Q: “How Do We Keep Our Home Organized with a Newborn?”
“If you have a child under the age of 5, do not worry about organizing. Your job is to try to get as much rest as you can.”
Q: “My husband and I are preparing for the birth of our first child. How do we organize our home (and keep it that way) for this next phase of our lives?”
Sleep now. (Just kidding.) Congratulations on this new chapter!
I’m sure you have all the essentials set up in your child’s nursery, so I’ll take a quick moment to put on my parenting hat: Trust your gut. You and your husband are uniquely created to be the parents of your child for a reason. I know you want to do all the things and check all the boxes, but you won’t have all the answers. Still, you’ll learn that you know more than you think you do. Babies have been born for millennia, and your baby will be fine as long as it gets love — and you get sleep.
[Read: The Stress of New Motherhood with ADHD]
I’m not kidding about sleep. This is coming from the organizer part of me. If you have a child under the age of 5, do not worry about organizing. Your job is to try to get as much rest as you can. If you’re ever debating between picking up the family room or taking a nap, I am going to tell you to take a nap every single time. Your child is never going to remember what the home looked like at that age, and you and your spouse will be much happier if you go with the nap over cleaning the family room.
Organizing children under 5 is like shoveling snow in a snowstorm. At least every couple of months, for the next five years of your lives, your child is going to change — diaper sizes, clothing sizes, the foods they’re eating, you name it. The amount of change that is coming your way is constant, until it’s not.
Your job for the next five years is to keep shoveling the snow, even though it’s still snowing. And if you’re tired, take a nap. Whatever it is, it can wait.
New Parents’ Home Organizing Tips: Next Steps
- Read: Making Peace With Your Clutter
- Read: Perfect Is Pointless — 16 Organization Rules You Can Follow
- Read: “Housekeeping Is Not Motherhood.”
The content for this article was derived from the ADDitude ADHD Experts webinar titled, “Your Organized Home: Functional Organization for Your Life Phase Right Now” [Video Replay & Podcast #463] with Lisa Woodruff, which was broadcast on July 19, 2023.
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