Stay-At-Home-Mother but not Housekeeper

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, it's laying it out like this that's odd. Plenty of people hire household help to do stuff they don't want to do. We had cleaners before we had kids -- I hate housework. If it's in your budget, do it. Just don't talk about it as if it is some giant lifestyle shift that needs discussion.

+1 I don't even understand the question. You take care of the baby and the baby's mess (be it laundry or dishes, whatever) and leave the cleaning to your cleaning person. Why are you even on here discussing it?

[Anonymous]

I SAH and have a regular weekly housekeeper. The way it will go is that you still will do quite a bit of stuff unless you are ok with dirt and messes. The kids will get handprints on the windows that you will want to clean. Or spill something that need to be vacuumed. Or drop an egg on the floor and it is just as easy to clean the whole floor. Unless you have a daily housekeeper who follows you around. Or you can just sit in filth. Just roll with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don't think it is good for your baby to be engaged all day. Poor baby, that sounds exhausting for it. Also, it is good for babies to watch people do regular chores and stuff. They think it is interesting to watch and it raises them in a realistic environment where they learn the world does not revolve around them every second, and that people clean up, do tasks and it is not some huge burden, etc.

You are doing your baby a long term disservice by cooing over it and doing nothing but "play" 24/7.

It's actually not unusual for young babies to want to be held A LOT. It is also not unusual for babies to pitch fits if they are left unattended in their playpens while mom scrubs floors on her hands and knees. Babies do not have long, adult like attention spans. They are....babies.

I SAH when my kids were little and I cleaned my house (as best as I could). Having a weekly or biweekly cleaning service would have been nice. I would never begrudge a SAHP for having that.

Of course, newborns should be held a lot (probably most of the time) and babies/toddlers want to be near mom. But that's different than talking constantly to a baby. Babies need to have space to explore on their own. That doesn't mean off in a playroom, but maybe it's playing with the kitchen spoons on the floor while mom makes lunch without mom commenting on every little thing he does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I have always split the household chores equally. I want this to change when I stop working after our child is born - I want to do less. We have a cleaning service that comes in once a week and do a lot of ordering of supplies online.

Basically, I want to do only what a good nanny would do in terms of spending all the baby's waking hours engaged with her and her napping hours either napping myself or doing her chores (baby's laundry, food prep, etc). I want to do classes with my child, go on play dates and not think about the house at all.

Is this possible? DH is all for it right now but...

You are not a nanny. You are a mother. Repeat it a few times and it will sink in.

+1

You are also a wife and a functional adult responsible for contributing to the running of the household and for taking care of the family you chose to create.

[Anonymous]

^ it is so weird to hear moms (and it is always moms, never dads) in their monologues with their babies. Give them a break! Not every trip to Whole Foods need to be an educational thing. Your kid will be ok if he doesn't learn that kale is high in Vitamin D until he is 2.

[Anonymous]

Help with cleaning is fine if you can afford it. But please re-think your decision to devote 100% of your attention to your baby during his/her waking hours. You will be back here posting about how SAH is too hard because your child will not entertain himself and requires your assistance for everything.

[Anonymous]

OP this will never work. You and your DH share the house, and thus should share the household chores. Your job will be the baby and your husband has his full-time job earning money. You both have full-time responsibilities. No, you will not be 100% with the baby because you WANT your husband to bond with the baby too.

Sorry OP, you need to re-evaluate your expectations.

[Anonymous]

Cleaning while you have an infant is SO EASY. Save the outsourcing extra work until you have a toddler who can run, move, and create all kinds of messes in your house.

However, once weekly cleaning should be fine. The "kid's chores" add up, so you'll be plenty busy outside of that. Dishes mainly. When we are home with the kids it's so many dishes. Meals, snacks, cups of milk. Endless.

[Anonymous]

so does this also mean you won't do grocery shopping, cook dinner, etc? I also don't know why you need to nap when baby naps (not talking the first few months). I was back at work at 4-5 months and didn't have the luxury to nap. Not sure why you can't do household laundry (non baby), start dinner, etc while baby naps...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don't think it is good for your baby to be engaged all day. Poor baby, that sounds exhausting for it. Also, it is good for babies to watch people do regular chores and stuff. They think it is interesting to watch and it raises them in a realistic environment where they learn the world does not revolve around them every second, and that people clean up, do tasks and it is not some huge burden, etc.

You are doing your baby a long term disservice by cooing over it and doing nothing but "play" 24/7.

It's actually not unusual for young babies to want to be held A LOT. It is also not unusual for babies to pitch fits if they are left unattended in their playpens while mom scrubs floors on her hands and knees. Babies do not have long, adult like attention spans. They are....babies.

I SAH when my kids were little and I cleaned my house (as best as I could). Having a weekly or biweekly cleaning service would have been nice. I would never begrudge a SAHP for having that.

Of course, newborns should be held a lot (probably most of the time) and babies/toddlers want to be near mom. But that's different than talking constantly to a baby. Babies need to have space to explore on their own. That doesn't mean off in a playroom, but maybe it's playing with the kitchen spoons on the floor while mom makes lunch without mom commenting on every little thing he does.

Once they get out of the needing to be held 24/7 stage, they soon get into the mobile baby/toddler stage where they 1) still need very close supervision 2) still have pretty short attention spans 3) can make messes faster than you can clean them up. You can literally spend your whole day picking up, cleaning up, chasing after, feeding, dressing, bathing....and never have a moment of spare time to get the floor mopped.

Little children are wonderful and sweet and lots of fun. But if you expect to maintain your sanity you will either learn to lower your expectations regarding the cleanliness of your house or you will hire weekly or biweekly cleaning help. Or you will learn to ignore a shrieking toddler in a "baby proof" playpen. One of the 3.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm... I am a very well-paid nanny and I "engage" my charge all day long. It is exhausting. When my charge was young, I would follow his cues and disengage when he looked away from me but didn't leave him or go do something else. Engagement isn't talking at a child 24/7 but I never touched him without telling him what I was going to do or doing.

Even as an infant, we had a nice schedule of classes, walks and reading (I believe in reading to my charges for at least on hour a day - broken up, of course, into 10 minute segments). Since about 12 months, we started adding play dates to our schedule.

Engagement is wonderful. I am one of those irritating women in the Whole Foods who talk about how read the apple is or ask how many oranges we should buy!

Teaching a child is a full time job, OP. Don't let anyone tell you differently. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I get it. I quit my job when I had 2 kids and increased housekeeping hours. We had a PT housekeeper around 20 hrs per week when I was a SAHM to 2 children. I now have a new baby plus 2 elementary kids. We have weekly cleaning service plus 25 hours of help. She divides her 25 hours between babysitting, laundry, tidying up and cooking. She actually does very little childcare, maybe 10 hours max per week so I can go to a kid event or work out. I usually take care of the baby.

[Anonymous]

Omg. Your poor husband.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so ridiculous. I'm sorry, but it's not that hard to run a clean household as well as to take care of one baby.

I've never heard of a sahm who wants to do less than 50% of the chores with a husband who is at work all day.

Really? I know a lot of SAHMs who are like this. They seem to think that because their husband had a break from kids/household stuff all day (e.g. at work earning money) that the husbands need to handle all the housework every moment they aren't had their job. Because the SAHM is tired or something and "never gets a break". I don't get it, but this is common.

[Anonymous]

My close relative did this. Pretended like it was her job to only watch the kids. Husband would come home and she'd hand him the kids and say she was clocking out. She literally did nothing from 5pm until she went to sleep. She didn't cook, clean and only did her and the kids laundry. It might have been okay if the kids were really doing enriching activities, but no, they were just playing in the playroom all day. They're divorced now