I think I’ve finally figured out the secret to life – BASKETS! Seriously – life changing. I have been struggling for the last couple years in the tiny home to keep things tidy on an ongoing basis. As Kaleia, my five-year-old, grows, so do her messes.
We’ve all come to realise that she is quite the “fashion girl”, who loves to change her clothes as frequently as the trees shed their leaves in a storm. She also loves to stay at home, pulling out all her arts and crafts, splaying them across the floor – beads, glue, glitter, markers and all.
It was driving me crazy! But I never want to stifle her creativity, and I love seeing her play and change and style herself. For a while, I felt like I could teach her responsibility in cleaning up her own mess, and stopped cleaning up after her altogether. Things got even messier, of course. I tried helping her when it was too overwhelming; I tried giving consequences; making her do the “hard stuff” before the fun stuff. None of it was really working for us. It wasn’t long before I realised something very important – I was giving her TOO much responsibility that her 5 year old brain couldn’t quite handle yet. I was asking her to pick up clothes, fold them and put them away. I expected her to put her toys away into drawers, containers and on her bookshelf where they belonged. I needed an easier way – a better way to teach her and a better way to tidy.
Finally, my Mother suggested I get a basket for her to throw not just her dirty clothes in, but her clean clothes in as well. Another basket? But where to put it in our tiny little bedroom? Well, after giving it a lot of thought, I reorganised her bookshelf with some smaller baskets for toys, and bought a storage ottoman for her makeup table instead of having a useless chair that she never sat on, that just acquired more things on top of it to have to put away.
I am astonished at how effective these simple changes have been! Now, the bookshelf doesn’t need to be carefully organised with toys on display; the toys are just thrown into the baskets based on their category – dolls, animals and dress-ups, easy to distinguish. The clean clothes get swept off the floor in a matter of minutes (maybe even under a minute), thrown into the ottoman, and…BOOM! We have a tidy room in about 2-3 minutes.
Then, as the ottoman fills to the top (or if Kaleia is searching for a particular item of clothing), it gets dumped on the bed, I fold them all at the same time and put them away in about 5 minutes.
The other side of the home (our kitchen and lounge room) is almost the same. There’s one basket for all the toys and clothes that get brought in from the bedroom, and then it’s put away all at once when it’s full.
For weeks now, our house has actually remained tidy in between the deeper cleans, and it’s alleviated a lot of the stress that comes with constantly picking up after everyone. Yes, everyone – my 5 year old girl, my other 37 year old child / partner and myself. I’m more calm, the house is more calm, and Kaleia has actually been happy to accept the easy and simple responsibility of not leaving her clothes sprawled out over the floor. It’s like night and day. One week, I was barking orders at her to pick up after herself, and now, she’s telling me how she loves keeping a clean room. She even took out the vacuum the other day when she spilled some sand out of a bag, and proceeded to vacuum the rest of the house. Today, she was helping me clean the windows. I am LOVING this new chapter, and can easily see Kaleia developing her own sense of pride as she takes ownership of her space.
A few key points or extra tips:
- Let them happily create the mess and wait till they’re completely finished and not returning to it before reminding them to clean it up.
- Use “positive language” when guiding them to clean-up, rather than demands. I.e. “It might be a good idea to reset your space now and pop your clothes in the ottoman.” If I get a “no”, following it up with, “Your room is going to get messy again if you leave your things on the ground,” usually works.
- Don’t put too many kinds of toys into one basket. Keeping them separated still allows her to easily find things and decide what she wants to play with, only taking one or two things or baskets out at a time.
If you want to give the basket method a try as well, I’ve linked to some of the ones we have, or something similar, below. If you can buy any second-hand, even better.
Ravani Wide Stripe Round Storage Basket Set of 3 by Early Settler
