Tips for easier housework with a baby at home

I’ll admit now, I’m not particularly houseproud.  If we have people coming to visit, I’ll do a clean.  If the bits that the husband’s brought in from the farm are taking over the floor, I’ll get the hoover out.  But otherwise, I’ll leave it until it really needs doing or I get hints from the husband telling me it needs doing.

Really we share the housework, or at least it was agreed when I moved in that he would do the bins and bathrooms, I would do the washing, hoovering and anything else.  Seemed like a fair agreement, given I would clean up aftermyself in the bathroom anyway, there is rarely any ironing to do, and having an aga means less hassle to clean the oven than there would usually be.

However I still quite often have to do the bins, and realistically when OH gets annoyed about there being a mess in the place he’ll get the hoover out anyway.  He’s a lot more houseproud than I am.

Now we’ve got N, it’s harder to find time and space to do housework.  When I’m ready to do some hoovering, he’s down for a nap, or following me around when I go to clean the bathrooms.  Thankfully he’s never really gone through the whole picking things up from the floor and eating them, so at least if there’s a few bits around it’s not so much of a disaster.

My tips for housework with a baby at home

1. Carpet sweeper.  Like your granny had.  Much quieter and less hassle to get out than a vacuum cleaner.
2. Clean bathroom and kitchen as you go (just wish my OH would do this, as I’m sure I don’t leave as much muck around as he does.
3. Have an agreement to say who does what.  May help if there’s always arguments over what housework gets done.
4. Invite people round weekly then you’ll clean more frequently.
5. Tidy up your children’s toys every night.  I may not clean all the time, but his toys are never strewn all over the place all the time.
6. Have a dishwasher.  Helps avoid having unwashed plates piling up.  Doing washing up is something I would have done straight away anyway as it winds me up not having clean plates to use, but even with a dishwasher used glasses still get left on the side next to it…grr
7. Don’t marry a farmer or live on a farm.  I can’t obviously do anything about this, but I do find that there’s a lot more bits of straw, grass etc traipsed in than in any house I’ve lived in before.
8. When your children are old enough give them chores as part of pocket money duties (can’t wait for this one myself!)

Of course you could get a cleaner.  We had one for a bit before I was pregnant.  It was great, but I did notice bits that she forgot like getting rid of all the spider’s webs!  There’s a lot of those in farmhouses that seem to appear really quickly after you get rid of them.

I guess if I’m not worried about not hoovering daily, then noone else should be worried about it.  It means I’ve got more time to spend with my little boy which now I’m back at work is so important.

How do you cope with housework when you’ve a baby at home?

Pin for later