Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
You will probably be interested in this post if you contemplate going without a live-in helper soon. It must be a hard decision to make, especially if you are a full-time working mother with young children.
Here is my story as a work-from-home mother with four kids, ages 5 to 12.
I decided not to hire any domestic helper after my last helper completed her contract in June 2022. It was a significant decision that I bravely went ahead with, not knowing whether I was up to it.
I anticipated that life without a domestic helper would be very challenging. I could foresee dealing with the colossal mess the kids would create daily, especially the 5-year-old twins, who still lack many executive skills to help them organise and tidy up.
Further, besides being the tutor for the older kids, I would be the cook and housekeeper. How about my blog and e-commerce shop? Would I be able to continue managing them?
I might drop the ball with so much to do and so little time. Moreover, I never like to deal with cleaning or tidying up. Decluttering is hard for me too.
But I went ahead with it because I yearned to give the kids many opportunities to step up, take ownership of their lives, and pick up gross motor skills and practical skills that will be useful for the rest of their lives. Moreover, I have a child who is experiencing some developmental delay. So giving the kids learning opportunities are essential to me.
With a domestic helper I paid to clear the mess at home, it was undoubtedly difficult for the kids to pick up those skills.
If you have experience hiring domestic helpers, you know many potential problems employers face. Loads of luck are needed to find the right fit for the family. I am not going into the details. I was pretty lucky already, so I am grateful. But if possible, I prefer not to hire any domestic helper in the foreseeable future.
Two months forward – Surviving Without A Domestic Helper
Well, I am still surviving without a helper.
The kids continue to wear clean clothes, eat healthy food and live in a relatively clean environment. I am still mainly tutoring the older kids on my own.
But I am not a superwoman. I did get help, good help from electronic appliances that have reduced my time and effort spent on daily chores. And I have outsourced my ironing needs too.
If you are contemplating going without a domestic helper, too, here are some tips you will find helpful in surviving without a helper.
In short, it is all about using the right cleaning tools, having a positive mindset, multi-tasking, delegating, and adjusting expectations.
Effective Cleaning Tools
Having the right tools will make a big difference to your housekeeping experience. The never-ending chores you have to handle take up much of your time and energy. I am sure you prefer to spend on bonding with your family and simply resting your body, especially if you are a full-time working mother.
There are a couple of life-saving tools that I have invested in to reduce my load and improve my focus on my family.
Dishwasher
If you like to cook for your family, you will find many dirty dishes to deal with. But, unless you find washing dirty dishes therapeutic, you probably will not enjoy doing it after a while.
Call me inefficient, but I can spend at least 45 minutes merely washing up after a meal. And that is at least 1 hour 30 mins daily for lunch and dinner.
Evening time is precious to me, especially if the kids go to bed early when there is school the next day. There is schoolwork for me to help out with and many other evening routines to handle. But the clutter after meals bothers me a lot. The dishwasher has helped to reduce one of my major pain points.
My kids are now learning to clear the table and load the dishes into the dishwasher. Over the weekends, when we have more time for slow living, the kids wash a couple of dishes by hand or, let’s call it time for water play.
Someone commented that the dishwasher wastes a lot of water. I can’t entirely agree as a person may waste more water than a dishwasher; it all depends on how the person does the job.
I have invested in the Electrolux UltimateCare 300 compact dishwasher. This tabletop dishwasher fits into my tiny kitchen and yet is mighty enough to wash dishes for a family meal for six people.
It has two ticks for its water efficiency rating (maximum ticks is 3). I typically use the Quick 30mins program, which according to its manual, requires only 7 litres of water per run. Whereas PUB mentioned on its website that running the tap for dishwashing wastes 40 litres of water. What a significant difference! I will write a review on the dishwasher another day to cover more details.
After three months of going without a live-in helper, my utility bills have dropped despite using additional electrical appliances to save time and workload.
Vacuum Cleaners That Multi-Task
Do you have an obsession with clean floors? Or maybe your young kids are still learning to crawl or picking food up from the floor to nibble on?
I have cultivated an obsession for dust-free floors since I was young, thanks to my hardworking mother, who had slogged to bless me with a clean living environment. Vacuum and mop are daily must-do as I can’t live with dusty floors.
However, a robotic vacuum mop does not work for me as I have too much clutter on the floor. So, for now, a handheld vacuum will work better.
But doing both takes up a considerable chunk of our precious time. And mopping using a traditional manual mop may be back-breaking for some of us, like me, who suffer from a slipped disc after a twin pregnancy.
Vacuum Mop
I found a top-performing vacuum cleaner from Tineco that vacuums and mops simultaneously. Hence I can complete both tasks in half the time. That saves me a lot of time and energy to do other fun things. Best of all, I no longer have to pick up food on the floor after mealtimes!
The Tineco Floor One S3 vacuum mop has two water tanks, one for clean water and the other for dirty water.
Regardless of how badly my kids spill their oily food on the floor, I no longer transform into a red-eyed monster while trying to avoid screaming at the top of my voice. Instead, the spilt food on the floor gets sucked into the dirty water tank, immediately turning the oily yucky floor squeaky clean, and that’s it—no drama to deal with.
The kids are now using the mop vacuum to clean up their mess after their snacks and dinners while I get busy with something else.
Check out my complete view of Tineco Floor One S3 here.
Air Purifier
Can you imagine how slack I can be? I even use my Sterra Breeze air purifier to reduce the dust floating around the house, especially on hot, dusty days, and when countless school coaches pass by my ground-floor unit, emitting toxic gases into my unit.
We don’t close our windows and turn on the air-conditioner during the day. So having the air purifier helps to reduce the need to dust the surfaces often and keeps my house free from polluted air.
Check out my review on the Sterra Breeze Air Purifier here.
Handy Vacuum Cleaner For Dusting Surfaces
Have you been wiping your surfaces with a wet microfibre cloth? How often do you have to rinse your cloth while wiping the surfaces? Meanwhile, do you need to run to and fro the tap?
I had been doing so for the longest time until I realised that using a handheld vacuum cleaner saves me a lot of time and effort from all the manual work!
The Electrolux Well Q7-P Cordless Vacuum Cleaner has a huge dust brush head that allows me to dust large surfaces and bookshelves very easily and quickly.
After dusting, detach the brush head, wash it with soap and water, and dry it under the sun for your subsequent use.
Unfortunately, the vacuum is a tad too heavy for me. I have been searching for a lighter vacuum, but none comes with a huge brush head like Electrolux’s.
Dyson V* Slim Fluffy+ also comes with a bigger brush head, but the machine already weighs over 2kg, and with its price tag, it is a no-go for me.
So I will have to bear with this until some brilliant product engineer decides to create a light vacuum with a larger dust brush head. Xiaomi, please?
Multi-task Where Possible When You Are Without a Domestic Helper
You can try to multi-task where mundane tasks such as folding clothes and vacuuming are concerned—using a different sense for each activity. For instance, while you keep your hands busy folding away the washed laundry, you can catch up on your Netflix program.
Over time, my family learns to adapt to a life without a domestic helper. For example, the kids have transited from doing school work in their bedrooms to working on the Ikea kitchen trolley in the kitchen so that I can help them along while I prepare dinner.
With an earbud stuck to my ear, I listen to motivational audiobooks when I vacuum and dust the house to keep my spirits high. I have gone through a lot more books than before.
Check out my review on the LUMOS TEMPO earbuds here.
Be Intentional and Discipline
As parents of young children, we often fall into the same trap. We prioritise meeting the demands of our family and work over our own needs. As a result, we overwork and burn out.
I fall prey to excessive screen time and obsessive cleaning too.
Hence, I have a planner to record my priorities and deadlines and formulate a progress plan to ensure I can complete these projects.
I used to bujo. However, rewriting the priorities, tasks, and projects weekly is laborious and time-consuming.
I recently discovered an online/mobile planner Tick-tick, that helps me easily track all my projects, the due dates and my progress. It now works like my second brain, where I collect all my recipes and notes on books I read.
As a mum tutor, family event planner, business owner, blogger, housekeeper and cook, I have a ton to remember and track. But tick-tick has made my life so much easier. I even schedule a particular day each week to tackle my mosquito nets which accumulate dust so quickly, so that I stop myself from using the dirty mosquito nets as an excuse to procrastinate doing something more challenging but more critical.
Prioritise And Delegate Appropriately
It is so hard for us mums to deal with the mountain of chores, our professional work and the kids’ school work.
I am sure you get buried by these commitments too. So I have got to remind myself daily to have clear priorities. Some tasks can wait, and some, such as meals and exam preparation, cannot. Hence I assess the importance of each task before mindlessly spending time on them.
And since I no longer hire a domestic helper just so the kids can pick up more skills, I delegate some work that matches their skill set to them.
My 5-yo girls are folding their clean laundry. Though the results are not perfect, I close my two eyes, zip my mouth and let them continue with it. Their wardrobes are currently in a mess; I take a deep breath, walk away and move on. They will gradually get the hang of it; give them some guidance here and there and not make a huge fuss about the mess. I have also recently assigned them to help their elder siblings set the table for dinner.
My eldest boy is attempting to scrub the toilet, and I work alongside him to guide him. For teens, it is crucial to collaborate rather than instruct and to give guidance and praise rather than criticise. I am significantly influenced by Ross Greene when it comes to parenting teenagers.
Managing Your Household Without Domestic Helper
Managing a household with kids on your own while you are a working mum is not going to be a walk in the park, especially if you work full-time managing bosses, customers and deadlines.
You can manage without a live-in helper, but something must give way, depending on your priorities. May it be a messier home than before, or you may have to buy takeaways for dinner. Delegate some of the more accessible work to the rest of your family, and adjust your expectations. Outsource the time-consuming and draining ones to machines or part-time helpers.
Something must give way, but it should never be your sleep, physical and mental health, or your relationship with your family.
Over time, you will see improvements in your family’s ability to help you out, see your children growing into independent young adults, and be so proud of yourself for successfully dealing with the challenges you never thought you could.
Would you like to share some tips on how you lighten your workload as a WFH mum? Comment in the box below.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliated links.
You may also like these posts:
Deep Clean Your Mattress With EcoGenie Solutions
Becoming A Stay-At-Home Mother
You Don’t Need These To Start A Family
Tampines North Playground – Try Flying Fox
EMPIRE Massage Chair Review – Affordable Comfort At Home
