Parenting 101: Fathers Clean Your House For the Arrival of the New Baby

Having a new member of the family is a joyous event. However, it is accompanied by a lot of preparations for your home. Most of the load falls on the shoulders of the unsuspecting fathers. Before you welcome the little bundle of joy in your house, you need to properly clean and prepare the place. Due to the delicate physical condition of expecting mothers, they can’t thoroughly tidy up and deep-cleanse everything. So it is up to fathers to step in, and do their best. In collaboration with some of the professional cleaning companies in Bournemouth and parenting advisors from all across the UK, we have created the ultimate “Father Help Guide” on how to clean and prepare the home for the arrival of the baby.

Step 1: Remove All Dangerous Things From the Home

This is the first step towards completely baby-proofing your house. And for reasons, you will soon understand this type of “cleaning” is absolutely forbidden for all pregnant women. So fathers, grab a big rubbish bag and get rid of the following:

• All strong chemicals like toilet bowl cleaners and bleach must be removed from the home. When you use them, a small quantity is left lingering in the air and can potentially danger the health of the mother and the baby.
• Scented candles and synthetic air fresheners also got to go. Use essential oils. They are non-toxic, and the risk of triggering an allergic reaction is extremely low.
• Inspect the home and if you spot mould or mildew immediately call your local Bournemouth house cleaners. Some fungi can cause severe pulmonary illnesses in infants and even brain damage. Do not try to wash the infested areas yourself.
• Minimise the dust and dirt in your home by banning all shoes inside the house.

Step 2: How to Keep Your Home Baby-Friendly When You Have Pets

We are stepping on thin ice here. There are generally two main theories considering having a pregnant wife/baby in the home and owning a furry companion.

• Theory N1: You are endangering your family and pets are basically here to destroy you and get everybody sick.
• Theory N2: It is ok to leave your newborn sleep in the same bed with your 11 cats and 4 dogs, while parrots are freely flying around the house.

As you can see they are both a little extreme and quite unhelpful. It is all very subjective and depends on the particular situation you are in. Here is what fathers must do to keep a safe and clean home for their offspring.

• Clean your cat’s litter box every day. No, we are not joking, and you should start doing that the moment you find out your wife is with child. Some enzymes in the poop of your feline can be potentially dangerous for pregnant women, so it is absolutely mandatory for the other parent to make sure everything is cleaned properly.
• After every walk, you need to clean the paws of your dogs. This way you won’t introduce new bacteria to your home. Don’t use “dog shoes". They are just small bags of germs. Clean your pet with wet wipes. They are easy to use, cheap and your pooch will smell good.
• Consider giving your parrot to your relatives for a couple of months. Birds shed a lot of feathers and dander and usually make quite a big mess. Not to mention how noisy they are.
• Discover the power of steam cleaning. This method will completely eradicate all germs from your furniture and floors, it is eco-friendly and super effective. The hot water will boil on the spot the bacteria and remove all pet hairs and dander. Consider using this cleaning service once every two weeks, especially if you have pets. Once the baby is born, it will help immensely with the proper disinfection and sanitisation of your home.

Step 3: The Places You Must Clean Before The Baby Arrives

For this step, we mostly rely on the expert advice professional cleaners have given us all who else to believe in, if not the people who do this job every day.

• Kitchen

It is the dirtiest place in your home. You can always find at least one piece of food that has gone bad and has mould and that is one too many. So how to properly wash everything without using strong chemicals? DIY will save your life altho we can hardly imagine the soon to be father mixing baking soda and vinegar in a bowl. The simple solution is to just use natural detergents or a basic anti-bacterial liquid soap. Clean:

• The inside of your kitchen appliances (stove, microwave, fridge);
• The sink as it is a magnet for bacteria;
• The countertops and all cutting boards;
• Prepare a special place for all of the baby bottles and milk pumps and disinfect it every day.
• Bathroom
• It is no surprise now that mum is pregnant, dad has to wash the toilet bowl every week. And we do mean every week. Remember to use the toilet brush and scrub it good.
• Introduce the squeegee to your tiles. After every shower, you take, clean the water from the walls. This way the chance of having a mouldy problem will be lesser.
• Bedroom

Here you really need to make an effort. We won’t get into too many details but just bear in mind that around 10% of the weight of your pillow is made of the bodies both dead and alive of mites and their droppings. You need to deep-wash your bedding and mattresses every month, especially when the baby comes. A lot of the local cleaning companies offer deep-cleansing of your soft goods, so it is a worthy idea to think about it.

Overall this seems like a lot of work, but you can handle it. After all, your wife cleans the home every week, you only need to do it alone for about 9 months. Altho there are some benefits in hiring professional help, don’t rely too much on it. Not all companies use the correct detergents and methods, and you can end up doing more bad than good.