After receiving many inquiries about how we keep our playroom organized, I also had people ask me how we maintain a tidy and neat home with children around. While I am not an exceptional homemaker and our house is far from perfect, I do value cleanliness and struggle to function in a disorganized environment. That’s why I focus on implementing systems that help us reduce clutter. With a big family, it does require some extra planning and effort to keep our home clean, but it pays off in the end!
Here are 20+ tips that have been helpful to us in keeping a clean and tidy home with lots of little ones.
1. Declutter
Reducing clutter is a crucial part of maintaining a clean household with children. Personally, I despise the feeling of being surrounded by unnecessary items, so we make it a regular practice to declutter and get rid of things. Donating gently used items that no longer serve us brings joy to another family and helps clear up space in our home. This applies to our daily routines as well as larger-scale cleaning sessions. If something doesn’t have a purpose in our household, it goes into the donation bin or trash without hesitation. The same principle applies when new items are brought into our home; for example, before Christmas, I go through our board game collection and donate at least one (if not several) to make room for the new ones. And when an item like a broken can opener becomes obsolete, we dispose of it before purchasing a replacement. We strive to maintain a balance between what comes into our house versus what goes out.
2. Schedule Cleaning
I dislike the constant responsibility of maintaining our home. It often feels like my entire life revolves around cleaning! That’s why I find it helpful to schedule specific times for cleaning rather than constantly worrying about keeping the house tidy.
Certain areas require more frequent attention, such as the kitchen which is heavily used every night. After dinner, we all work together to put away food, wipe down surfaces, wash dishes, and vacuum the floors. I have a lightweight and efficient vacuum that even my kids can handle. Waking up to a dirty kitchen is one of my pet peeves, so this nightly routine helps keep it in check. I also set a time limit for myself, usually before my kids are done getting ready for bed so we can read together, to avoid endless cleaning.
Deeper cleaning tasks are usually tackled on a weekly basis (excluding rare occasions where things like wiping ceiling lights and baseboards need extra attention). On Saturday mornings or sometimes Friday nights, we spend an hour or two cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming bedrooms, and mopping floors.
3. Create Little Habits
Small cleaning habits can have a big impact on the overall cleanliness of our home. For me, one of these habits is making my bed in the morning (and having my kids make theirs). It sets a positive tone for the day and makes it easier to tackle other tasks like vacuuming and tidying up. But when my bed is in disarray with throw pillows scattered and sheets askew, I feel less motivated to clean. It’s off-putting to know that I’ll have to fix the bed before even starting on other chores. The same goes for my kids – when their beds are made, they’re less likely to leave wet towels or dirty clothes lying around. And if we all immediately put our breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, there’s less of a temptation to leave them out until later when it becomes a daunting task on top of dinner dishes. These little habits may seem insignificant, but they make a significant difference in maintaining a clean and tidy home.
4. Remember Tidying Is Different Than Cleaning
We have designated times for tidying up in our household. Sometimes, when we try to clean, we realize that there is a lot of tidying that needs to be done first. This slows down the cleaning process and prevents us from actually getting anything cleaned! That’s why we separate tidying from cleaning in order to keep our house organized with kids around.
We have tasks that need to be done more frequently, as well as those that can be done less often. For example, every evening before dinner, the kids work together to tidy up the playroom. We’ve been doing this for so long that now it rarely becomes a complete mess. They understand that the playroom must be in decent shape before they can eat, so they naturally regulate themselves and don’t take out too many things at once. They’ve developed the habit of putting one thing away before taking out another, except for toys – they often mix and match toys, which is great! This is more about keeping different areas tidy, like putting away art supplies before starting a board game. The daily playroom tidy usually takes us less than 10 minutes.
Once a week, we all pitch in to put things back where they belong – school papers, letters, stray clothing items and toys that have wandered off around the house. During this time, some of us focus on tidying while others tackle cleaning tasks.
5. Give Everything A Home, and Communicate It
Having too much stuff in a space can be overwhelming when it comes to cleaning. I despise the feeling of not having a designated spot for everything, making me want to give up on getting organized altogether. However, when everything has a clear home, putting things away becomes quick and effortless. If something doesn’t have an obvious place, I consider when and how I use it and find a suitable storage location for it. If it still doesn’t fit, I either donate it or make room by getting rid of something else. It’s important to communicate with my family about where items belong to maintain a tidy and clean home. It may take longer to show them where things go or how to properly put them away (like folding towels to fit in a cabinet), but once they know, it saves time in the future as they can do it themselves.
6. Keep A Donation Bin
I often struggle with giving away items I no longer need, but eventually I force myself to schedule a trip to the donation center. Having a designated bin for donations has been extremely helpful (as mentioned earlier). Our bin is simply a large cardboard box that we keep in the garage. Whenever we come across something we no longer use, we toss it into the bin. When the box is full, we donate it along with all its contents and replace it with a new one. This simple system helps prevent our home from becoming cluttered with unused items, especially while raising young kids.
7. Get Kids Involved – Even Young Ones
I’m a big believer that kids gain so much from learning to contribute to a household when they’re young! We always try to help teach them how to do age-appropriate tasks during the week as well as during our weekly family house cleaning sessions.
Our family economy system has been a huge help for them to get consistent practice with certain tasks. And it’s great that they’re repeated weekly because they get faster and better at them the more they do them. This is a wonderful way to make a family plan on how to keep your house clean.
There are tons of age-appropriate chore ideas out there, but here are a few that are currently useful for us to maintain a clean house with kids:
2 Year Old Chores
– Put away clean utensils
– Put clothes in hamper
– Help switch laundry
– Match everyone’s socks
4 Year Old Chores
– Unload dishwasher
– Clean up toys
– Set dinner table
– Wipe down playroom table
7 Year Old Chores
– Take out trash
– Wipe down bathroom counters and toilets
– Vacuum hallways
– Gather towels/bathmats to wash
9 Year Old Chores
– Wash kitchen rags
– Clean bathroom
– Make dinner
– Vacuum
11 Year Old Chores
– Wash towels/bathmats
– Clean bathroom
– Make dinner
– Mop
And everyone can help with tidying and rehoming! For this to be successful, we have pretty straightforward tidying systems. In our playroom, we have one toy box each for cars, Magna Tiles, LEGOs, wooden blocks, trains, and a few little toys and musical instruments. That’s it. There’s no color coded system for LEGO. There’s no rainbow book shelving. I care much more about a system that will allow us to maintain it than some aspirational, Pinterest-perfect system. Keeping the system simple, helps us to keep a clean house with a big family.
8. Incentivize to Maintain a Clean House With Kids
We don’t believe in bribing our children to do their chores or paying them for specific tasks. However, we do encourage their overall participation and positive attitude by offering incentives. We frame it as working together for the benefit of the whole family, and then everyone gets to enjoy special family privileges. These privileges can be as simple as managing family finances, watching a movie on Friday nights after everything is clean and organized, or going on an adventure together on Saturdays once the house is tidy.
We want to convey that the reward for helping out in the family is getting to have fun together. Everyone benefits from pitching in, and everyone gets to live in a neat and clean home.
To make cleaning more enjoyable, we like to incorporate small perks such as playing music, chatting, and making it a fun activity. Chores don’t have to feel like a burden! And when we all work together, the cleaning process goes much faster.
9. Minimize Clothes & Streamline Laundry
Clothes are a lot like rabbits – they seem to disappear when you need them, but multiply when you don’t. To keep our kids’ rooms and drawers organized, we’ve found that having the right number of clothes is crucial – not too few or too many. For each season, we make sure to have 8-9 sets of clothing for each child. This allows them to get through the week comfortably, with a couple extras in case of spills or accidents. It also prevents their drawers from being overcrowded.
With this system, we only need to do laundry once a week and there’s rarely ever an emergency load. Personally, I prefer this over doing laundry daily because it saves water and energy and only requires me to think about it once a week. But everyone has their own preference.
Since we live in a moderate climate, our clothes can be used throughout the year with just a jacket added on in colder months. If you live in an extreme climate, you may want to consider swapping out seasonal clothes and storing them neatly somewhere else.
10. Have the RIGHT Items
I’m not a fan of buying a lot of things just to organize my possessions. I prefer to minimize my belongings instead. However, I’ve learned that having a few essential items that work well and are easy to maintain can make a huge difference. For example, our kids’ room was always a mess with multiple children sharing a space. We tried everything to keep it tidy: tucking in blankets, folding them neatly, using thin blankets, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, we tried Beddy’s zip up bedding and suddenly, their beds looked nice and neat – and they could maintain it on their own! Every morning, my kids can make their beds without any help from me, which is a lifesaver for my sanity. Our kitchen accessories drawer was also constantly messy until I got some taller plastic dividers so that all the little tools could stand upright. Now, my kids can easily put them back where they belong, and I can find what I need without any hassle. The same goes for the charging station for their school Chromebooks and Kindles – before we had the right tool, everything was just stacked messily. But now, with the proper organization system, it’s much easier to keep it tidy on a regular basis.
11. Think About The Next Step
I’m always reminding my kids to ‘think what comes next.’ For instance, if I ask someone to go get the laundry out of the dryer, the next step would be to start folding their stuff. If I ask them to put the leftover dinner food in a container, instead of leaving the empty baking dish on the counter, they could wash it or put it in the dishwasher.
It’s super easy for kids to get really task focused and feel like they’re “done” when they do exactly what is asked of them. But it’s a great school and life skill to think of what comes next and what the true objective is (the end goal isn’t to get the clean laundry in the basket). They need reminders, but get better with practice (and I get to remind them less)!
12. Divide And Conquer
Along the lines of getting others involved, figure out if there are certain things that some people love or hate or are good/bad at completing. For instance, I’m efficient and thorough at cleaning counters. Dan is not. So I do the counters every single night. But he does the dishes every single night! He’s way better at loading the dishwasher and hand washing delicates than I am. It’s a great balance. When we divide and conquer all the tasks, it helps us to keep our clean house with kids an achievable goal.
Of course, sometimes things just take practice, especially with kids. That’s part of why we like keeping the same family economy chores list for about 6 months or so – it’s much more efficient for us than changing tasks every single week.
13. Keep Systems Kid-Accessible
One of the key factors in getting children involved in maintaining a clean home is having systems in place that they can contribute to. If you have expensive, high-end marble counters and delicate floors that require constant attention, it may not be practical to let your kids help with cleaning them.
However, this doesn’t mean you can’t have nice things at all – you definitely can! For example, we have marble counters in our bathrooms, but they are well-sealed and we keep marble cleaner and rags within easy reach for the kids to use. While there may be some scratches and wear over time, we’re okay with that. We value having our kids involved and living in a comfortable home rather than having a perfect showpiece.
Even with dishes, we make sure they are stored in cabinets at a height that is accessible for young children. This way, they can easily unload the dishwasher without fear of breaking anything or straining themselves carrying heavy items. We also use mostly inexpensive dinnerware from Ikea and basic jars for cups, so if something does break, it’s not a big loss.
The same goes for bedrooms – we have drawers and hangers at child-friendly heights for easy access. And each room has its own hamper so dirty clothes can be easily tossed in.
14. Create Hanging Systems
One thing I’ve noticed is that clutter attracts clutter. And when you have a big family, clutter can collect quickly. Before we had these hanging fruit baskets, we kept bowls of fruit on our countertops. And mail, school papers, and other junk would constantly accumulate near them! But getting some stuff off the counter has helped get other stuff off the counters, too.
15. Write It Down
Especially when it comes to multi-step tasks, I find it really helpful to write down exactly what needs to be done. This might look like printing and laminating a recipe card or a bathroom cleaning checklist (both of which we’ve done). The task lists can grow quickly when keeping a clean house so by keeping a checklist, it’s easy for anyone doing it to know exactly what not to miss.
16. Have A Command Center
Hear me out here. I know so many people tell you to not put stuff in piles, because then those piles expand. And that’s often true. But when living in a family, sometimes those things that need to be taken care of just really do need to be taken care of, and you can’t do it right that second because you have to drive to baseball practice or change diaper or give someone a snack RIGHT NOW. Whew.
So instead of having 8 thousand little piles all over the house, I like to have one central spot where I put things that need to be taken care of. (For us, it’s the big computer desk in the playroom.) Returns I need to mail back. A school form that needs to be filled out. A thank you note to send. The trick is to check this spot regularly, and to actually do all the little things instead of letting them just sit for forever. The bonus is I don’t rack my brain wondering where I put that bill because it most likely ended up in this spot!
17. Work Together
I’ve mentioned this throughout, but cleaning and tidying a home with kids tends to work much better for us when we’re all working together. My kids resist doing something unsavory if they’re the only ones working. But when we all pitch in together, everyone is less likely to slack. It’s motivating to work as a team to get something done together!
18. Practice
I’ve mentioned it a number of times throughout, but a lot of these things just take practice! And that’s okay. Just because your 6 year old doesn’t unload the entire dishwasher on their own the first time doesn’t mean they’re not capable, or that it will always take 20 minutes of cajoling. Kids are great at learning and adapting, and improve quickly when given the chance. Give it time! Taking the time to practice can even help toddlers pitch in to keeping a clean home.
19. Hire Help If You Can
Although it is a great privilege, every few months we hire cleaners to thoroughly clean our home. We have decided to allocate our money towards this service instead of spending hours doing deep cleaning ourselves. We are thankful for the means to make this choice, support a local business, and free up our time for other tasks. Of course, not everyone has the luxury to do so, but perhaps there are alternative ways you can exchange services for cleaning help. Maybe you can cook or babysit in exchange for cleaning, or offer tutoring services. If keeping your home clean is a challenge for you, it may be worth considering these options.
20. Get Outside to Help Keep a Clean House With Kids
Despite our best efforts, the most effective way to maintain a clean and organized home with kids is to simply not be in it. My own children thrive when they are outside, and we always have a better time when we go out on adventures. Personally, I feel like a better mother when we take a break from being cooped up indoors all day. Of course, I understand that this may not apply to everyone; some people genuinely enjoy spending extended periods of time at home, and that’s perfectly fine! But if possible, I believe everyone can benefit from some fresh air and physical activity. Whether it’s taking a walk, visiting a museum, or even just having a picnic in the front yard, getting outside can do wonders for everyone’s mood and well-being. And as an added bonus, nobody can make any messes in the house if we’re all out having fun together.
21. Know It Won’t Be Perfect
My last tip to keeping a clean house with kids it to know it won’t be perfect. Honestly, I never want to live in a house with kids that is always sparkling clean and perfectly tidy. Because that means we’re not actually living in it! I want our house to serve us, not the other way around. It’s intended to be a place where we can connect and have fun as a family. Keeping it clean and tidy is supposed to facilitate that – not take away from it.
There are some things that almost never get cleaned. And that’s okay. We basically never pull beds away from the wall to vacuum. We rarely dust bookshelves. It’s fine. It doesn’t impact our day-to-day life and I’m fine with knowing that our house is clean and tidy enough for us to relax and enjoy our time together.