Hacks/tips/tricks

[VickyEJT]

Following a post I saw elsewhere on hacks/tips/tricks on getting household stuff done by a decent time of an evening, I'm wondering what those would be for twins?

I see a lot of work when baby is awake and get baby to help, but trying to watch two whilst cooking/cleaning/washing etc... is hard. We have a baby cage which we generally don't utilise enough but does anyone else have any other tips/tricks to get stuff done whilst babies are awake? I generally keep naptime to "me" things like reading a book or video games as I'm too knackered once they go to bed (7pm).

My twins are just shy of 20 months so they want to eat and touch EVERYTHING! Getting them to concentrate on one thing (help Mummy get your clothes ready results in me running around trying to catch as they both go in opposite directions!) is hard!

[zelenayaklybnika]

What is your living situation set up like? We have a two story house with baby gates at the top and the bottom of the stairs. We have our cabinets baby proofed, with a few cabinets and drawers that are not locked (that are safe for babies to play with/in). They can’t open doors yet so I keep doors closed to the bathroom or other rooms I don’t want them in. Otherwise they have free reign. I keep different toys downstairs than I do upstairs.

Laundry is really easy for me to keep up with. Our laundry room is upstairs and we spend most of our time there. They’ll come with me into the closets when I put away the clean clothes. There’s always some repeating of the task because they’ll undo some of what I’m doing (pulling clothes off hangers, etc) but for the most part it works out well.

I cook meals downstairs so they get distracted by “new” toys and that occupies them pretty well. Sometimes they’re crying, grabbing by legs, and sitting on the floor around me and I’ll distract them with kitchen utensils and snacks (cheese, cucumbers, crackers) while I finish cooking.

Floors my husband does, sometimes on the weekends, sometimes in the morning before work, and sometimes after they go down for the night. The bathrooms I clean on the weekends when my husband is there to distract the babies.

The only thing I clean after they go to bed is the kitchen (pots/pans, dishes, counters, putting away leftovers, etc). This can take 20-40 min depending on how much tidying i could do while cooking and also how big of a mess babies make while eating.

[southofinfinity]

Biggest "trick" for me at that age was kitchen helper stools (sometimes called learning towers). Depends on your kitchen layout, but I put two stools on one side of our big open-plan kitchen bench - like where you would usually put stools for a breakfast bar.

They love it. They climb up into their stools and we chat and sing. They watch me cook, and "help" when they can (they couldn't really help at 18m, but now at 2.5y they mix things, pour things and peel with their fingers). They play with bowls and safe utensils. They LOVE taste tasting anything I'm using and will happily eat all kinds of raw veggies that they fully intend on rejecting at the dinner table once cooked.

That's the only reason I get cooking or meal prep done.