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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

I’m the PP with the 3yo and 9mo.  I think it’s a combination.  Partly you do learn to multitask and manage juggling basically two streams-of-consciousness all day.  But part of it is also simplifying life so that it requires less active effort to manage daily stuff.

So for example I do a load of laundry daily: put in in the morning, rotate at nap, fold in the afternoon put away as part of bedtime routine.  That works well for teo reasons: 1) I never have to think about or plan for laundry. I just do it on autopilot every single day.  2) We don’t need a week’s worth of clothes.  Kids have ~10 outfits each at any given time and ~6 pairs of pjs.  So I am not constantly trying to figure out what fits or sorting clothes or rearranging drawers or having to schedule an hour once a week to put it all away.  If something is getting too short I order a replacement for just that one thing.  As we transition seasons I can easily see what I have in the next size up, etc.

I also find that you have to focus on the kids first and then try to be productive.  The friends I know who are stressed are the ones who try to get a lot done in the morning.  I don’t even do the dishes in the morning.  I make breakfast, lunch and snack and then we leave for like 5 hours.  When we get back it’s naptime.  That way the kids had the entire morning of lots of attention from me and engaging activities for them, then a rest.  They haven’t played with any of their toys since yesterday so they are pretty happy to do some free play for an hour or so while I get a few basic things done.

I also babywear the baby often and find that (esp wearing on my back), she can get the closeness and comfort she needs without taking up a ton of mental space for me.

The last thing that helps is minimizing the toys and keeping them in bins.  They can have one bin out at a time and we clean up when we’re done.  Toys don’t end up strewn across the entire house.[/quote]

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