OMG, I Am Cleaning up After My Three Year Old ALL DAY, Help

M.,

I agree with all the prior posts - I'm STILL in this "battle" with my 4 yr old:

- limit access to toys and clothes
- what she does trash and won't clean up, take away
- use a reward system to get her start helping around the house. What does she like dolls, movies??? Let her EARN time with these things. As in, start a process where after she picks up her room, she can have 15 mins of movie time.
- forget changing clothes all day long. Let her pick two outfits at the beginning of the day and that's it for the whole day. Or better yet, give her a "dress up box" of clothes from a second hand store. Let her earn 15 mins of dress up time and stay in one "regular" outfit all day.

The bottom line is YOU make the rules. If she doesn't like them, she has to adjust. Don't let her trample all over you just because she's 3 and cute.

Sounds like you need The House Fairy! And your daughter is the perfect age!

www.thehousefairy.org

It totally worked for us! We went from a very messy child who NEVER cleaned her room and right after I introduced The House Fairy we've had a clean room with no fuss since!

First we had to declutter her room. We got rid of a lot of stuff she never played with and organized the stuff she did play with. I put it all into bins that are labeled. Everything in the room has a place, and I started with pictures over where everything went (a picture of her chair over where her chair went) until she knew. Now we don't need the pictures anymore (she's 8 now).

Things she really didn't want to part with we "saved" in our attic. If she didn't ask for them after a while I freecycled them. Nice toys I sold and then she got the money for new toys. That really got her to want to get rid of things (but your daughter is a little young to understand).

We went to the House Fairy site and she saw the videos. Then she followed the instructions and picked up 5 things in her room (which turned into wanting it clean for the House Fairy). The House Fairy visits once a week unexpectedly and leaves a "surprise" if the room is clean and fairy dust (confetti) if it is not. Confetti is put on the floor and she must vacuum it up. She loves getting surprises (which I get in the dollar bins at Target) and all it takes is a reminder that the House Fairy "might" visit that night for her to clean up her stuff! We've taking pictures of her clean room and I used the certificates and stuff from the website as well as making my own stuff. I didn't believe myself that it would work but it has! Our House Fairy always leaves a positive note in curly writing and my daughter often writes notes back.

(As a side note her room at her mom's house is still a disaster area, the House Fairy does not visit there.)

My daughter wanted to change her clothes several times a day as well. At first I was worried about tromping on her independence...but what about MY independence from laundry? We had a big talk about ONE outift a day. If she tries to change her clothes I make her change them back, reciting the rule ONE outfit a day.

I did make a special drawer of dress up/play clothes that we do not wash every time. She's allowed to put on play clothes or dress up clothes if she wants to change her outfit. The dress up clothes have to be put back in the drawer when she's done playing and she must change back into her regular clothes.

I know they love to play and use their clothes to make fun outfits. We do play "fashion show" sometimes when she is allowed to dress up in any of her clothes she wants and we take digital pictures to music and she poses. She loves Fashion Show, and all the clothes must be put back when she's done. I guess letting her know that there are times when she can play dress up and times when she can't has helped. She has freedom sometimes, and follows the rules others. It's a great compromise!

Good luck!

First, please don't forget every child/person is different. I, for one, am a complete obsessive about cleaning. Always have been (our mother loved it of course). My sister, on the other hand, could care less (our mother constantly nagged her and nothing ever changed, that's just her). But as you know, we have to instill the best beliefs we can in our children and I don't think it's acceptable to just "allow" her to be that way because "that's just how she is." Please don't think I'm saying that. I'm just saying our children are not little robots who do and say just what we want. I obviously think you know that by now! >: ) However, I think there are a couple of things you can do. First, limit what she has access to. Second, give her little chores to do every week like emptying out the bathroom garbage cans on garbage day, ie: get her involved with other things than just cleaning up her toys, her clothes, etc. My son helps me empty the dishwasher, helps me put the clothes from the washer to dryer, etc. He loves being involved. And third, we sing the "clean up" song when it's time to clean up items he's played with. (Clean up, clean up, everybody everwhere, clean up, clean up, everyone do your share.) Once I start singing, he knows it's time to clean. My son does not like being told what to do so if I tell him (and yelling really doesn't work) to pick up, he just stands there staring at me or runs away laughing. Not fun. But if I sing, he just gets involved because he wants to participate, because that's what he decided he wanted to do and not us dictating for him to do it (stubborn little butt!). Works for us anyway. I hope the advice you get helps!

My daughter was a tornado, too, at that age. However, I now have a teen and a tween and I JUST had this frustrating conversation with them, yesterday - "I am more than just a cleaning lady!". ARrrrrrgggghh. it's not just a 3-year old concern! But you must stay on them.

Totally organize her room. Work with her on it. Take out what is not needed and give it away if she will never use it. Toss the little stuff. Get her used to organizing it. If she insists on "saving it", make the suggestion to "move it to another part of the home", temporarily, and box it. If it sits "temporarily" untouched for over a month - donate it.

Limit the amount of stuff in her room. If she has an excessive amount of toys, leave some, box up the rest and you can relocate them, to storage and rotate them out every month or two.

Look through her clothing - does she need that many clothes? If you have her winter and summer clothes in her room, put the opposite season in a bin and take out what is needed for this season.

Make organizing easy for her - use easy to store bins that possibly slide or sit on a shelf. Label the bin and color code, if necessary.

Get her in the habit of doing small chores: When she wakes up, she should make her bed, open her blind/curtain, put all dirty clothes in hamper, kiss her stuffed animals and give them a bed to lay in. Whatever the routine - just strive for consistency. She's still young and when she makes a huge mess, it could overwhelm her too.

After you have done all of this, set up a system to "check on her room". At the beginning, make it every other day. Praise her when you see her bed made or anything good that she has done. After that, maybe on a weekly basis, she may enjoy a walk with you, bike ride, trip to the park, ice cream cone or just a "bedtime story" in her room... whatever she would think would be a great reward for being "responsible". Every couple weeks, you may have to help her do more of the nitty-gritty stuff to keep order.

Independence can mean two outfits for a day - no more. You won't stifle her. She can wear her third choice the next day.

Always make sure before the holidays (November) that all toys and stuff have been completely sifted through. Get her into the habit of working with her to donate what she doesn't need so that she becomes aware of others who are in need that she can help.

My children still enjoy it when I help them clean their rooms, every few months. It's also good to be able to have access to your child's room, especially when they are older and trust you. That's why you start when they are young. it's a great bonding time for them (if you can look beyond the mess) to feel that they have your undivided attention and may be apt to open up about private topics.

Good luck.

We just have two clean up times per day. Once before nap and once before bed. Other than that, anything can be out at any time. It's just too much a battle otherwise, and you really have to pick your battles as a mom, don't you? So why worry about the mess? My philosophy is, the first person that makes a comment about the mess in my house.... doesn't need to stay! :)

Anyone with kids knows toys abound. I just have two set clean up times and that way, we all can have fun and stay sane.

Regarding the clothes: You could install babyproofing locks on the closet and drawers in her room so she can't get to the clothes after she chooses her outfit in the morning. (How on earth do you keep up with the laundry?) I'm sure you give her hundreds of opportunities a day to develop and practice her independence, so teaching her to stay in one outfit a day shouldn't have a negative impact. Good luck!

I had to laugh when I read your post. That is my daughter to a T! She LOVES to change her clothes- such a fashionista! But we have a rule- she can only change one thing at a time and there is only a couple of things she can change into. Like we pick out 2 or 3 shirts, bottoms, etc a day and she can change one item at a time and mix and match them. Meaning- she can changer her shirt and put it in the basket next to her dresser and then later when she wants to change again she can change into a skirt from pants and put the pants in the basket and later if she wants to change she puts on the orignal shirt and it's like a third outfit. I hope that makes sense. At least that way we're not going through 6 shirts, 6 bottoms, 6 underwears, etc a day.
As far as the mess- my kid is a tazmanian devil. She can look at a room and it's a disater! In her room I usually let it slide during the day but before bath time at night we clean things up in her room. Making a mess in the rest of the house is a different story- when she's done playing with stuff- if it gets left laying out it's gone. I just put it away in the closet. Eventually when she's had an extra good day or something she'll get it back.
I get those overworked, God I'm going to scream if I look at another dish days too. But you know what? If the carpet doesn't get vaccumed today nobody's going to die. If we have sandwiches for dinner instead of me cooking- it's not the end of the world. This is a 24 hour a day job- we're allowed breaks!
I kinda like having such a little whirlwind. She's so creative and gets so many ideas they sometimes just careen into each other. And yeah she makes a mess but she's imaginitive. And when she and Diego are exploring the cave (her closet) and then she has to set up the carnival for the dinosaurs and save the Mermaid's crown with Dora who has time to clean up in between? And I like helping her clean it all up at night- because she tells me about her adventures while we are putting stuff away.
Anyway- good luck!

Tell her she needs to pick up her stuff and help her with it the first time. In the future, however, tell her if she leaves the stuff out she doesn't get to play with it anymore. She'll test you - she won't believe you, and she'll surely leave the toys out because she hasn't had any consequence for it yet.

And when she does leave her beloved toys out for YOU to pick it, pick them up for her - one time only - and box them up and hide them. You will send her a clear message that if she does not take care of her things then they 'disappear' for days at a time. When she cries and asks where her things are, tell her "You need to take care of your stuff. When you don't take care of your stuff, it goes away." She'll get her act together rather quickly, I'm sure.

I remember when my oldest at 3yo was like that! I also felt like I wanted him to have access to all of his toys and things. Things improved HUGELY when I narrowed down the options. All toys went into storage in the basement playroom closet and I took out/brought up only a couple of boxes/sets at a time. The new rule was, you can't bring up the (tinkertoys) until you put away the (playmobil pirates).

Same with clothes - out of sight, out of mind. Give her one drawer or shelf she can pick from - everything else stays in the drawers.

Prevention is the key - if she's like my son (and sad for you it sounds like she is, haha!) although it is worth it to teach the skills of cleaning, you aren't going to get much real "help" that way for a few years.

I agree about housefairy! Even my teenager would "clean up" his room (aka make his bed lol) for a pack of gum! It's like dangling a carrot for your kids instead of smacking their bottom, though that may be necessary too!

Check out FlyLady.net and/or read her book, Sink Reflections. You can get your cleaning routine paired down so you're mostly just picking up a little here and there, doing things a little at a time. It really saved my sanity.

Good luck and enjoy your munchkins, they grow up way too fast, and yet sometimes, not fast enough lol.

D.