I need to make my life significantly easier -- "hacks" to make life, and parenting life, easier?

[Anonymous]

1. CLEANING SERVICE
2. 1 load of laundry every day (wash, dry, fold, put away)
3. Grocery delivered every Monday
4. Meal schedule (pasta on Mondays, chicken on Tuesday, pizza on Friday, etc)
5. Tv time while making dinner
6. Main area “reset” every night. This is the hardest habit to get into buy it changed my life. I spend 15-20 min resetting the family room and dining room while my husband does the kitchen. That cumulative mess was really killing us and I was spending every weekend cleaning and organizing the same sh*t!

I also keep our bedroom “kid free” meaning no toys or kids clothing lives in there. I keep it nice and tidy and that way, even if the rest of my house is in shambles, I can crawl into bed at night and actually turn my brain off. 😀

[Anonymous]

S I M P L I F Y. You’re draining your time and energy on things unnecessarily.

This is going to sound ridiculous but a lot of the things I was doing to “help” myself feel better were actually stressing me out more.
(1) racing up and down stairs tidying up like a lunatic and then getting kids out of the house (with nowhere to go) for the cleaning lady 1x week
(2) half day preschool for one of my 3 children meant waking them all up early and dressing and packing lunch, cutting into virtual learning schedule for older kid to do drop off and pick up. Now I just homeschool them all. So liberating. Freedom.
(3) it is amazing how much more time I have without all the little pta and room mom obligations. Yes, these positions made me feel connected to the community in non-covid times.
Now they just feel annoying.
(4) I had a babysitter for a while who I didn’t totally trust re: social distancing. It’s honestly less stressful to not worry about it. Let her go and learned how to give myself more breaks while I’m home with the kids. (Hint: quiet time + boundaries)
(5) cut the screen time. Or really limit it to an absolutely necessary time. For us, that’s dinner prep time. Kids get good and bored during the day and do amazing things like... read and make things. Also cuts the guilt I had when they were watching tv more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a set two-week meal rotation, one grocery list for each week in an app. No need to think about meals or your grocery list.

Let your house be messy.

Don't fold laundry.

This post made my palms sweat. What do you do with your laundry if you don't fold it?!?

DP. You leave it in a laundry basket and pull stuff out as you want to wear it.

NP. I hang up all clothes that I wear. The rest just goes in their particular drawer not folded. Like the leggings drawer, the PJ drawer, the workout drawer, the underwear drawer, sock drawer. Laundry is super duper easy here. And hanging keeps everything looking nice.

Np, WOW. Impressed. Have lived the 'leave it in a basket' method but have not tried this one. Excited to try it!

Pp here. I kept fighting my kids but then one day was like - WHY?!? Leggings don’t wrinkle and neither do jeans. Hanging the shirts and dresses means we all look presentable. Pj drawer is like whatever. Dhs workout shirts are all spandex too so it’s not like they wrinkle.

Oh and the best hack with this is that my 4 year old puts all the laundry in everyone’s drawers. All I have to do is hang.

I thought I was the only one who used this method! I just throw pants, shorts, underwear, socks and pajamas in drawers devoted to each in whatever person’s dresser, and hang the shirts and sweaters. I do t even pair socks, the wearer can grab two from their drawer when they need them.

Also I keep all workout clothes in a basket next to my peloton so I can change right there in the basement. Those clothes never even go up to the bedroom.

DH thinks my system is atrocious but I don’t see him offering to take on the toddler and preschooler laundry. He does his own.

My other hack is to read bedtime books to kids while they are in the bath (good idea if you have a bedtime routine stretching too long).

I feed my kids primarily cut up raw fruit and veggies, then add protein like yogurt/cheese/eggs/nuts/beans. I add a grain like leftover rice, crackers, bread. I almost never cook for them on weekdays.

[Anonymous]

Costco prepared foods
Never fold laundry
Husbands do dishes
Kids make their own lunches (ages 4+)
Kids do their own baths/showers (ages 5+)
Always wake up an hour before your kids in AM
Establish boundaries (nobody is allowed downstairs before 7:30am, everyone to their rooms from 3-4pm for quiet time)
Talk to your kids about your needs and energy levels

[Anonymous]

I thought I was the only one who used this method! I just throw pants, shorts, underwear, socks and pajamas in drawers devoted to each in whatever person’s dresser, and hang the shirts and sweaters. I do t even pair socks, the wearer can grab two from their drawer when they need them.

Also I keep all workout clothes in a basket next to my peloton so I can change right there in the basement. Those clothes never even go up to the bedroom.

DH thinks my system is atrocious but I don’t see him offering to take on the toddler and preschooler laundry. He does his own.

My other hack is to read bedtime books to kids while they are in the bath (good idea if you have a bedtime routine stretching too long).

I feed my kids primarily cut up raw fruit and veggies, then add protein like yogurt/cheese/eggs/nuts/beans. I add a grain like leftover rice, crackers, bread. I almost never cook for them on weekdays.

PP you win. These are great. The only one I’d add is for kids to wear tomorrow’s clothes to bed. It’s not like they’ll get dirty.

[Anonymous]

We have used paper plates for years and it is a huge time saver. We use regular utensils and glasses, pots and pans. and serving ware. It allows us to run the dishwasher only once a day. My MIL used to make fun of us until she adopted my SIL’s kids and realized how many dishes a young household went through.

[Anonymous]

Would a robot vacuum be a good hack?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would a robot vacuum be a good hack?

I have a cheap one and it’s fine for what I need it to do, but if I could have afforded one of the expensive ones that maps your room, I would have. My friend schedules hers to go at the same time every day and it does a thorough job. Mine gets most of the dust and dirt, but it goes on such a wild path that I have no clue what or where it misses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure how old your kids are, but whatever the age, there are always things that they can be responsible for (unless they’re a 4yo toddler, in which case, I can’t even).

I have also designated a space in the fridge where satisfying snacks and easy lunch options go. My headspace is so much clearer when I don’t have to continually read off today’s specials to demanding diners; I can just tell them to go look in the drawer.

Ha! This is OP. She just turned 4, and I’m a single mom with no family to escape to. But I’m listening to all of the suggestions! And she does have a few hours of childcare each day, so I have that. But the rush between picking her up and dinner (when there are often still work meetings in there), and then bath and bed is just TOO MUCH lately. And then she’s in bed and I need to do dishes and laundry and shop for groceries. So you’re asking what’s too hard. None of it individually is hard or time consuming. I feel like I had it all pretty streamlined before covid. But now that work and childcare are so all-consuming (because they bleed into each other), there’s just zero time for the rest of it.

OP, in terms of dinner - can you streamline it? That means (1) making the same easy meals again and again, (2) picking meals that are mostly already cooked and need little prep, and (3) realizing that cereal is totally ok to eat for dinner! It will help make your grocery shopping and dinner prep easier and faster. It will also help with dishes so instead of having three pots and pans to clean after you put your daughter to bed you can just wipe the counters and wash one thing.

Does she need a bath every night? Now that it's colder outside and kids aren't sweating much, can you maybe at least skip hair some nights to make it easier? Or do a good face wash with a washcloth and hands and then call it a day?

Can you afford to out source laundry? I've never done it but I have friends who have and they swear by it!

Finally, one tip I have is to try to pick certain times to do things so they don't feel like they're hanging over your head all the time. For example, I feel like our mudroom is gross pretty much all the time. Everyone keeps their shoes in there and the dogs eat in there and it just always seems dirty. So, rather than trying to make it clean every day, I have decided that it gets clean on Tuesdays (there's a reason for this - my kids' dirtiest sport is played Friday-Monday). The rest of the week I can let the mess go because I know I'll get to it on Tuesday. Could you do that with things like laundry? Pick a day (or two, depending on how much you wash every week) and that have that be the time you think about laundry. The rest of the week, you can ignore it.

[Anonymous]

The only hack I ever found helpful was simply to persevere and be diligent. Instead of trying to get on top of things all at once, just keep doing some of your work every day and make enough time to rest (that includes sleep as well as restorative leisure activities).

[Anonymous]

Hang everything but underwear and socks. Kids can learn how to put things in hangers really easily and it keeps the drawers from becoming a mess rummaging through them.

[Anonymous]

One thing that helped me was the realization I don't actually go shopping. What I do is go to a store and buy the things I already have in mind to buy.

Salad dressing--same brand I've bought for 10 years.
Soup mix -- same brand ""
Dishwasher detergent -- same brand ""

Basically, me "shopping" was me "collecting things from a retail outlet closer to my house".

I decided to automate that with Amazon Prime. I get as much as possible, automatically sent to me with Amazon subscriptions. New thing of dishwasher soap every two months. New bottle of Shampoo every 2 months. New thing of this or that. It all comes automatically now and I don't have to run out to the store because we ran out of something.

Huge time savings.

[Anonymous]

Teach your children and your husband how to do their own laundry. My youngest was seven when she learned.
I require that they make their beds and keep their rooms reasonably neat.
All toys and stuff must be put away. I bought a ton of storage units that make it easy.
We all eat the same thing at breakfast and dinner. I'm not a restaurant!

My life with four kids has always been chaotic but early on I learned that rules are a life saver.

[Anonymous]

Go to sleep early. It seemed so counter productive to me when I started but it has helped so much.

My toddler doesn’t nap anymore, so when my infant naps she has “quiet time” in her teepee. I give her the iPad, put on music, and she stays in her room. I get 90 minutes give or take of uninterrupted work time.

Load of laundry a day. Seriously. Don’t even separate, use a Shout color catcher.

Look up Clean Mama and follow her schedule. I still have cleaners come for a deep clean but it’s easy to keep up when I only have to do certain things every day. And if I miss a day, not a big deal.

Alexa and Siri are my friends. Whenever I think of something, I tell them to set a reminder, then I schedule all of my reminders for the next day.

I sit down with my husband at the beginning of every year, every month, and every week to go over schedules. When he has an important call I take over and vice versa. We also plan meals so if we know it’s going to be a tough or long day, we do carry out.

Accept that some days will be a sh*t show and feel free to sit on the couch with a glass of wine. You’ll do better the next day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have a set two-week meal rotation, one grocery list for each week in an app. No need to think about meals or your grocery list.

Let your house be messy.

Don't fold laundry.

Please share your meal planning list! Please.

Not the PP, but this blogger shares here meal rotations: https://everyday-reading.com/category/weekly-menu/

I've tried a handful of the recipes she's posted, and everyone in my house has liked them enough that I make them regularly. Just did the slow cooker white chicken chili this week.