12 Toddler Chores

I love free child labor! (That's a joke.) But I think having my toddler help out with chores is a great idea for three reasons. One, it is a good thing for him to learn to help contribute to the family and be proud of doing so. Two, these are just good skills for him to learn how to do physically. Three, some chores he does help with really are helpful. I put together a list of 12 toddler chores in three categories.

The Actually Helpful Chores

1. Help with switching laundry loads. I hand him the wet clothes/diapers and he throws them in the wash.

2. Picking up toys.

3. Wiping off his high chair tray.

4. Throwing away dirty disposable diapers.


The Somewhat Helpful Chores

5. Help putting silverware in the dishwasher. He still gets derailed and tries to unload it too.

6. Help unloading the dryer. Sometimes the laundry goes from dryer to basket to floor to be stomped on.

7. Taking the garbage out with daddy. Eh, not helpful but it's still him feeling helpful which is important.

8. Flushing the toilet. Again, I can do this myself but it makes him feel helpful.


The Mostly Unhelpful Chores (These chores do slightly more harm than good;) )

(Let me preface this section by saying that I'd totally not let him "help" with any of these if he didn't feel so proud of himself)

9. Sweeping. That broom can be a deadly weapon.

10. Making the bed (more like climbing under the sheets and laughing.)

11. Folding dish rags. These puppies usually end up wadded up on the floor.

12. Holding cans and things in the cart at the grocery store.

Those are the "chores" I have my two year old help with. Do you have your kids help out around the house? How old are they and what do they help with? Share in a comment below.

A Home Divided

We are living in a home divided. Literally if I could just find the masking tape! We're entering a new era of our lives and are modifying the cleaning schedule just a little bit. The same practices of cleaning on commercials, general house upkeep, etc. still apply but we're temporarily rearranging responsibilities.

Truth be told, the bending and picking up clutter is starting to kill my back. I mentioned this to my sweet husband and we came up with a temporary solution to alleviate just a little of this up and down off the floor craziness during my last trimester. We split up the apartment into these awesome "final months of pregnancy zones" as illustrated by my poorly drawn charts below:

Disclaimer: my spacial intelligence is pathetic, so our floor plan looks almost nothing like this.

Zone #1 - The upper portion of the horribly drawn floor plan.

Master bedroom, bathroom, hallway and kid's room are all my zones. I do the clutter control in these areas.

Zone #2 - The lower portion of the horribly drawn floor plan.

This is sweet husband's clutter control area. I was most glad to rid myself of the living room clutter control since it was constant up/down, up/down, up/down.

Now, sweet husband DOES work outside of the home and he works quite a bit. To balance this all out:

Deep Cleaning: The vacuuming, mopping, scrubbing, etc. of all areas of the horribly drawn floor plan.

This is what I do. He helps with the clutter, but I still do all of the deep cleaning.

The Laundry: Imagine clothes all over the horribly drawn floor plan. I clean them.

I do the laundry. This means the bulk of the housework is my responsibility, but he still hooks me up with clutter control in zone 2 for the next few months.

So far this seems to be working great! But, I'm curious- if one person is struggling with their household duties, how do you, oh reader, rearrange the jobs?

Join me next time when I talk about childhood labor. I'm going to share some great toddler chores!

Bethany

Finding the Balance

Last week I rounded the corner into my third trimester and let me tell you - housework has been ridiculous. If I go on one of my cleaning frenzies I can barely move for two days because my lower back hurts so bad. Whine, whine, whine. I'm pregnant and housework is hard. You get the idea.

Bottom line, this week has been kind of a week of healing and recovery. I way overdid it last weekend and it took me several days to recover. I haven't mastered this whole pacing myself thing. I just clean/cook/etc. like a crazy person or I don't.

Am I the only one who struggles with finding the balance in housekeeping?