While children are the ones who make the messes, they can also help clean them up! Here are some basic routines that help keep a tidy home with kids. Post contains affiliate links.
Trying to keep a tidy home with small children in it is like trying shovel snow while it’s still snowing.Â
It feels sorta pointless, but if you don’t at least shovel the snow while there’s a lull, then soon you’ll find yourself snowed in and unable to get out.
It’s the same with toys, kids stuff, laundry, and dealing with toddlers…
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Now, I know may people embrace the whole “the house will look like a bomb for a few years thing” and if you are truly able to function better that way, then I’m not going to try to convince you otherwise.
However, if you hate the fact that your home looks like a football stadium after a ball game (Go Gators!), then I’m hoping these tips will help you.
Follow this checklist until your tidy routines become second nature.
What's in this post...
Tidy Routines That Even Small Kids Can Do
Remember, if the house is in an overwhelming state of mess for YOU, imagine how it must feel to your child. So, keep things simple and easy for both you and the kids.
Here are 6 key things to keep a tidy home with kids:
1. Bed Making & Morning Tidy
I’ve only recently gotten the kids to straighten their beds because, well, they weren’t able to make their beds.
You can do a few things to make this easier like getting Zip Up Sheets, a Zip Up Comforter
, or just teaching them (painstakingly if they’re small) how to tidy the bed.
I teach mine how and they don’t have the freedom to come to breakfast unless their bed is straight and their room is cleaned.Â
Now, straight is relative, but if I can tell they’ve tried I never go behind them.
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Learn More2. Cleanup After Playtime to Keep a Tidy Home
Each morning my kids have an Independent Play Time and I don’t restrict how many toys they can play with anymore.
When they are small and in the crib, they get a few choices, but when they move to playing in their room they can do what they want.
The rule is that they can’t come out of their room, however, until it’s picked back up.
I’ve done this from the get-go and now they don’t argue or fuss, so their room pretty much stays in good order all day.
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Learn More3. Get a Good Laundry System Down
It’s my goal this year to get a good laundry system down for our family of 7.
I had a great one when we had 4 people then 5 but it unraveled at 6 and at 7… I just go in when we’re out of clothes and that’s that.
However, in order to feel like the laundry is not out of control, I’m working to create a new system that is easier for us all to keep.
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Learn MoreBasic Laundry Tips
- Your Hamper System is probably the most important thing of all.
- I’ve stopped folding our “house clothes” that get wrinkled anyway, and simply sort them by hamper and have the kids put them away. I recommend watching This Video which outlines that.
- Put clothes in your washer each evening and set a timer (if you have one!) for the next morning. This way, when you are beginning your morning routines you are already ahead.
- Get the kids involved. It’s a hard slog when you try to do all household chores while kids are in bed. Do some folding (and let kids fold towels, wash cloths, etc.) with the kids and things go faster.
Follow this checklist until your tidy routines become second nature.
4. Timed Clean-Up
I recently bought This Timer to help in our day to day. Here is All the Ways You Can Use a Timer during your day, but let’s say here that it’s a great way to get in a big spurt of cleaning without feeling overwhelmed.
- Set your timer for a certain period of time, turn on some music even, and clean until the timer goes off. It’s easy enough to keep the kids motivated when they know there’s an end in sight.
- You might even do this for 5 minutes every evening. This is a great tip to keep a tidy home.
- The more you do little by little, the less that builds up.
5. Evening sweep
I wrote a whole post on The Evening Sweep Here. It’s a great routine to add into your evening.
This looks like, after the kids are in bed, making a sweep of the main living areas of the home and tidying everything up.
Putting things back in their baskets.Â
Taking things to the rooms where they go.Â
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Learn More6. End-Of-Dinner Tidy Up
We’ve recently started (and are still tweaking) a new post-dinner routine where no one really leaves the kitchen until it’s all clean.
We are adjusting this since our 2 and 3 year olds make this a tad more exhausting than necessary (#reallife).
But… the goal is that mama is not back in the kitchen at 9 p.m. on her own cleaning it all. You don’t want to suffer until late at night to keep a tidy home.
Follow this checklist until your tidy routines become second nature.
Sources:
- Involving kids in household tasks has a positive impact later in life
- Chores are associated with self-competence, self-efficacy, and prosocial behavior
- Longitudinal Harvard study shows chores are bigger predictor of good mental health as an adult (moreso than social class, family problems, and other factors)
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Learn MoreFAQs
Not only is it good practice for them to learn how to tidy up and maintain a home, but it also helps parents to have more peace in the home because they are not doing all the things when the kids are sleeping. Instead, they can use that time for self-care, hobbies, connecting, etc. Check out this post for more on this!
Kids need to learn the life skills of cleaning a home, doing laundry, etc. Just because you can do it faster, doesn’t mean that you should have to do everything. As the saying goes, many hands make light work. So, it benefits the kids because they learn important skills and it takes things off your plate. It gets easier as the kids get older and more efficient, but you have to start somewhere, mama!
I’m working on decluttering now because I definitely got away from using a lot of these tips and then got overwhelmed and gave up.
Thanks for the reminders about how to maintain order once I get rid of all this stuff. :)
Amy, that’s exactly it! When we get away from it it explodes and feels hopeless. We gotta stay on top of it, definitely, but it’s worth it!
Thanks for this :) I am a new mom to a 9 month old girl, living overseas inJordan (but am American), and bbeing 30 already we are considering having kids, Lord willing, close together. Here is a question i have: how early do you start getting them to pick up toys? I am trying to keep toys very minimal anyway but still want to start soon. She is crawling and close towalking.
At the age where they are crawling, I’ll pick up a toy, put it in their hands, and then put it away :) I won’t do it for 12 toys, but for a few so that they understand what’s happening!
I love this post!! I do think to myself that the house will look like a disaster area for the next few years, but it bothers me so much!! I cannot function in a messy house… It makes me so grumpy! And when I feel overwhelmed by it, I just shut down… I love the idea of independent play time in the morning so I can do clean sweep of the house… I’m totally going to try that this week! Thank you!!! :D
Hi Katie, I do think there’s a balance. It’ll definitely be messier and more work to keep tidy for a few years, let’s be honest but it’s possible. IT’s all about having a good state of tidiness and then only maintaining.
I loved this post. I think expecting my 2 and 4 year old girls to try to make their bed before they get breakfast is doable!I need to try it MYseLf the rest of this week, and then once I’m pro, then I’m going for it. I would totally recommend the “power of moms” podcast on mommy’s quiet time- it breaks down the independent play a bit. I love your site!
Jennica, the power of moms? TOTALLY going on my list today! I love independent play so will go check it out. Thanks for the encouragement :)
This is almost exactly what we do in my house to keep things in reasonable order. I need to read about your “clean sweep”, it sounds great! Ironically, I just posted about our laundry system that finally works.
http://fourtoadore.com/2015/11/16/the-secret-to-keeping-up-with-laundry/
Going off to read it now :)
Great tips! We have started to make our girls make their beds every morning, and our five year old has done it so well that it’s a habit to her now. I noticed shortly after she was doing such a good job with her bed, she actually made an effort to keep her entire room clean as well!
The main thing I struggle with is the dreaded laundry. I keep up with it fine- it’s just keeping up with all the clothes they go through during the day, and when they do get dressed, they throw allllll of the clothes on the floor to find one shirt in the dresser. I find myself constantly picking up clean clothes off the floor, and also doing so much laundry that isn’t needed (like 4 different outfits in one day, ugh!). Have you had this problem? How do you keep your kids’ clothes in order?!
Thanks! :)
HI Jessie, actually one thing we did that works fairly well is to put a laundry basket in the hallway by their rooms. This way, if they shed their clothes (and I’m in the room) I tell them to put it in the laundry basket and they did. Other times, it’s the floor. But they’ll never willingly walk to the other end of the house they will to the hallway!
I know this is a whole year later, but something I’ve done with my kids that helps with the “where is that shirt?” is folding them in half, then half again, then half again so I am able to put the shirts (and pants and shorts,etc) one in front of the other from front to back of drawer (kind of standing up,leaning against each other) instead of stacking the shirts on top of each other. Does that make any sense? That way when we open the drawer we see everything that’s in there at first glance.
That’s an AWESOME idea!
This was such a great article! I’m excited to start implementing these tips at home. Thanks so much for a great read! I used you as a reference in my last blog post because all of this advice was golden!
Woohoo, glad it’s helping :)
I’ve tried telling my kids that they need to clean their room before they come out – and even my 10 year olds were completely content to stay in their room until lunch! :[
Any suggestions?? Want to point me to a post?
Ha! How many days in a row would they do this? Perhaps you could take away a privilege if they don’t do it. Or empty their room of toys, ha! That may be extreme ;)
Hello.. how can I buy your printable card chores for kid? I really need it but I don’t have credit card n don’t have PayPal account too.. I’m from Malaysia
Rodhi, you can use PayPal, do you have that?
I had a paypal account before but did not know how to used it and now no more paypal account.
Thanks for sharing! I love the timed clean idea. Then there isn’t the pressure for it to be perfect, but at least cleaner than it was 10 min ago.
I have two ,two year olds they love helping. They help make their beds everyday. Our schedule is a little different but works great. They both know how to pick up and tidy their beds and room. They have to have it done before they can join me for a reading time , which they wouldnt miss for the world. I hope they always love reading time.