Cleaning schedules

Young Girl Cleaning and Tidying


I have been a long time follower of Candy's blog, http://www.myblessedhome.blogspot.com/ and I'm happy to see that she's in her new home and blogging again! Yea, Candy!

Today she posted about her cleaning schedule and how it works for her. I have purchased almost all of Candy's e-books and they have all been very informative, helpful, and inspirational. And one thing that she has mentioned was to find a system that works for you.

I have tried a day by day schedule, but for our home and family that just didn't seem to work for me. I made the HMB (home management binder) and it came out great, but after some time, I found that I still needed to simply my cleaning routines.

Having five children, here's what's been working for us:

The youngest is only one, so he's not in on chores yet, but for the other four, here are their responsibilities (ages 13, 10, 7 and 7):

Each child does their room chores each morning.
-make bed, put any laundry away, straighten up room, bring down dirty laundry.

Then their big chores are:
-Two little ones--- take care of sorting and bringing up everyone's laundry. They love this! Long ago, I got rid of folding. We did it for so long, but by the time the folded piles made their way upstairs, a stack (or two) inevitably ended up falling over, thus wasting so much time and causing a lot of frustration. Instead, they just "throw" the clothes into piles for each person, bring them upstairs, then the following morning each person is responsible for folding and putting away their own clothes. Works very well for us. I do one load of laundry per day, alternating one dark load, then one light. Sometimes I'll need to do an extra load or two each week to account for unexpected washing or extra stuff (wet towels from yard play, nose bleed in middle of the night--dd #2, etc.)
-Two big girls---kitchen duty. Basically assisting me with clean-up, including scrubbing pots, loading/unloading dishwasher, wiping down counters, putting away leftovers, etc. They also take care of garbage and recycling.

Shared chores with me:
-vacuuming (they all love to vacuum), sweeping, wiping down appliances, wiping windows, mirrors, etc. We do these on more of a weekly basis. Sort of the "Saturday" clean-up. Or it becomes a mid-week big clean when we're expecting guests.

Overall, I have reduced the number of toys downstairs and relocated them to their rooms and to the play space in the attic. Really helped in our living area. Now we just have the baby's toys downstairs, wooden blocks, a couple of child-safe games, and knitting supplies. Moving all choking hazard toys and games upstairs eliminated the stress and worry to constantly be making sure that little pieces weren't misplaced.

So, with our system our house is usually company ready in a moment's notice. Maybe not upstairs all the time! That area is a challenge for me. You know how it is...as soon as you're out of site, little ones want you. I can't seem to be able to really spend a whole lot of time upstairs otherwise my little guy misses me!

One of my biggest jobs is clothing transfers. I have saved all of my daughters clothing from when my oldest (now 13) was a baby. I took very good care of their clothes, so we got to reuse mostly everything. Now that our youngest dd grows out of something, I am now getting rid of stuff. So strange...after all these years, to pass on something that has seen so much play. Then to pass on my little guy's clothing after only a couple of months as he grows into the next size feels so alternately strange. We're kinda sure that we're done with planning for any more children, but if the Lord chooses to bless us with another child, He would provide for the clothing as well. We have always been overly blessed in this area, receiving bags and bags of clothing from friends. Anyway, the big season transfer of clothing usually lingers on for a week or two, depending on how much I can get done between homeschooling, cooking, cleaning, nursing, etc. etc.!

We occasionally use Choreganizers as well. They love the novelty of the cards, but sometimes, if you can believe it, they spend way too much time doing their chores! I need to get on with our day so I'll eventually return to a more simple routine. Their main chores of kitchen detail and laundry, then clean as needed works most of the time. Summertime I sometimes go back to the Choreganizers.

Hope this helps someone!
May the Lord richly bless your day,
Lisa