Q&A Thursday: Weekly Cleaning Schedule? Three MOMs respond

We have three guest authors today responding to the question, "What is your weekly cleaning schedule?"

First, from Aimee, a mother of seven, ages 13 to 2 months. She blogs at www.momzoolife.com:

This is my sort of schedule; in all honestly I am just getting back to where I am following it most of the time. There are weeks when other things come up, or baby has a bad day or night and we kick into survival mode. So here goes:

Monday: I call catch up day, I generally pick up the house and get things in order from the weekend, and I don't usually plan anything big that day.


Tuesday: laundry. I hurry and get the daily stuff done in the morning so I can wash all day. If I am really on top of it I will fold as the laundry comes out, so by the time the kids get home they can put stuff away and do their folding (socks, panties, dish towels), if not (which is most of the time now with the baby) I will save the folding until that evening and do it when the kids are to bed and I watch TV. If I can focus in the evening it takes about an hour and a half to get the folding done.


Wednesday: Kitchen day, I do any extra cooking for the week. I look at the meal plan and see what needs to be done. If we are having beans in a meal, I will cook those. I will cook whole chickens if we are having something with chicken in it, and start broth. I will bake bread; make yogurt and granola for the week. I also try to pick an area in the kitchen to deep clean, like a cupboard and I clean out the fridge. (I did this much better before baby, now I pick and choose what needs to be done the most, and if baby didn't sleep well the night before, I will skip it all and opt for a nap ;-))

Thursday: Office day (this is the one I tend to put off the most.) I attend to papers that accumulate on my desk; I recycle and clean things up. Ideally I would like to use this day for menu planning and budgeting, I have never done it though.

Friday: Cleaning day. I deep clean the house. The kids each have a stewardship to clean (these are the rooms they have been in charge of for the week, on Friday they deep clean it) So really I only end up deep cleaning the kitchen and my bathroom and bed room and I do a lot of supervising. We can usually get the whole house done in a few hours after school. If the kids do a good job without fighting they can have a late night together, they stay up late with a movie and some kind of treat. This is the day I wash sheets (have the kids strip their beds before school), bath towels and rugs.


Saturday: project day, during the warm months it is usually yard work, in the winter something inside in the mornings, in the afternoon I like to plan some family activity if I can.


Sunday: rest (ha!)


Next we'll hear from Jenifer Moss, also a mother of seven. Two boys and five girls. She blogs at www.toddnjenifermoss.blogspot.com. After graduating with a Bachelors in Human Development at BYU, Jenifer entered into her field studies. As a stay at home mother and homemaker for the past 15 years she is learning the HOW, WHEN and WHYs of motherhood and housework. She knows this is a difficult yet divine work. Jenifer believes that the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ teach us how to create a house of order so that we can be temporally and spiritually self reliant. David O. McKay said, “A true Mormon’s home is one in which, if Christ would chance to enter he would be pleased to linger and to rest.”

Monday- Pick up and vacuum. This is my hardest day, but the most important.


Tuesday- Clean. Bathrooms, floors, windows. (Gather laundry.)


Wednesday- Wash, Dry and Fold. ALL LAUNDRY! (I love one day laundry. I don’t end up with loads of half finished laundry everywhere.)


Thursday- Food. This is my errands day. Shopping, meal planning, making bread if I am home. Doctors. Piano lessons, etc.


Friday- Beasts in all their variety. This is the day we have friends over or do projects. We always have -homemade pizza and watch a movie or invite another family over for games.


Saturday- Man. A day for my husband. We have Saturday date night. We go together to games. We do family work projects.


Sunday- Holy Sabbath. (We have our spiritual part of family home evening on Sunday night.)
I wrote an extended version of this schedule on my blog recently-- look for creating a house of order. Or, read about my original plan on the side under Creation Cleaning.


Finally, Diane Robertson is the highly-organized mom of nine:

Here is how I try to manage cleaning mayhem in a large family. I have three categories.

1. Laundry: I do laundry daily and fold straight out of the dryer. I don't like big piles of clean laundry sitting around so I found a way to fold onto shelves into plastic milk crate boxes. Most of my kids keep their clothes in the laundry room. That helps reduce putting away laundry since a lot of it belongs in the laundry room.


2. Deep Cleaning: I do one deep cleaning or large chore each weekday. Monday I scrub the kitchen floor, wash the kitchen cupboards, and clean under appliances on the counters. Tuesday is currently a preschool co-op, and I do not have time for a large chore. Wednesday I pick up and vacuum the upstairs. Thursday I deep clean all of the bathrooms. The older kids help with the bathrooms. Friday is project day. I do things like clean the fridge, or the garage. Sometimes I move furniture, or wash walls and baseboards. Saturday I like to keep open so we have extra time to spend having fun with Dad.


3. Daily chores: dishes, dusting, picking up and vacuuming the downstairs, washing counters and tables, sweeping, and wiping bathroom sinks and toilet seats. The kids help a lot with the daily chores. I do the daily bathroom todo while I use the bathroom so I don't have to schedule in the time.


Our house is never perfectly cleaned but it is maintained. I have nine children and I do not feel like I am buried alive in housework. I also try not to collect a lot of stuff. I like the open spaces more than a whole bunch of toys, crafts, and furniture.

 
How do you manage your weekly chores?

Comments

Tristan said…
I love seeing the different ways families clean! For background I'm a mom to seven children ages 11 years down to 9 months. The baby has many medical needs and we do daily physical therapy 4-5 times a day, plus his other care. I also homeschool, so all the children are home all the time. What I have learned is that many hands make light work!

In all honesty, you all work way harder than I do. LOL. Each child has an area of responsibility they have been trained in. We switch responsibilities each summer so they have an entire year to become really good at their area. Here are their areas:
- 11yo does floors. Sweep, vacuum, mop. If it needs done she's the one to call. She alternates wood floors and carpeted floors each day, but also does extra when needed. The dining room, for example, gets swept daily, often twice a day.
- 8yo boy does the downstairs bathroom. Floors, toilet, mirror, counters, trash. It's his and he does it daily.
- 6yo girl does upstairs bathroom except tub/shower (that's mine!). So floors, mirror, toilet, counters, trash daily.
- 5yo boy does pick up in living area.
- 3yo boy does the enclosed porch (picking up shoes, putting things away into drawers/on shelves).
- 1yo boy is pickup patrol. He helps pick up whereever needed, buddying up with mommy or another sibling.
- 9 month old is smile patrol - he shares his joyful personality.

We have 3 bedrooms, with mom/dad/baby in one, 2 girls and 1yo in one, and 3 middle boys (8, 5, 3) in one. They clean their own rooms, make their own beds, etc. The oldest child in each room starts the laundry for that room. Middle child switches laundry to the dryer. Youngest child unloads dryer. Each child puts their own clothing away (we don't fold clothes - it's just not a priority at this point in life).

So that means I only do laundry every third day and it's for me, hubby, and the baby. If we're using cloth diapers at the time I wash those daily.

Cooking is me plus a child or two for every meal. The 11 yo is capable of doing all the cooking when needed.

Dishes are done by the children. They load the dishwasher, unload it, and put things away. Even the 1yo can do this with the 3yo as we put all dishes in lower cabinets so they can reach. Totally the best move ever!!! I do wash things by hand as needed (a few pans) and we spent a period of time without a dishwasher and adjusted washing/drying/putting away between mommy and oldest with younger helpers.

Now, with all that explained let me share that I usually help in the kids chores. When it is time for chores they head to do theirs and I grab the two littlest and bring them as buddies to help the others. Many hands make light work and we try to teach them that when you are done you can choose to bless another person by helping. Other days I take the time to do another round of Physical Therapy with the baby and diaper changing, catherization, etc.

Montana Blakes said…
I do a combination of most of these--and it made me laugh to see how similar all of our Mondays are! I consider Monday the "clean up after the carnage" of the weekend day. I also try and dust and vacuum our downstairs on that day as well. Other than that, most of my days are pretty similar. I scrub my bathroom, sort and wash dirty laundry (and toss the clean stuff into the kids' baskets for them to fold a couple times a week--usually while I read to them), and then clean my bedroom, including the piles of paperwork that seem to accumulate overnight. Instead of having particular jobs on particular days, I like to do a little of everything on each day. I've tried to delegate out all the jobs I can so I am left with the stuff only I can do. The kids help clean up the house before school and after dinner (and after lunch on days they are home from school.) I used to have one day for shopping and one for running errands but with a new baby (our tenth) I am finding things are different. I have one day that I go out on purpose, the rest of the time I've been combining shopping with other trips like picking a kid up from somewhere.
Amber said…
thanks for posting that and for the comments-- I'm still trying to figure out how to fit it all in!