Nauseous 1st trimester, house is driving me crazy- ideas please?

[megbar548]

Ok, so I'm currently almost 8 weeks pregnant and have almost 4 and almost 2 1/2 year old girls. My nausea this time has REALLY caught us by surprise- it's a lot worse than with any of my other 5 pregnancies, and seems to just be getting worse by the day. I'm *hoping* that it ends around 14 weeks like with my girls, but in the meantime... this house is driving me crazy.
My husband is doing his best to help keep up, but he's a super messy person anyway (frankly, we all lean that way in this house), and he's kind of in crisis mode taking care of things as they have to be, and not really keeping up with the piles and stuff like laundry.
So far, I've been at a loss as to how to help, and he's been great and understanding, but it's wearing on us all. He's really vocal about not wanting me to push too hard because he's afraid if I do we'll have another miscarriage and he sees how sick and tired I am.
I guess what I'm looking for are ideas for ways to help motivate our girls to help with things like picking up. Games to make out of it? Something?
Even just somebody else saying it's been like this for them- I feel like I don't know any moms who struggle with housekeeping this much when they're pregnant. They all seem to say things about how far behind they are when there's like, one load of laundry waiting or they're behind one meal with the dishes. We're so far past that here, and whenever I try to push and help out with the housekeeping, it exacerbates the nausea/vomiting so much that I'm laid out for a day or two. It's just so hard to get the hang of it this time...

[swimming with sharks]

don't compare yourself to other moms....:snooty Every pregnancy situation is different. I joke (sorta :shifty) that when I was pregnant with my third, I threw cheerios all over the floor in the living room and called it a treasure hunt lunch. :jawdrop :shrug3 You gotta do what you gotta do. My 4 yr old could put the silverware away and put the towels where they went (the small ones). Can you hire a cleaning lady for a short time? DO you have friends that say, 'call if you need anything?' (they're not jokin! :no)

:pray4 you feel better soon It's soo miserable to feel sooo sick.

[rjy9343]

It was like that when I was pregnant and it was all I could do to get out of bed to throw up.
My husband wanted to help but just started a new job and was trying to finish his master's before the baby got here. What it really took was decluttering the apartment so that we could see the floor. (We moved from a three bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment). That looked me working as I could and him taking what little free time he had to help me sort and then making a goodwill drop.
As for getting little ones to clean,my only thing is that I remember how much I hated cleaning as young as four. I thought it was a pointless waste of time that my parents came up with because they were nuts. There were far more interesting things to do with my very limited time like playing with my dolls or cutting paper.
And since you have two small kids, don't let other people make you feel less than since it is not just so. If they have all the answers, they can come implement a fool proof system in you house.

[ruhama]

I've only got the one and our bedroom has had 5-6 loads of laundry scattered on the floor for like 3 weeks now. I *just* cleaned the stupid thing. :hug2 I've been sniffing shirts and tossing them in the dryer to dewrinkle for a week. My work pants? Same pants every day.

They're all lying about the house being in order. ;) :yes Except maybe R, but I've peeked in her kids' drawers - she has 7 outfits in their drawers with all the laundry done. Seriously. It's so much easier to catch up when there's so little around and your brain makes you obsessively clean things. Can you guys pack up the toys except for like 5-10 favorite things each? Do you need to go to disposable silverware & cups too?

Clearly you should also just stop dressing the children. ;) It's almost warm enough... and blankets exist.

Seriously, call me. :heart I'm always available for a couple hours SOMETIME during the week. I do dishes and organize chaos. I'm much better at it when it's not my living space. I also currently have like 6-8 boxes sitting around empty...

Or, you know, you *could* always hire a maid. :haha ;)

[megbar548]

Oh L, we're totally to the point of not dressing the children. Nora dresses herself if she wants to, and Kelley is pretty content to just put dress up stuff on over her pjs unless/until I'm feeling well enough to take them outside.
And literally the first thing we did after I got a positive test was switch to disposable dishes. ;)
You'd think we'd have this whole first trimester thing down, since we've got over a year of cumulative experience between the girls and our miscarriages.
Right now, we're just counting the days till 14 weeks.
Thankfully, I'd done a bunch of decluttering and reorganizing right before I got pregnant this time. I can't even imagine how much of a wreck the house would be right now if I hadn't...

L, I think I'll take you up on that dishes offer... Oh, and yeah, I think R might be one of the few that really keeps things that way, but there are a few others at church I was thinking of as well. But I'd rather have a messy house and be a natural messie, than have the OCD that keeps their house as spotless as it is. I may be bothered by the mess, but thank the Lord I don't lose sleep over it.

Thanks for the suggestions and encouragement! I think I mostly needed to hear that I'm not the only one. That always ends up helping more than I expect it to.

[illinoismommy]

Hire a housekeeping person or service. If I ever get pregnant again, that's going to be a requirement!!

[ruhama]

Hire a housekeeping person or service. If I ever get pregnant again, that's going to be a requirement!!
It's in no way realistic unfortunately.

[illinoismommy]

It's in no way realistic unfortunately.

How come? Did the OP say that and I missed it?

[ruhama]

She was my college roommate & practically my sister. :)

[megbar548]

Yeah, the hiring a housekeeper idea would be a great one if it were attainable, but there's really no possible way we could afford that. Someday, that'd be a really great thing if we're in a place financially that would make that possible. And I just may mention cleaning help if someone asks if there's anything we need when the baby comes. Boy, a gift certificate for that would be the best gift I can think of for a new mom. :)

[rjy9343]

My mother's dream was to be able to hire a house keeper for her pregnant and postpartum DILs and me. Unfortunately that will never happen. But how nice it would have been.
Don't should yourself, you have made preparations and now your only job is to keep little people alive. If you have done that, you have done all you should do.