Invaluable Advice For Keeping Homes Clean With Kids

Keeping a home tidy with kids in tow can feel like an uphill struggle - or basically, pointless. No matter how much effort we put in, there’s always more mess to deal with. 

Fortunately, millions of parents have been through clutter purgatory, which means there are potent strategies to fight back. Here’s a few of the best:

Preventing Toddler “Dumping”

Toddler dumping is a common problem. It’s where young children turn an organized situation into a disorganized one because it is fun. It includes things like taking all your nicely folded laundry out of the basket and dumping it on the floor. When kids do this, they’re just exploring, but man can it be annoying.

If you have freshly-folded laundry, keep it high up on a dresser, well out of the way. Stop toddlers from getting into cupboards by clipping them shut, and leave just a few toys out for them: not their entire collection. 

Encourage Your Kids To Organize Their Stuff

Once children reach the age of five or so, dumping becomes less of a problem. However, mess still remains an issue. Kids are more interested in having fun than helping to keep the house tidy.

The trick is to get kids to internalize tidiness. If you can teach them that it is important from a young age, they’ll automatically do it as they get older. 

Remember, kids like order just as much as they like chaos. They will often spontaneously organize things without asking. Observe them carefully and then sell the idea of tidying up to them as something fun.

Show Kids How To Tidy Their Rooms

Don’t assume that kiddos understand how to tidy their rooms. They usually don’t. Instead, they need guidance on what they need to do.

Set a day every week to clean up, walking them through the motions. Teach them, for instance, to tidy the floor first before they vacuum. Show them how to put things away so they get used to the idea. Get them to take ownership of a few tasks, like taking out the trash.

Keep Cleaning And Tidying Systems Simple

Kids need basic cleaning and tidying systems. If we make things too complicated for them, they will struggle to learn what we want them to do. So for instance, having fifteen different bins for each set of toys is probably too much. 

For tidying purposes, have a couple of tubs for toys, and then a few drawers for clothes. Go through the motions with the kids, showing them how to put things away and in what order. 

Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect, Marie Kondo-style. We’re not aiming for a 100 percent orderly house all the time, just want a system that the kids can accept and follow. 

Learn How To Clean Big Ticket Items

Learning the seven steps to clean a stroller or the eight methods of keeping the baby-changing area hygienic is essential. Figuring out how to keep these items clean will make the rest of the home so much more pleasant to live in. 

Take time to read instructions and blogs showing on how to clean the most challenging items. Find out where we’re maybe slacking and what we could do better.

Keep The Surfaces Clear

While having clutter on all the surfaces might seem unavoidable, it’s not a great way to live. Keep your surfaces clear with the rule of add an item, take another away. Keeping surfaces constantly clear makes it easier to stop clutter from accumulating where it doesn’t belong.

Adhere To Your Cleaning Routines Every Week

Abiding by a set cleaning schedule can feel like a chore. But once it’s in place it’s incredible how much time can be saved overall. Getting it down can take years to develop, fyi. Most parents only discover an effective routine after years of trial and error - especially because the kiddos tend to grow faster than we parents learn.

For most part, the best strategy is daily cleaning, first thing in the morning, and then before bed at night. Performing regular, small tasks throughout the week prevents mess and clutter from developing to the point where it becomes unsustainable. 

Ideally, we want cleaning to become a habit. After a couple of months, it should start to feel automatic, not like something we’re forcing ourselves to do. Eventually, it could even be enjoyable... 

As the kids get older, experienced parents recommend including them in the chores. Teach them to develop their own cleaning routines and skills. And again, as before, show them what they need to do. 

Add Baskets For Everything

Kids won’t usually hang up their coats, fold away their clothes and put them in their drawers, or do anything else like that. The impulse control is not strong enough and the attention span not long enough. Therefore storage options that are as simple as possible are ideal.

That’s where using baskets for everything can help. Instead of getting them to neatly place their shoes on the shoe rack or toys on shelves, just add tubs strategically around your home, assigning them to specific rooms for a certain range of types of items. Then, when kids need something, all they have to do is reach into the basket and take what they need. 

Tubs also make clearing up easier. You just grab all the items strewn across the floor and dump them into the nearest receptacle. It’s really that simple. 

Rotate Toys

Making all kids’ toys available at the same time is a recipe for clutter. A lot of parents establish a toy rotation system where they introduce a handful of toys every few days - or couple of weeks, and then put the rest in storage. This way, kids get something new to play with and the bombsite after playtime is far more manageable.

To make rotation even easier, keep toys in large tubs, as described above. Once kids get bored of the contents of one tub, just bring out another. 

Everything Has A Place

The idea that everything in the home should have its own place is not a natural concept for most children. Instead, it is something that adults learn from their own childhoods. 

Teach the kids that everything has a place and reinforce it by making sure that whatever place chosen makes sense to the kiddos. 

For instance, if there’s a coffee machine, keep the cups next to it. Likewise, put all the plates and silverware in the dining room, towels in the bathroom or linen closet, etc. etc.

Make Decluttering Something Done Automatically

Lastly, try to declutter automatically. If something is in the wrong place, don’t put it off until tomorrow. Instead, move it right away. Decluttering is easy once the basic principles are understood. If there’s something no longer needed, throw it away or put it into storage and don’t just leave it out because it’s sentimental - that’s the biggest parent trap there is.