SAHMs with no help and kids 0-5 — how much time do you spend on chores?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you do not need to vacuum, mop, and wipe down your household surfaces on a daily basis.... Don’t know where people are coming up with this stuff.

Why not?
If I don't do those things daily (and I don't) my house gets pretty gross pretty quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you do not need to vacuum, mop, and wipe down your household surfaces on a daily basis.... Don’t know where people are coming up with this stuff.

Why not?
If I don't do those things daily (and I don't) my house gets pretty gross pretty quickly.

Well you said you don’t do it, so... haha. I vacuum on Saturday. Today’s thursday. Is my house fit for special guests, no. But it’s clean enough to last til Saturday. If I spill or drop things, obviously i spot clean that. I think a quick hit with the stick vacuum, quick sponge down of kitchen counter, and brush crumbs off the table is plenty on a daily basis, if you must. That prob takes like 5 mins. Don’t understand these posters who are spending 3 hrs per night vacuuming and mopping...

[Anonymous]

When my kids were this age, I used to get up and cook lunch and dinner first thing in the morning (5 am). Once cooking was out of the way, everything else was easy.

[Anonymous]

I outsource snow plowing and yard work. I deal with most household chores, bills, taxes, etc. during nap time and after dinner. Oldest child goes to school before youngest two wake up, so I clean up the kitchen and run the dishwasher before they wake up. The toddlers love to sweep so they help sweep the kitchen every morning. I put away straggling toys in the living room after bed time, but we clean as we go during the day, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you do not need to vacuum, mop, and wipe down your household surfaces on a daily basis.... Don’t know where people are coming up with this stuff.

You sort of do, with young kids at least. I have a 2 year old and a dog and I definitely vacuum at least the kitchen or downstairs areas at least once a day. Kitchen counters need to be wiped daily, too. Dishes are constant especially with special baby or toddler cups, and toddler has toys to tidy... soft toys need to be laundered. Cleaning tasks willconstantly be piling up unless you do a bit as you go.

[Anonymous]

Everyone I know uses cleaners at least once a month. Even SAHP who are not well off. Cleaning sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone I know uses cleaners at least once a month. Even SAHP who are not well off. Cleaning sucks.

I do not and we can afford it.

[Anonymous]

It depends on how demanding the combo of kids at home is at a given moment. I try to take care of errands during the week, especially things like Costco that are dreadful on the weekend. I keep up with sweeping, counter wiping, dishwasher unloading, laundry and cooking during the day. I try to also squeeze in some mild bathroom cleaning and vacuuming, but deeper cleaning tends to be on the weekends.

In nice weather, we try to take a walk and go to the park or something for a few hours every morning. That doesn’t cut into cleaning time as much as you’d think because the less time we spend in the house, the less cleaning there is to do. I feel like I get a good amount of quality time with the kids, and could probably do even more if I used quiet time more wisely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks, this is helpful. For those of you who multitask cooking, tidying, errands, etc. with kid time, do you basically feel like your mind is going in several directions at once during much of the day? I’m really looking for honesty here as I have not had this experience. On the average snow day or weekend I am definitely doing outings and kid centered activities but if I am also trying to cook meals, do errands, KonMari the living room, etc. to be honest my attention is kind of split. I’m wondering if when you stay at home and don’t outsource, this is just part of the gig.

It is sometimes. It helps me to have a scheduled that builds in play with kids time along with time for specific chores, or at least to have a general idea of what I’m trying to get done on a given day (e.g., plan out meals on the weekend so I know what I’m cooking, aim to mop every Wednesday, cleaning bathrooms on mondays, etc). Its very different from a snow day because those are out of the routine. That said, a big project like KonMari the living room is something I would usually save for the weekend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you do not need to vacuum, mop, and wipe down your household surfaces on a daily basis.... Don’t know where people are coming up with this stuff.

Different strokes... I have a 6 and a 3 year old. On the nights they "forget" to clean up their playroom(usualy every other day-sometimes they run out of time because of some unforeseen circumstances), it takes me at least 30 minutes to clean it up.
I have to at least sweep under the counter and wipe the counter down after every meal. There is usually food all over the place. I vacuum the kitchen every night and vacuum the entire first level of the house every other night. I mob the entire house on the weekend but usuall have to mop the kitchen every third night(when I cook- I cook in bulk and heat up for a couple of days)

I have to wipe down faucet handles and bathroom sinks, toilet handles and seats almost every day. Otherwise we adults can't use them: there will be soap and other even less desired residue on them. soap,

the kids and I pick up the kids rooms every morning-make up their beds, pick up toys from the floor, sometimes sort art to keep and to throw away-they wake up around 7:00 am and play until about 7:45 while I get showered and dressed,

My husband usually does all the laundry on the weekend, folds and puts the kids clothes away. I put mine away and he puts his away. We can go for weeks without doing laundry sometimes, and it is usually no big deal. Sometimes, if we have something going on, I do all the laundry.

Overall, it's not too bad if you do several little things every day.

I think the only thing that we could use help with would be scrubbing bathrooms. The bathrooms sometimes go without being scrubbed for a month and a half. They actually still look decent because I wipe down very often and "spot" scrub areas that look bad and the sinks when I notice that they are getting brown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you do not need to vacuum, mop, and wipe down your household surfaces on a daily basis.... Don’t know where people are coming up with this stuff.

Different strokes... I have a 6 and a 3 year old. On the nights they "forget" to clean up their playroom(usualy every other day-sometimes they run out of time because of some unforeseen circumstances), it takes me at least 30 minutes to clean it up.
I have to at least sweep under the counter and wipe the counter down after every meal. There is usually food all over the place. I vacuum the kitchen every night and vacuum the entire first level of the house every other night. I mob the entire house on the weekend but usuall have to mop the kitchen every third night(when I cook- I cook in bulk and heat up for a couple of days)

I have to wipe down faucet handles and bathroom sinks, toilet handles and seats almost every day. Otherwise we adults can't use them: there will be soap and other even less desired residue on them. soap,

the kids and I pick up the kids rooms every morning-make up their beds, pick up toys from the floor, sometimes sort art to keep and to throw away-they wake up around 7:00 am and play until about 7:45 while I get showered and dressed,

My husband usually does all the laundry on the weekend, folds and puts the kids clothes away. I put mine away and he puts his away. We can go for weeks without doing laundry sometimes, and it is usually no big deal. Sometimes, if we have something going on, I do all the laundry.

Overall, it's not too bad if you do several little things every day.

I think the only thing that we could use help with would be scrubbing bathrooms. The bathrooms sometimes go without being scrubbed for a month and a half. They actually still look decent because I wipe down very often and "spot" scrub areas that look bad and the sinks when I notice that they are getting brown.

Agree... PP’s post sounds like it was written by someone with zero kids or much older kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A good amount, but we have cleaners come every 3-4 weeks so at once a month the entire house is clean.

Today my toddler and I are both pretty sick, so I haven’t been killing myself cleaning, but here’s what I did so far in terms of cleaning:

Unload dishwasher
Pick up and put away rooms downstairs
Vacuum and mop downstairs
Run another load of dishes
Wipe down kitchen, dining room, and living room after lunch
Strip master and toddler sheets and launder
Big load of toddler clothes in dryer now

I’m not sure how this compares to other people, but it does feel like I’m constantly cleaning up at least small messes. It’s jecessary to do it unless you want to have a huge cleaning session every night.

That is a ton of cleaning for anyone, let alone a sick person!

Lol, good to know, I’m going to tell my DH! Not that he ever criticizes me for not cleaning enough, but he gets frustrated with the state of the house. I think it’s just he reality of living with a toddler boy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you do not need to vacuum, mop, and wipe down your household surfaces on a daily basis.... Don’t know where people are coming up with this stuff.

Different strokes... I have a 6 and a 3 year old. On the nights they "forget" to clean up their playroom(usualy every other day-sometimes they run out of time because of some unforeseen circumstances), it takes me at least 30 minutes to clean it up.
I have to at least sweep under the counter and wipe the counter down after every meal. There is usually food all over the place. I vacuum the kitchen every night and vacuum the entire first level of the house every other night. I mob the entire house on the weekend but usuall have to mop the kitchen every third night(when I cook- I cook in bulk and heat up for a couple of days)

I have to wipe down faucet handles and bathroom sinks, toilet handles and seats almost every day. Otherwise we adults can't use them: there will be soap and other even less desired residue on them. soap,

the kids and I pick up the kids rooms every morning-make up their beds, pick up toys from the floor, sometimes sort art to keep and to throw away-they wake up around 7:00 am and play until about 7:45 while I get showered and dressed,

My husband usually does all the laundry on the weekend, folds and puts the kids clothes away. I put mine away and he puts his away. We can go for weeks without doing laundry sometimes, and it is usually no big deal. Sometimes, if we have something going on, I do all the laundry.

Overall, it's not too bad if you do several little things every day.

I think the only thing that we could use help with would be scrubbing bathrooms. The bathrooms sometimes go without being scrubbed for a month and a half. They actually still look decent because I wipe down very often and "spot" scrub areas that look bad and the sinks when I notice that they are getting brown.

Agree... PP’s post sounds like it was written by someone with zero kids or much older kids.

No actually - I have a 2-yr-old (girl) and 2 cats. I really don’t know what you guys are talking about. She eats all her meals at the table on a placemat, so there is not food everywhere to clean up. In the afternoon, she eats some fruit in her playroom - doesn’t leave a mess. She takes out one bin of toys at a time and puts it back bf getting another one. Sometimes there are some legos, books, etc on the floor after bedtime, but they take like 5 mins to put away. She is potty trained but I guess that’s not messy for us bc we still help her? She doesn’t make a mess all over the bathroom yet. I cook breakfast every morning and dinner 4 times a week. After cooking, I have to take like 5 mins to sweep up some crumbs and run a sponge over the counter, but I don’t really need to do that everyday - it’s not like it really looks that messy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you do not need to vacuum, mop, and wipe down your household surfaces on a daily basis.... Don’t know where people are coming up with this stuff.

Different strokes... I have a 6 and a 3 year old. On the nights they "forget" to clean up their playroom(usualy every other day-sometimes they run out of time because of some unforeseen circumstances), it takes me at least 30 minutes to clean it up.
I have to at least sweep under the counter and wipe the counter down after every meal. There is usually food all over the place. I vacuum the kitchen every night and vacuum the entire first level of the house every other night. I mob the entire house on the weekend but usuall have to mop the kitchen every third night(when I cook- I cook in bulk and heat up for a couple of days)

I have to wipe down faucet handles and bathroom sinks, toilet handles and seats almost every day. Otherwise we adults can't use them: there will be soap and other even less desired residue on them. soap,

the kids and I pick up the kids rooms every morning-make up their beds, pick up toys from the floor, sometimes sort art to keep and to throw away-they wake up around 7:00 am and play until about 7:45 while I get showered and dressed,

My husband usually does all the laundry on the weekend, folds and puts the kids clothes away. I put mine away and he puts his away. We can go for weeks without doing laundry sometimes, and it is usually no big deal. Sometimes, if we have something going on, I do all the laundry.

Overall, it's not too bad if you do several little things every day.

I think the only thing that we could use help with would be scrubbing bathrooms. The bathrooms sometimes go without being scrubbed for a month and a half. They actually still look decent because I wipe down very often and "spot" scrub areas that look bad and the sinks when I notice that they are getting brown.

Agree... PP’s post sounds like it was written by someone with zero kids or much older kids.

No actually - I have a 2-yr-old (girl) and 2 cats. I really don’t know what you guys are talking about. She eats all her meals at the table on a placemat, so there is not food everywhere to clean up. In the afternoon, she eats some fruit in her playroom - doesn’t leave a mess. She takes out one bin of toys at a time and puts it back bf getting another one. Sometimes there are some legos, books, etc on the floor after bedtime, but they take like 5 mins to put away. She is potty trained but I guess that’s not messy for us bc we still help her? She doesn’t make a mess all over the bathroom yet. I cook breakfast every morning and dinner 4 times a week. After cooking, I have to take like 5 mins to sweep up some crumbs and run a sponge over the counter, but I don’t really need to do that everyday - it’s not like it really looks that messy.

Maybe you have furniture and counters that don’t show smudges and good? Not being snarky. My toddler uses a placemat and a bib sometimes and also has a snack somewhere other than the table. He is often at the counter “helping” me. I do find after every meal I have to wipe the his placemat, the dining table and sometimes the floor. My dining table and counters are black and show smudges and sticky finger marks. If you have a matte patterned counter or a rustic dining table, you may not have these issues.

And to some extent you seem like you are wiping and doing the little spot clean ups everyone is alluding to. I wipe down the counters frequently and vacuum the kitchen daily. It’s not like this takes an hour, like you said it’s 5 min here and there.

[Anonymous]

Don’t show smudges and FOOD I mean. I have black counters and they show crumbs so much more than my previous carrera ones.