7 Tips How To Keep A House Clean With Toddlers

Keeping a house clean with kids around is one of life’s great challenges if you are a mom or kid caretaker. Today I’ve got 7 Tips How To Keep A House Clean With Toddlers and kids period. But first I’ll break it down real simple for you. I’m going to start out with my a bonus tip which is probably the surest way to keep your house clean when you have kids.

Here it is. First, send your kids to a family members-or a friends. Second, clean your house. Third, when you go to pick up your kids (this is the genius part) don’t go home. During the day just hang out in public places, restaurants-it doesn’t really matter, stores, wherever. At night get a hotel room. But whatever you do-don’t take the kids back to the house.

Problem solved.

Okay, for real, I’ve not yet figured out a way to have a consistently clean house and kids-I’ve even had 16 years running practice. With 6 kids all spaced approximately 2.5 years apart, you’d think I’d have found a way, but I haven’t.

I’d like to blame it on the fact that we homeschool, and so the kids are always here-you know, making messes. I’m sure that has a lot to do with it, but not when it comes to the little kids because they would be here anyways.

For most people, this is a season. For me, as a homeschooling mom of six with kids spaced apart every couple years my “messy season” has become “just life”.

I understand first hand that depending on a persons personality, it can wear on the patience and soul, and take consistent heart checks to stop the messy years from getting ya real down. Since I’m a perfectionist and don’t think well in a mess it’s been a roller coaster journey for me!

Through the years I’ve found some ways to cope, and even thrive at times! Although I’ve never found a way to have a consistently clean house I have found ways to “deal with” messes, find compromises so to speak, and even have a clean house around half the time, which I feel like is an achievement with a big, homeschooling family of 8!

I’ve already shared with you our chore chart system, which is by far the most effective chore chart we’ve ever used. This is a HUGE help in keeping a clean house. Minimizing is another MASSIVE help in keeping a clean/tidy home.

But today I’ll share with you what else I’ve learned. Here are my best 7 Tips How To Keep A House Clean With Toddlers!

7 Tips How To Keep A House Clean With Toddlers

1. Invest in toys and products that will enhance instead of cluttering your home. For example, get attractive cups like these from Cupkin in colors that will blend in instead of jump out with the colors in your home, and invest in wooden toys like the ones in my post Best Educational Entertaining Toys For Pre-K. Attractive, wooden, quality toys are likely to keep your children entertained for longer too, so bonus points there!
2. Make house tidying and cleaning a game. Usually a couple times a day (sometimes more depending on what’s happening) we do 5 or 10 minute power tidy up’s. We set the timer and make it a challenge. I’ll tell the kids “Let’s see if we can beat the timer and get this room tidy in 5 minutes! It’s amazing what all those little hands can do in a short amount of time! We have two regular tidy up times a day, right before lunch, and we try to do another right before daddy comes home.
3. Invest in some kids cleaning tools. The big brooms and dust mops are awkward for short people, and sometimes they even accidentally knock things of counters, tables and shelves with the long handles. The kids love having their own child sized cleaning kits. I’ve linked to some below that work the best.
4. Keep bins! We have a pretty toy bin in the living room, a blanket bin and there are times we’ve even had a book bin. Bin’s work great for kids. It’s easier and faster for them to put things away in bins. Little kids especially find it easier to put things like books in a bin instead of filing them since they lack coordination.
5. Pay attention to the places your family naturally and habitually dumps stuff. Mail, shoes, backpacks, keys, whatever. Sometimes it’s best to establish a new place for items, but sometimes is best to just go with it. For example, instead of fighting the family to put shoes away instead of piling them by the door, just keep a shoe bin by the door. Have a mail basket, etc…
6. Use non toxic cleaners so your kids can safely clean too. Kids LOVE cleaning with spray bottles! I keep a few of these spray bottles on hand with essential oil, plant based cleaning solution (I sell and use this one) so I never have to worry about the kids being harmed by cleaner on their skin or by fumes. I even let the kids help make the cleaner which is fun for them!
7. Start teaching children when they are small to pick up after themselves and be tidy. The younger they learn to do this the easier life/home will be. Teach kids to put trash in the trash, that if they spill food and don’t clean it up germs and bugs will be attracted to your home (this is particularly effective if you live in a part of the country that has roaches, lol), and that they won’t be able to play with their toys or have clothes to wear if all their stuff is lost. Keep an eye out for which kids are the litterers! Some might be worse than others!

Again, start teaching them young to put trash in the trash, and to put their items back away where they found them. Now I’ll be honest with you, you are probably going to have to stay on them till they leave home. But at least you’ll know you did your best to raise them not to be pathological litterers 😂 . At least, we hope they won’t. 😬

As encouragement, always remember Proverbs 14:4, ” Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox. ” What does this mean? In our home I’ve always noticed that when the house is messiest it means one of two things. Either the kids trashed it because it’s Saturday or Sunday (their day off) and are watching TV, or it means they trashed it because we were more focused on learning and projects that entailed learning. I’ve noticed that when some of the best brain work is happening, the house is the messiest. Remembering and acknowledging this always helps me stay cool!

Okay, below are some recommended kids house cleaning sets. I highly recommend a dust mop in addition to a broom. THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE for older kids and below are some for littler ones. What I love most about this type is that the microfiber loops do a better job of picking up dirt and seem to clean way more, which is nice for kids since they don’t yet always know how to do a thorough job.

What do you think of 7 Tips How To Keep A House Clean With Toddlers? Do you have some tips to add? Drop them in the comments section below! Hey, and if you like this post don’t forget to hit the “Like” button below and please share it with your friends!

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