What kind of help has worked for you?

[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).

Definitely find a better cleaner. We had one we loved but she was also unreliable and it added too much stress. One time she canceled due to a sick child the day before we were hosting four people in our house for the weekend. I told her I couldn't handle the inconsistency anymore and moved to a service, who has never failed to provide two people at the exact time I have requested. I do miss her, but two people are faster than one (I work from home so I am here, albeit in my office, while they're cleaning), and I never have to worry about if they're coming.

You could also look for a cleaner/service that does laundry or you could outsource it to a service that picks up and delivers it back (you'd still have to put it away, obviously). Dishes are a daily thing, so either your nanny could do them while the kids nap (although we always allowed our nanny to rest while the kids rested when they were little), or you could look into some sort of cooking/chef service that would include dishes? Not sure if that exists. You could also look into cleaning on an every other day basis as opposed to once a week and they could do things like clean high chairs, etc.

For yard work hire a gardening service. That's an easy one. For house work I would find a trusted handyman via friends/neighbors. We have one who will find contractors for us when we need assistance with things he doesn't do.

Good luck, and it gets easier as the kids get older!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

You need to hire a dog poop scooping up service. There is a thread about it.

I got one of these as a Christmas present for my husband a few years ago because that was one of his tasks. It's been great!

[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.

Our nanny morphed into a nanny/house manager once the kids were in preschool, but OP has a baby and a toddler - the nanny has their hands full at this point!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1

[Anonymous]

OP and her DH have a baby and a toddler and both work full-time demanding careers. Yet the only household help they have is M-F, 8-5 childcare (VERY standard for dual working families), someone (the nanny) who picks up after kid messes, and an unreliable weekly cleaning lady. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of help to me for folks with kids that age and careers like those. Everyone on here is losing their sh*t -- you'd think OP had an army of night and weekend nannies, housekeepers, etc.

You've gotten good advice:

- negotiate with nanny to do a bit more; it's customary for nannies of even little ones to do kid laundry, clean bottles, and maybe prep some kid food or start dinner

- new more reliable cleaning service; perhaps have them come 2x a week - some will wash linens and towels

- laundry service

- lawn service

- grocery delivery, meal services, someone to make/prep some meals or run errands

You can involve your children in household chores more when they get older. It really won't be meaningful at this age anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ok Karen. Do you not work? Sorry, but working and having three kids in sports/activities doesn’t leave me much time to make dinner or run errands or do laundry. We still tidy up at the end of the day, run dishwasher and sweep but I only get about 90 min of free time each night before bed. Which is normally spent getting ready for next day - meal plans, grocery list, working out, planning for an event, etc. this has nothing to do with laziness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ok Karen. Do you not work? Sorry, but working and having three kids in sports/activities doesn’t leave me much time to make dinner or run errands or do laundry. We still tidy up at the end of the day, run dishwasher and sweep but I only get about 90 min of free time each night before bed. Which is normally spent getting ready for next day - meal plans, grocery list, working out, planning for an event, etc. this has nothing to do with laziness.

Get organized.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hope this help, OP. I have not needed a childcare person because I have been a SAHM since my kids were born. But, over the years, I have employed many kinds of help at home. A few of these people started their gig work after starting at my home.

- Cleaner - Twice a week.
- General hourly help lady - All purpose - 3 hour minimum.
- Part time chef - once in 2 weeks, 6 hours minimum. Semi-prepped our meals for 2 weeks as well cooked for parties.
- Home caterer for a few dishes - as needed. Price per tray of food. Or when having house guests
- Party lady - comes to warm, serve, cleanup, cook during parties - 6 hr minimum
- Landscaper - lawn-mowing, mulching, leaf removal and other gardening jobs.
- Coaches and tutors - at home.

I have also employed sporadically the following at home services (word of mouth - gig work).
- Hair cuts, shave and pedicure - stylist comes home to cut everyone's hair once a month, takes care of my ILs pedicure and trimming their toe nails
- Masseuse - Daily for a few weeks after childbirth
- Laundry service - either at laundromat or have a laundry person pick it up and launder it at their own home.
- Home car detailing service
- Clothes alteration work

Not OP but I am jealous! Part time chef sounds amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

We do laundry and dishes but that's it. Cleaners actually do the cleaning. With my free time I volunteer at kids school and scouts and other places. DH writes and publishes in addition to his job. And I like to garden so I do all of that. It just depends on opportunity costs of things for me.

[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.

You have a maid

House managers are maids

Most rich people have them

[Anonymous]

Why the judgement? OP isn’t hurting anyone and can afford to have more help. If anything, she’s creating jobs!

[Anonymous]

PT Nanny and House cleaners

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Harsh. But yeah...

[Anonymous]

Honestly, coming from overseas, the only thing that works well is a full time housekeeper/nanny that lives in. Ours came Sunday night and worked Mon-Friday until 5pm and then would go to her grown-up children's house. She did everything, from laundry to childcare to cooking. I was sad when the children grew up and we didn't need her anymore.

[Anonymous]

I mean, overseas, that is the norm. Live-in, full time help that does both cleaning and childcare. So when we came here, that is what we looked for and found.