents for other kids and candles/wine for adults. Stocked on gift bags, tissue paper (faster than wrapping paper imo) and card collection for most occasions. This helped eliminate that last minute crazy trips because we forgot kid birthday present. |
Anonymous
This is key. It’s easier now with the pandemic but let’s say we plan to meet up at a park with another family or go to the zoo. If we do that, we aren’t going anywhere planned the next day. We also try and keep all of our outings to the mornings. My kids are little though so we don’t have a ton of organized sports etc. |
Anonymous
| All these responses made me realize I need a nanny! Didn’t realize they do so much housework! |
Anonymous
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Dh and I make a schedule on Sundays for the week. It addresses who does dinner and what needs to be done. we don't meal prep. On weekends we rarely are super busy with chores. yesterday we did a quick tidy up of the kitchen as that had gotten a bit messy. DH and I have been taking turns on running laundry today.
The most important thing we do is clean as we go. Counters get wiped down after cooking. Laundry is put away when it is done. If the dishwasher is done, we empty it and start loading it again. No immediate messes are saved for later. |
Anonymous
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DH and I both tackle household chores and dinners. That’s the only way to make it work unless you have outside help, which we don’t. Doing a little bit during the week keeps us from having to spend a huge chunk of our weekend on chores. We also expect our kids to help with certain tasks that are age-appropriate.
Laundry: we do at least 1-2 loads during the week; the rest is done on the weekend. Kids (7 and 4) put their dirty clothes in their hampers and bring them to the laundry room when asked. We’ve taught them to make sure clothes aren’t inside out when they go into the hamper. They help sort dirty laundry and fold clean laundry. Kids also put away/hang up their clean laundry. Groceries and meal prep: DH does most of the cooking and all the grocery shopping (we have been ordering groceries since the pandemic began). We don’t do much meal prep but most dinners are easy and take >30 minutes. Snacks for the kids are also simple: raw veggies, yogurt, cheese and crackers, fruit. Our 7yo loves to make sandwiches for everyone for lunch so we let him do that a few times per week. Both kids help set and clear the table after each meal. Cleaning: I clean the kitchen and do the dishes after meals. DH vacuums once mid-week and once on the weekends. Both of us dust as needed throughout the week (just a few minutes here and there). I clean bathrooms on the weekend (wiping down during the week as needed). I change sheets on all beds each weekend (currently teaching our 7yo to strip his own bed). Clutter: this gets cleaned up daily. The kids put their toys away once they are done playing and nothing gets left out overnight (unless it’s a big lego project or something). Mail get sorted and handled daily. We have baskets on the stairs for things that need to be brought up. Everyone is expected to check the baskets to see if anything needs to go up each time we head upstairs (same rule for going downstairs). |