How to have a tidy house when visitors are coming and the kids are home all day

One of my favourites quotes is ‘cleaning your house when you have children is like trying to sweep the path when it is still snowing.’

I have come to accept that while I have little people living with me I will never have a completely clean and tidy house at all times if you drop by unannounced. However, I have installed some really good behaviours in my children to enable me to have a clean and tidy house when visitors are coming and before bedtime.

Every night before we start getting ready for bed I get the children to help me to have a speed tidy up of the house. We go through the whole house and have a mad dash around, seeing who can do the most tidying. This involves running into a room and collecting up the things that do not belong in that room and returning them to the correct room or if already in the correct room putting things back into their place. We make this into a game.

I also recently introduced toy prison to my children after seeing it on Pinterest. The way toy prison works in our house is that when it is tidy up time all of the toys have to be put away in their proper places within a given time. Any toys that are not put away go into toy prison. The children then have to earn back any lost toys the next day by being kind to others, helpful etc.

I explained to my children that my husband and I both have to go to work to earn money so that we can afford to pay for the house we live in, the food we eat, the clothes they wear and the toys that they have. If the toys are left on the floor then they get stepped on and become broken. That means we have to go to work for longer hours to make sure we bring home more money to replace all of the broken toys. Whereas, if they look after the toys we can spend more time doing nice things as a family as we won’t need to work as much.

I don’t actually have a toy prison as of yet as I’ve never had to put anything into toy prison. The thought of the toys going away is enough for my children to make them want to tidy up.

When people are coming over to our house I plan our time before their arrival carefully.

If we have adults coming over, they often come to visit in the afternoon. This enables us to spend a brief amount of time in the morning tidying up and cleaning. Then we go out to burn off some energy either to the park or to soft play. By the time we return home the children are suitably tired and therefore don’t have the energy before people come to undo all of the tidying completed in the morning.

The children also know that when people come we have to start with a tidy house and once the visitors have seen it tidy they are then allowed to get out their toys again and play and make mess.

By tiring the kids out in the morning they have enough energy in the afternoon to play and be sociable but not enough to turn the sofa into a trampoline and dominate the conversation to the point where you don’t actually get to see your guests and just end up talking about Mr Tumble or whatever topic of conversation the children choose.

If it is a child coming to visit we follow a similar routine before the visit but the activity is a lower intensity one so that they have enough energy to play and don’t get over tired and therefore grumpy and cry and throw tantrums when the other children are here.

Using the points above has enabled me to have a clean and tidy house when people come to visit without me turning into a stressed out nag who barks instructions at the kids and ends up an

exhausted crumpled mess who is too tired to talk and enjoy seeing people when they arrive.

This is part of a series of posts on cleaning. Click to see the other posts: Part 1, Part 2

#cleaning #tidying #cleaninghacks #behaviours #cleaningbehaviours