How to Maintain a Tidy Home With Toddlers

How to Maintain a Tidy Home With Toddlers

Toddlers are messy. They are tiny, sometimes sticky, tornados of excitement and blunder. Trying  to keep your home tidy with a toddler can feel like a never ending endeavor. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Today I am sharing tips for maintaining a tidy home with toddlers. 

Simplify Your Home

Eliminate problems before they arise by decluttering. If there are less knickknacks around, it’s less likely your toddler will get ahold of one and break it or lose it. 

On top of that, less stuff in general gives you more mental space to take on the day. Now, I am not saying you should get rid of prized family heirlooms or your collection of super sweet figurines. I am simply suggesting that those items are not in the common areas while your tiny tornado is actively tornado-ing. 

Keep items that you don’t want ravaged out of sight (or reach!) in an office or guest room until your toddler is a bit older. 

Follow a Cleaning Schedule

By routinely cleaning your home, it is more likely that you can avoid messes. Check out my FREE weekly cleaning schedule for a simple to use guide. Maintaining a tidy home with toddlers takes a bit of work, but it is not impossible if you have the right systems in place. You are less likely to have a pile of laundry your little one can drag all around the house if you are cleaning it regularly. 

I also have a rotational cleaning guide to help you tackle every area in your home. 

Put Rules in Place

Teach your toddler that when they make a mess, they have to clean it up. It’s a part of life, and they’ll inevitably have to learn this one day. We have a cube shelf and baskets like these that my son knows his toys need to go in at the end of each day. He also knows that in order to get out another toy set in his playroom, he will first need to clean up a basket of toys first.

Warning: this is NOT an easy task. Toddlers don’t always want to follow rules or do what they are told. Teaching them to clean up their mess will take time and dedication. However, toddlers often like to help or be involved in whatever their parents are doing, so use this to your advantage where possible. Start small, like picking up their toys, or wiping up spilled water. 

Disclaimer: do not expect your child to clean up dangerous items like broken glass. It is up to you to discern what is a teachable moment versus where you need to step in. 

Give Everything a Home

For a long time, my kitchen table would get clogged with paper. Mail got tossed on, I would do my meal planning and weekly checklists at the table. Receipts and coloring pages all ended up on the table. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love using our kitchen table. I don’t think it should be picture perfect and only used for meals. But the problem is that I had nowhere to put stuff when I was done using the table. I now have homes for everything. 

Mail is looked through as soon as I get in the house and discarded or filed away if important. I now keep my planner in a designated drawer in the kitchen so that it is close by when I need to use it. Receipts are logged into Ibotta as soon as I finish putting the groceries away. Coloring pages are put on the fridge or discreetly tossed in the trash during nap time. 

Find a home for toys, art supplies, water play, you name it. This leaves you less likely to find your house cluttered. It also makes it more likely that you’ll find whatever item you need when you go to look for it again!

Have Less Available

Keep toys up and out of sight, only pulling out what your child is currently playing with. If you allow all of the toys to be strewn across the playroom, they will inevitably end up elsewhere.

Think of it this way: if there are less toys in your home, there is less chance of those toys being spread far and wide throughout the house. 

As mentioned above, decluttering your kid’s toys can help keep your home tidier. You can also instill a rule that toys must be cleaned up before new toys can come out. Keep toys not currently in use in a closet or cabinet nearby so that your kiddo can have access when you allow it. 

Get Out of the House

If you aren’t at home, your toddler cannot cause chaos at home. Especially if I have just done a deep clean, I try to get my kid out of the house for the day so that we can come back to a tidy home. 

Plus, it is beneficial to both you and your child to be outdoors, and/or socializing. Even if you only make it to your favorite store to shop, it will still benefit both of you. While it may seem daunting to take your rambunctious toddler out in public, it does get easier with time and  repetition. 

Don’t Strive for Perfection

I don’t know if you know this, but your home has people living in it. For that fact alone, it’s probably not going to look perfect all the time unless you have a team of employees working on it. Your home is not a museum, so remember that it is a space filled with love. And love is a little messy sometimes. 

Embrace This Season

Your children are only children for a short time. Be present while you can, and I’m betting you won’t be so focused on how untidy it is. Your toddler will never be this age again, so learn and explore and get messy. 

By making it more difficult for your home to get messy, it will stay tidier. Let me know in the comments below if you have tried any of my methods for maintaining a tidy home with toddlers.