7 Ways I Stay Sane – Tips On Raising Lots of Kids

My household used to be chaotic, loud, and messy but now it’s just loud (ok, and still a bit messy). None of my five children are old enough be very useful. They can’t drive, babysit, do laundry or scrub the toilet. Staying organized (and sane) when you have lots of young kids is hard. People ask me all the time how I manage it. Here are some of the ways I keep it together around here.

1. My kids are color-coded. It started with cups because I got completely fed up with no one ever being able to find their cup, no one ever admitting to stuffing a cup of milk down under a couch cushion, everyone complaining that I never gave them a drink, and everyone insisting that the only cup in sight was theirs. It worked so well that I carried it over to towels, our family calendar, and file folders for record keeping.

2. My kids’ clothes are bagged and ready to go. After folding clothes, I create complete outfits (including socks and undies) and place them in plastic bags. For clothes size 7 and under, a one-gallon bag works fine. For size 8 and up, a two-gallon bag is best. This way each child (or one tired mommy) can just grab a bag and get dressed.

3. My kids’ toys are bagged. Doesn’t matter if it is the guts of a board game, or a Melissa & Doug birthday cake set, a Lego set, or a doctor kit; if it has parts, I store it in a plastic bag. I picked up this trick from the Early Intervention therapists that used to come to our house. They never had missing parts to their toys. They never had to dig under a bed or behind the couch for a lost puzzle piece. It was a beautiful thing. Sometimes pieces still get away, so I also have a giant re-purposed pretzel bucket that holds any orphaned toys I come across until I have time to sort and put them back in their respective bags.

4. Meals and snacks are served all at once in the same space. My kids have learned to get it while they can because once it is over, everything gets put away until the next feeding. Without this rule our house was a diner with me as the overworked waitress, chef, and clean up crew. It is still a lot of work but it happens all at once, and they have learned how to help out.

5. Speaking of food, I have a month of menus chart, two actually: one for Spring/Summer and one for Fall/Winter. I double or triple every recipe to ensure there will be enough for the 7 of us plus leftover lunch the next day for my husband or me. This saves lots of time and money on grocery shopping because the meals are arranged so that special and perishable ingredients are used up across multiple meals.

6. I have one hour (6:30 – 7:30) to get five kids ready for three separate buses arriving at different times. Every possible thing that can be prepped on a school night to ensure a smooth next morning is done. This includes snacks, backpacks (papers out, homework in), clothes & shoes set out, glasses cleaned, and coats lined up. My kids have learned to do most of this themselves in the evening before bed.

7. Children generate a ton of paperwork. Trying to find that particular piece of paper I needed by yesterday  almost killed me many times over. It’s true, paperwork is insidious. A good filing & to-do system has saved me from paper hell. I bought a plastic tub made to hold file folders. Each kid has a set of tabbed, colored folders. Everything from copies of birth certificates to health records to report cards to cub scout info is stored there. Along with that, I have a portable Work-in-progress (WIP) 14″ by 14″ plastic multi-folder organized by child where I throw all kid-related papers that need my attention. Fundraisers, permission slips, order forms, project/assignment instructions, summer camp forms… it’s all in there. I check it a couple times a week to see what is coming due.

There are a couple of things I am still working on, mostly because I am relatively undisciplined. While I have a school morning routine that is etched in my kids heads and works great, bedtime is still willy-nilly and accompanied by frequent yelling. I also struggle with getting stuff put away before my kids get into it. I’ll leave laundry out and then find it strewn all over the livingroom floor, or I will forget to put the diaper bag away and then find its contents dumped in the girls’ room. Kids are going to be kids, so I blame myself for messes like that and remind myself I need better follow-through on my part.

So there ya have it. For those who were wondering, that’s the way it goes around here.
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