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[quote=Anonymous]Nanny here.

1) The best way to keep an orderly house is to own less stuff.  The second way is to keep most of your stuff off limits most of the time.

Clothes: each kid need 7 T-shirts or dresses and 7 sets of shorts for warm months.  If you have substantially more than that (more that 10 of each per kid) cull.  You can have a few extra “nice” clothes, but that’s about it.

Toys: odds are your kids play with the same handful of things 80% of the time anyway (right now for my charges it is magnatiles, matchbox cars and scooters).  Keep those out along with one other thing, but put everything else in bins in the closet.  Put a lock on this closet. Rotate which one other thing you have out every few days.  This enables you to  1) limit how big the mess can get on a normal day and 2) keep toys from cross-pollinating where you can’t find all the pieces to something.

Random kid flotsam: Given each kid a special “treasure box” where they can keep items that don’t otherwise have a home (Happy Meal Toys, prizes from the dentist, acorns, shiny rocks, etc.). When the box won’t shut then it is time to toss some stuff.

2) For the toddler:  take all the toys out of the room.  Install child locks on the dresser (make sure the dresser is bolted to the wall btw).  Put a baby lock on the door handle or put a baby gate in the door or lock the door from the outside (and use a video monitor).  But you have to remove any way for the toddler to keep herself awake.  Sensory deprivation and a solid bedtime routine and she will figure it out.

3) Routine: Leave the house for as much of the day as you can.  I pack breakfast AND lunch the night before and go to the park from 8:00-10:00 am.  
Then we have a snack and go somewhere indoors (library, bowling, museum, art gallery, paint your own pottery, etc). Or we run an errand (grocery or target) or we go someplace they can be wet (pool, splash pad).  
We get home at 1:00 and put the youngest down for nap.  The older two take turns having a rest and having one-on-one time.  So during a 90 minute nap for the baby, first I take a 20-minute nap myself while the older two watch a video.  Then 4yo has 30 minutes of quiet time laying in bed with a stack of books and some stuffed animals while 7 yo and I read together.  Then they switch for another 30 minutes.  
Then the baby gets up and it is about 3:00.  We have a snack and they do free play for 60-90 minutes.  At the end of that time, they have 20 minutes to clean up.  This is totally reasonable given that they have at max 3 different toys out.  I come in and help the toddler clean up whatever he is doing, then I let the other two do it themselves.  If they fail to clean up those toys are gone for 3 days.  Since they have limited toys this is a pretty big threat.  I don’t nag, just set the timer and let them figure it out.
They help set the table and we do dinner/bath/bed and I circle back to load all the day’s dishes in the DW and wipe down the kitchen.[/quote]

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