What kind of help has worked for you?

[Anonymous]

A better house cleaner. Have them come 2ce a week or get one that cleans and also meal preps. Nanny stays an extra hour to do laundry.
Landscaping is simplified and a service with a contract so you never have to call them.
It's all $$ though.

[Anonymous]

I'm a big believer in hiring as much help as one pleases. No pushback from me, OP! But what do you mean about the employees in your home? Do you WOH? If so, most of these folks (other than I guess lawn guys) will be there while you are at the office. I think you are over-thinking.

I will say that if your concern is more quality/relaxed time with young kids, I really found that someone to prep or make dinners (or a meal service) gives you the most bang for your buck there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No advice. Parenting in modern age sucks.

Ridiculous. We have every convenience and smoke time for doing what we choose. Get organized.

[Anonymous]

A cook. Or prepared foods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We both work demanding and rewarding jobs, and we have a baby and a toddler.

We have a wonderful nanny 8-5 M-F and she is great about picking up after our kids - we don’t want to ask more of her.

We have a weekly cleaner who does cleaning but nothing else (she is also a bit unreliable).

Outside of work, we want our time to be spent with our kids, and on special work and family projects - not washing bottles / doing dishes / cleaning high chair / laundry / house work and yard work / etc. (And it would be amazing to have any time for ourselves too!).

Those of you who have multiple kids and demanding careers - what help has worked well for you? And how do you not make it feel like you constantly have employees in your home?

(Please don’t say we shouldn’t have two kids or someone has to stay home - we like our life, we just want more time. Thanks).

You shouldn't have had children because it is obvious that they are only accessory children. You appear to have a high double income so hire a full time housekeeper/laundress/short order cook but also gourmet chef and who can be still walk behind you to clean up after you. You will have no difficulty remembering that you are the queen of all you survey and treat your house employees like the dirt they are.

You are insufferable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have weekly landscapers. But there still aren’t enough hours in the day.

Every day has 24 hours. The trick is to be organized and know what you are doing. There are people who can help you. Call them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No advice. Parenting in modern age sucks.

Ridiculous. We have every convenience and smoke time for doing what we choose. Get organized.

Ample time not smoke time ^^.

[Anonymous]

Your nanny should be washing bottles, cleaning high chair, and doing kids' laundry. Ours also prepped dinner food for them (she got off at 5 or 5:30 but would have dinner ready). You may need to pay her more to do those, but they should be part of her job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would get a different cleaner and put it in the contract to run sheets through the washer while they are there. They should be able to start a load of sheets, put it in the dryer, and start another load of sheets while they are cleaning the house. Then you just put the second load in the dryer.

There are companies that do both yard work and handyman stuff. Blue Collar Scholars is one example.

Nannies and housecleaners do not do laundry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nanny and house cleaning twice a week. Nanny launders all kids clothes. We included in our contract we can ask her to do four non-kid related errands per week. Dry cleaning drop-off, post office, farmers market, whatever. Cleaners do all sheets and towels for everyone. DH and I do our own laundry. We live in the city but if we had lawn we would hire landscapers.

My god you are lazy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a nanny house manager - ours does everyone’s laundry, makes dinner for the family, gets groceries, runs random errands, etc. She may not be able to do this now, but as your kids get older and start preschool/elementary school this will be more possible. When we travel, she mostly gets time off, but i have had her also drop us off at the airport, and/or come once or twice while we’re gone to grocery shop and meal prep. Can’t tell you how nice it is to come home to a clean house (when we left it a mess due to packing w three kids) and dinner in the fridge after a long day of travel.

This. We've had this since our first was 5 mos old. We set expectations up front and pay well. The things that eat up time are not the regular tasks taht you can hire for, it's the one-off errands. If you have FT help, it's silly not to ask them to do this. There will be days when the kids are too demanding and they can't. But most things (e.g. run some laundry) are only hands on for a few minutes. And kids can participate in folding laundry (even if they are just playing with a few socks) from a very young age. They also love seeing all the colors at the grocery store.

What do you think SAH parents do? They have to care for kids and manage the household simultaneously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nanny and house cleaning twice a week. Nanny launders all kids clothes. We included in our contract we can ask her to do four non-kid related errands per week. Dry cleaning drop-off, post office, farmers market, whatever. Cleaners do all sheets and towels for everyone. DH and I do our own laundry. We live in the city but if we had lawn we would hire landscapers.

My god you are lazy

You literally have no idea what PP does with the time she's not dropping off her dry cleaning.

[Anonymous]

raising kids involves teaching them and including them in practical daily chores especially at young ages. And they love it far more than whatever excursion you think they will enjoy. If you sing while cleaning up after lunch and get them a helper stool so they can watch dad chop veggies they will be so thrilled. Your attitude towards chores will also affect them. Please empower them so they don’t grow up to be helpless. Btw the only well adjusted trust fund kids I’ve known had parents who emphasized this throughout their childhood and adolescence. Others who didn’t grow up with this really seemed to lack basic self confidence.

[Anonymous]

American women are the laziest human beings on earth and I say this as an American woman. We have appliances that do practically everything but we are too lazy to roll a vacuum cleaner. Too lazy to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher and too lazy to put dirty clothes in automatic clothes washing machine. Plus we have husbands too lazy to wash his own clothes and children too stupid to understand how to pick up after themselves.

No wonder the country is going to Hell in a handbadket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would get a different cleaner and put it in the contract to run sheets through the washer while they are there. They should be able to start a load of sheets, put it in the dryer, and start another load of sheets while they are cleaning the house. Then you just put the second load in the dryer.

There are companies that do both yard work and handyman stuff. Blue Collar Scholars is one example.

Nannies and housecleaners do not do laundry.

It's totally reasonable for a nanny to do kids laundry. And really, people will do whatever they agree upon. That's the point of contracts.