How do I keep my house clean with a baby? The short answer: teamwork. And no, I don’t mean that I regularly hire people to come and clean my house for me. It would be awesome if I could! Rather, I mean that it is something that my husband, Erik, and I constantly work on together. So if you are working on developing a cleaning system for you and your family, read on. Here is how we clean our house:
Every morning
Usually, J is the first person to wake up in our family, and I am the one to get up with her. Periodically, Erik will get up with her so that I can sleep in, but usually, it’s me. So I get up, we go downstairs, and I begin to make breakfast. After breakfast, I’ll unload/reload the dishwasher, wipe down the counters and cabinets, and sweep and mop the floor. We find that it’s incredibly important to do this each day. We have an open floor plan, and the kitchen is the center of everything. So if the kitchen is a mess, the whole house looks like a mess.
During the day
Erik is the one who cleans during the day because his schedule allows him to be home a lot. He doesn’t have a specific list of chores that he follows, he just does what he sees needs to be done. Sometimes he has J with him as he does this. Other times, he doesn’t. I will say that he is a rockstar at cleaning while our daughter is with him whereas I am a mess. I can’t clean anything if she is around. It’s all about discovering what works for you. Maybe you are like Erik; maybe you are like me. Things Erik does during the day include laundry, dishes and sweeping and mopping the floor.
A special word about sweeping and mopping: with a one-year-old, we have discovered that you can never sweep or mop enough. J lives on the floor. She walks around and plops down on the floor. She lays on the floor. And yes, she even eats food off the floor if she drops it, and we don’t get to it in time. I know that most people will tell you to always clean your floors after you’ve done the rest of your cleaning for the day. But I would say that, with a baby, clean your floors constantly. That being said, one of the greatest things we have bought is a Neato. We chose one over the Roomba because the reviews were so outstanding, and it hasn’t disappointed. Plus, we have it hooked up to our Amazon Echo
and our iPhones. So we can even clean our floors when we aren’t there. Lol!
Every evening
Most evenings, I cook dinner. Erik watches J in another room. I unload/reload the dishwasher and try to clean as I go along.
After dinner, Erik watches J again and this is where our system really comes into play. I first heard about zone cleaning from Jen of the YouTube channel, HowJenDoesIt, but I have a slightly different method than her. Each day I have assigned a different zone, and I clean as much as I can in that zone for 15-20 minutes.
Here are our zones below for our three bedroom, 3.5 bathroom house:
Zone 1: Guest bedroom and Guest bathroom
Zone 2: dining room, living room
Zone 3: Powder room and foyer
Zone 4: Kitchen
Zone 5: J’s bedroom and bathroom
Zone 6: Master bedroom and bathroom
Zone 7: Nothing. Rest!
And then I repeat this each week. I find that breaking it down into zones like this keeps the job from getting too big or too overwhelming, and it also keeps me from spending a ton of time cleaning.
Here is a quick breakdown of what I do in each zone:
Zone 1: dust bedroom, clean windows and mirrors, vacuum, mop, clean toilet, clean tub, clean sink, replace linens if necessary
Zone 2: dust, clean windows and mirrors, vacuum and mop
Zone 3: clean windows and mirrors, vacuum and mop, clean toilet, clean tub, clean sink, replace linens if necessary
Zone 4: clean counters, cabinets, clean out fridge, vacuum, mop
Zone 5: dust bedroom, clean windows and mirrors, vacuum, mop, clean toilet, clean tub, clean sink, replace linens if necessary
Zone 6: dust bedroom, clean windows and mirrors, vacuum, mop, clean toilet, clean tub, clean sink, replace linens if necessary
I think when you see it listed like this, you realize that it is really nothing. It is 100% manageable, and everything stays relatively clean until the next week. Except for those darn floors, but thank goodness I have a robot for that.
Now I want to hear from you! How are you keeping your home clean? What would make the job easier?
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I definitely need a better cleaning regimen, thanks!
Awesome tips! I need to incorporate some sort of game plan to tackle the cleaning in my house too!
I like the idea of breaking the house into zones! Great plan!
I needed this SO MUCH right now. Ever since my daughter came along in August, I am constantly overwhelmed with house upkeep. I will be trying the zones! THANK YOU!
Cleaning with a toddler is definitely an experience. We have done a ton of trial and error to figure out what works — and yes, keeping the floors clean is a must!
This is a great routine. Thanks for sharing!
Great articles!
Divide your house into many zone is good idea.
Saved the idea and use this plan for my house.
Thank a lot!!!
Great article that covers all of the basics. I especially love the white noise machine, since travel can completely disrupt a little one’s sleep schedule. If you don’t have a white noise machine, there are some apps that do the trick nicely as well. Traveling with a baby can be tricky, but the right gear makes it so much easier. If you are going to be out and about walking with your baby while away, the right baby carrier and/or stroller makes a world of difference too. The roamingmommy site has some helpful product reviews for being on the go with baby.
I could say the same thing – teamwork is all you need to keep a house clean with a baby. My wife and I constantly work together to make things done. I’d say that we (you and I) have pretty similar situations, although I usually make breakfast (as I’m a morning person but my wife takes care of our baby during the night) and clean the kitchen in the morning, but my wife stays at home at cleans during the day. And in the evenings, when I come home, my wife starts to work (as she can work from home). And then again I’m the one taking care of the house, although there’s nothing much left to do.
We bought a robotic vacuum cleaner that also helps to clean the house. So we can just schedule it and it cleans the floor. That’s a great thing!
I work full time outside of the home, so I have a cleaning lady come every other week. Without that, I found that I had to spend a significant amount of time after the kids were in bed cleaning, as well as on the weekend cleaning. This gives me a lot more time with my kids. We still have to keep up with things in between, but I know that at least every other week thing will get a good deep clean. It was hard for me to add it into our budget, but now I wouldn’t change a thing, given the time I get back for the kids and the sanity that it saves.
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