Hello!

My youngest (who is three) will not clean up at all. Ive taken toys away from her and even pretended to throw them away but she just doesnt care. Im at my wits end as im over following her around each day cleaning up but at the same time I need my house to be tidy and clean. Any tips or hints would be greatly appreciated.


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  • First – then approach. Less preferred activity (tidying) first, then preferred activity.
    Example
    Do it together (for example introduce a cleaning morning everyone does their part)
    Make it a race
    Make it fun, add music, make/sing a clean up song


  • turn it into time trials where the child has to race against the clock or against another sibling tidying up, or beat their last time.


  • Rewarding good behaviour works. Let them know they did a good job each they help.


  • The only way to kids is to bribe them sad enough to say


  • I tried the clean up song and it has helped a bit. My oldest who is 7 likes to help out a bit more now. Ive gome through the house and got rid of a lot of the toys but like the idea of packing them away. Might have to try that if things dont improve in the next few days. I have tried making into a game but they cant be bothered because they have sore legs. Thanks for the ideas ladies.


  • My son loves it when I’m super happy about him cleaning. Tell him how it will make you super happy.
    Give rewards. “ If you clean you’re room, you’ll get this chocolate” etc
    Otherwise sometimes being tough and making them stay in their room until they are ready to clean.
    Or recently I have put all our toys in the shed in boxes, so there are almost none inside, and then when you bring a box in to play with, they are more entertained by it.
    But it’s sooo hard to get them to clean and kids are so different from each other, so one way may not work for all.


  • I change it up regularly but along the lines of setting them a challenge like – lets see how many red toys we can race to put away and then we will see how many green ones. They get focused on the challenge and colour that they are not to bothered by the job. It could also be – lets go through the alphabet and put toys away in order ie all the ‘A’ toys first, the ‘B’ toys (obviously this is one for kids that know their sounds).
    could be put away toys with wheel and time it
    could be put away toys that make a noise and time it. etc


  • My son was the same. The only success I ever had was waiting for him to break something and then when it came to clean up time actually throwing it away. And a few wooden blocks from the opshop occasionally made it into the fire. It definitely worked. He’s way better now.


  • The 10 seconds idea is amazing!!! :-)


  • We have a 10 second tidy up. It is a race, I count to ten and they all run around and put as much stuff in their toy boxes as they can, winner gets a prize and you can take as long as you need to count to ten! Works a treat when the kids are competitive with each other!


  • Google the clean up song and play that. I’ve just started doing that (as they do it at day care) and my toddlers (2 and 3) start singing and clean up.


  • Cleaning up after playing is something I always did with my daughter when she was young. Slowly she didn’t need my help anymore.
    So I would say to not become upset. Sit down with your kids and clean up together. :-)


  • I have no idea but would love for someone to tell me! haha


  • I use daily to make a game out of it eg “who can pack the blocks away the fastest?” But 9 may be a bit old for this. I would be picking them up and putting them away somewhere. When there’s none left to play with, she’ll notice!


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