How Do You Keep a House Clean with a Big Family?

How Do You Keep a House Clean with a Big Family?

The amount of time it takes to clean a house is inextricably linked to how many people live there. Unsurprisingly, more people (especially more kids) mean a lot more cleaning.

So, how do you keep a house clean with a big family without spending all your time doing housework? Below, we’ll cover some tips to make things more efficient.

How Do You Keep a House Clean with a Big Family?

1. Make Sure Everyone Has Daily Tasks

Even young kids can help with cleaning tasks, although they should always be age appropriate. For example, toddlers can help put their toys away, and kids as young as 5-7 years old can help with the dishwasher and other small jobs.

Use this to your advantage by giving everyone daily cleaning jobs. Some examples include:

• Making their beds
• Tidying up toys
• Putting washing in the laundry basket
• Loading/unloading the dishwasher

The bottom line is that you want to make your life easier by sharing responsibilities among everyone else in the family.

2. Have a Weekly Schedule

Keeping your house clean can feel overwhelming when you think about all the jobs it involves. To make things a bit easier, write up a weekly schedule that breaks down tasks into the most appropriate days. Doing so means you can get something done every day without stressing about finding time.

Some examples include:

• Monday: sort and/or fold laundry while watching TV
• Tuesday: wash sheets, towels or other large items
• Wednesday: clean kitchen thoroughly
• Weekends: deep cleans, bathrooms, changing sheets, etc.

Of course, try to have a day off from housework otherwise you’ll feel like it never ends (even though it doesn’t!).

3. Break Jobs Down into Smaller Parts

Another tip for making large jobs feel manageable is to break them down into smaller parts. For example, cleaning the bathroom is a big job, particularly when you have a large family.

Instead, think about it in its individual components, such as cleaning the shower or the toilet. You can do the same with the kitchen, living room, or bedroom. Breaking them down into smaller tasks helps things feel more achievable and means you can drop in and out of the job as needed.

4. Be Clever with Your Storage

A big family means lots of storage. And unless you have a big house, finding storage for your storage can be difficult. You can get around this problem by being clever with the furniture you buy and integrating storage where possible.

First, make sure the kids have plenty of storage boxes, ideally ones that can be stacked. Then, invest in furniture that incorporates storage space. For example, a Devan or Ottoman bed has plenty of space underneath, or you can buy footstools that provide storage.

5. De-Clutter Regularly

This tip goes hand-in-hand with tip 4. Specifically, if kids have their own storage boxes, set a rule that they can never have more than what can fit in them. This’ll mean you need to de-clutter regularly so you can hopefully avoid the dreaded toy mountain.

Once the kids are used to the idea of de-cluttering, you’ll be able to extend it to other things, such as clothing or outdoor toys. However, make sure you de-clutter your own belongings too!

6. Have a Regular Deep Cleaning Day

Provided everyone handles their daily tasks, there shouldn’t be loads left to do in terms of cleaning the house. However, you’ll still want a regular deep cleaning day so you can tackle bigger jobs that require more work.

How often you do these completely depends on your availability and how clean your house is. Once every 2 weeks should be fine, considering this is for big jobs like tidying out cupboards and hoovering behind furniture.

Where possible, get kids involved (and your partner too). Put on some music that everyone will enjoy and spend a few hours blasting the big cleaning jobs. To make things even more appealing, have a reward in place for when you’re finished.

Final Thoughts

Staying on top of the cleaning in a busy family home can be challenging. However, getting everyone else involved can help to lighten the load and make things feel a lot more manageable.

Of course, sometimes the cleaning will get away from you, and that’s fine! Family life is far more than just cleaning the house, and it’s important to do things other than tidy up after yourself. Hopefully, by sharing the jobs using the tips above, this won’t happen very often, though. If you feel like you can’t handle the cleaning with your family and would like some help, then we would recommend hiring a local domestic cleaning service.

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