Inside: Looking for a homeschool mom cleaning schedule that doesn’t involve dedicating hours a day to cleaning or maintaining a perfectly tidy house? You’ve come to the right place! Get my super simple weekly and daily cleaning routine, along with permission to do less.
When we moved to a bigger house two years ago, I knew I needed a cleaning schedule or routine. But I also knew it needed to be super simple – just the basics to keep our home relatively clean, to my own standards.
I’ve been using it for over a year now, and I love that it’s now a routine/habit.
I wake up each day knowing exactly what my big cleaning job is for the day, and I tackle it mostly out of habit (something you do without even thinking and feel like something’s missing if you don’t).
What won’t you find on this list? Cleaning windows, dusting, wiping down baseboards. This is realistic for moms homeschooling multiple kids and/or working part-time.
I do those cleaning tasks when they start to bother me, but they are in no way on any kind of schedule.
Why not? Because they just don’t matter that much to me.
With five kids and working while homeschooling, I’ve learned to prioritize ruthlessly and let go of A LOT of things. I highly recommend you do the same.
In this post, I’m going to cover the following:
- Weekly Homeschool Mom Cleaning Schedule
- Clean All In One Day? Spread It Out Over the Week?
- Daily Homeschool Mom Cleaning Schedule
- A Note on Involving Kids in Cleaning
- Should I Hire a House Cleaner?
- Homeschool Moms Don’t Need Squeaky Clean Houses
Let’s jump in!
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Weekly Homeschool Mom Cleaning Schedule
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I’ll start with the bigger tasks I put onto the weekly calendar, mainly bathrooms and vacuuming. You’ll need to adjust your schedule depending on the size of your home and what additional tasks you want to accomplish (or don’t want to accomplish).
But again, I encourage you to make your own cleaning schedule realistic. So many cleaning schedules and routines I’ve seen online take way more time and energy than I have (or want) to give to cleaning.
For bathrooms, I almost always clean from top to bottom, including showers, baths, floors and mirrors. They take anywhere from 20-40 minutes to clean, depending on the size of the bathroom.
Eventually, the kids will take over cleaning their own bathrooms. We’re not quite there yet.
Weekly Cleaning Routine (Updated)
- Monday: Boys’ Bathroom
- Tuesday: Guest Bathroom
- Wednesday: Vacuum/Sweep Downstairs
- Thursday: Vacuum Upstairs
- Friday: Kitchen Appliances (Grocery Day)
- Saturday: Sweep Kitchen, Empty Trash
- Sunday: Master Bathroom
You could add in things to this list as desired. If you want to dust, for instance, you could put dusting on the schedule the day before you vacuum.
What About Laundry?
I throw in a load of laundry every morning and try to put it away in the evening. That doesn’t always happen, but it’s not that hard to do because I stopped folding laundry and only need to put it away.
If I don’t have a load going, I gently remind my older kids that the washing machine is free (and that it won’t be the next day).
Related: A No-Fold Laundry System for Adults Who Are Tired of Folding
Clean All In One Day? Spread It Out Over the Week?
I’ve heard homeschool moms do both. It truly depends on your personal preference, how old your kids are, and whether or not you divide up the work between family members.
Personally, doing it all in one day sounds exhausting. But if you have older kids and/or you’re splitting the cleaning equally with your partner, it’s doable.
There’s probably also something to be said for that “the whole house is clean” feeling.
I prefer to spread it out over a week, especially because if something were to happen on the one designated cleaning day, like a special event or sickness, catching up just wouldn’t happen. Then you’re stuck with a dirty house all week.
You could give both a trial run and evaluate what works best for your unique homeschool family.
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Daily Homeschool Mom Cleaning Schedule
Most of my daily cleaning schedule revolves around dishes and the kitchen. I don’t make beds, and while I used to tidy the bathroom every day as part of my morning routine, I no longer do.
A bigger house and more on my plate meant stripping some of those daily tasks to save energy.
I don’t tidy the house every day anymore unless I have the energy and truly want to. This might sound radical, but because we’ve chosen to live a minimalist lifestyle, things rarely get to the point of being overwhelmingly messy.
I can live with a not always tidy house as long as I know it’s clean.
(Clean and tidy aren’t the same thing.)
Daily Cleaning Tasks
- One Load of Laundry, Start to Finish
- Wash, Dry & Put Away All Hand-Wash Dishes and Pots/Pans
- Clear Kitchen Table & Breakfast Bar
- Wipe Down Table & Counters
My older children help with dishes.
One empties the dishwasher in the morning, one gathers all dishes from the entire house at the end of the day, and the other rinses and loads the dishwasher at night. The little ones currently shadow an older sibling and help them with their job.
My dream/goal is to outsource all of the kitchen related tasks, except cleaning out the fridge in the next couple of years.
You can add in what matters to you, whether that’s making the bed or sweep the kitchen. Just make sure it’s truly important to you and worth your time.
A Note on Involving Kids in Cleaning
My kids help out as asked, and as I mentioned earlier, they each have a daily cleaning task related to dishes. If they need extra money, I offer them one of my weekly cleaning tasks from the schedule above.
I’ll often invite kids to join me in cleaning tasks when I’m feeling up to having help – and on my schedule.
Other than that, at the time of this writing, my cleaning schedule is my own. Why? Because I have anxiety, and having a solid cleaning routine that I control helps me manage that anxiety.
All of my older kids have learned at various times how to vacuum or how to clean a bathroom sink. But it’s more stressful for me at this point to release a cleaning task and need to follow up on it and manage it.
There will come a point when I train my older ones on cleaning bathrooms and fully release it to them to remember to do it weekly. Right now, that doesn’t work for me.
If you have the time and energy to invest in training at younger ages, awesome. I hear it can be lovely…usually after several weeks or months of training. If that works for you, do it!
For our family dynamics and my personality and parenting style, it doesn’t work right now.
And if that’s where you’re at, I want you to know that you can give yourself permission to do things differently. You don’t need to use chore charts or make your kids help because so and so said you’re ruining your kids if you don’t.
There’s time for that in a different season of life. Make the decision that’s right for you right now.
Related: Should Kids Do Chores? A Healthier Approach for Kids and Parents
Should I Hire a House Cleaner?
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: some homeschool mom bloggers have help. They might not broadcast it, but they do.
Maybe they hire cleaners. Maybe they hire babysitters. Or maybe they have family who watches their kids twice a week so they can get time to themselves.
And all of that is awesome! I only have a problem with it when they look like super hero rockstars on the outside, and their audience doesn’t realize that they have help.
Either way, hiring a house cleaner is a valid option. If you have the funds and want to spend them that way, please do it!
If it makes you happy and takes something off your plate, you’ll be a better homeschool mom because of it.
Personally, I don’t have a lot of outside help. I weighed my options and decided to invest a little extra money into prepared foods or take-out because I enjoy cleaning more than I enjoy cooking.
I also chose not to hire a house cleaner because I finally realized it was more than o.k. to simply CLEAN LESS.
But especially if you are facing homeschool mom burnout, and need/can outsource things, do it!
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Homeschool Moms: You Don’t Need Squeaky Clean Houses
Cleaning less is a choice not many homeschool moms – or moms in general – realize they are free to make.
We feel pressured by society, social media and cleaning blogs and books, basically by everyone. We get the not-so-subtle message that our homes need to be (or look) clean all.the.time to be a good mom.
The reality is that many of us are raising children often without the villages our parents and grandparents had. We are raising them without the social safety net that other parents have in different countries.
In this cultural landscape, doing less (and owning less) is often the sanest choice. I also honestly didn’t like the mom I was when my goal was a perfectly clean house all the time.
Homeschool mom: your mental and physical health matters. If cleaning less means you can exercise or read or do whatever it is that you need to do for self-care, do it.
As an old magnet on my grandmother’s fridge used to say, “Cleaning the house while kids are still growing is like shoveling snow while it’s still snowing.”
Remind yourself daily that you have a real home where real people live, and unlike many families, your kids are home all day, most days. It’s not supposed to magazine-worthy.
(If you are Type A and want that squeaky clean home and have the time, energy and desire to invest in it, check out The Fly Lady or Clean Mama. I hear they’re excellent.)
Do you have a homeschool mom cleaning schedule? Share in the comments!
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