After we had our daughter, our clutter multiplied and our time for chores became super limited. She’s 17 months old and we’ve only just started to get into a good cleaning schedule and not have to throw things behind closed doors really fast if the doorbell rings. If you’re struggling with postpartum anxiety or just feeling overwhelmed, it can be helpful to create systems and schedules with predictable times, places and ways to clean and organize the house.
The schedule I created for our family has chores we do every day, outside chores, swing days where we do the big stuff that is on a monthly rotation and then each day of the week has a specific chore. Some days’ chores are aligned with scheduled trash or recycling days to keep it easier too. I like to think of it as a grown-up chore chart and if it makes you happy, I won’t judge if you bring out stickers and glitter for yours. Ours is taped inside of a cabinet door in the kitchen, but I also keep a picture of it on my phone.
My swing day chores, that I do each Saturday are usually bigger projects. This past weekend, I organized…or overhauled our pantry. It was a walk-in pantry that we hadn’t been able to actually walk into in almost two years. If you’re looking for pantry organization ideas, look no further than the Dollar Tree. I found an entire aisle of different colored baskets and buckets in all different fun colors. I went with blue and bought 2-4 of about 5 different styles. I pulled everything out of the pantry, tossed a giant garbage bag of expired things, ditched all of the boxes and sorted everything in about 3 hours. Then, because using my label maker is cathartic, I labeled the bins and shelves so there is no excuse for things not finding their way home. Some of my bins were labeled for cat food, snacks, grilling spices, baking, teabags/drink mixes, cooking oils/sprays, ziplock bags etc. If your pantry, nursery or linen closet cause avalanches or make doors pop open, our postpartum doulas love to organize and label everything in those spaces so you can focus on more important things, like squeezing your new baby.
Click here to download a blank template of our cleaning schedule, for you to fill in or change up for your family. If you keep up with it, you shouldn’t ever have to tackle the entire house in one day again. To keep things efficient, you can even buy a few extra bins with handles so each room has it's own bin of cleaning supplies you can carry on that room's set day. For those of you concerned with chemicals in cleaners, check out these microfiber cleaning cloths that just use water. If getting started is overwhelming or you don’t know how to fold a fitted sheet and want someone else to organize the linen closet while you sip some tea, call us at (210) 867-5848 or email jessica@attuneddoulas.com to schedule a shift with one of our amazing postpartum doulas.