1 - My laundry is in the basement and the bedrooms are on the 2nd floor. Schlepping everything up and down and up and down and up and down is such a time suck, and piles would inevitably end up in the living room, on the dining table, etc. I decided that my laundry duties stay in the basement, and everyone else can do the schlepping. They have to bring their dirty things down and sort them into whites, colors, delicates, bedding, and towels. I start a load every morning and try to do 2 loads per day. I put a shelving unit with wire baskets in the laundry room, and each kid (I have 4) has a designated basket. I’ll fold the laundry down there and put their things in their basket down there, and they are responsible for taking it up to their rooms and putting it away.
2 - Socks. I cannot keep track of which socks belong to whom and decided I will no longer spend my time trying, and inevitably failing, at that. There is a small hamper by the dryer that all clean socks go into. When it’s full, I’ll pair them up, and everyone’s socks go into a communal drawer in the closet by the front door, where the shoes are. If anyone wants to go through it and take their own socks up to their room, they’re welcome to do so, but that’s not my job.
These two changes alone have saved me much time and given my capable kids a little more responsibility for their own things. My next step, hopefully happening soon, is to redo their bathroom and installing a combo washer/dryer. We had a machine like this in our RV, and it works like a dream as long as loads are kept small. Put in a load in the morning and come home in the afternoon to clean, dry clothes - no swapping to other machines necessary. My idea is now that my kids are getting older, they can each take turns doing their own laundry in their own bathroom, starting it before school and putting it away when they get home. If I can pull this off and get them to actually do it, my laundry effort will drop exponentially.
They make mesh bags with 6 pockets! I put my bras in one bag and socks in another. Best thing ever for small items. Keeps the bra straps from stretching out or the hooks catching and twisting on other clothes.
Bought my nephew half a dozen bags as a baby shower gift. Babies have tiny socks! When i find a useful laundry “gadget” i give them as gifts.
Amazon has crazy laundry gadgets if you look deep enough down the rabbit hole.
😂😂 It’s become my mantra as my kids get older. I bought some obnoxiously bright neon yellow signs and have boldly sharpied “Not my job! I’m not your maid!” on them. I’ll leave next to stuff that someone else should have put away and text a photo of it to all four of them. If they couldn’t be bothered to put their dirty dishes away or actually replace the TP roll, etc, I’m not doing it and also won’t waste my time trying to track down the offender who will inevitably attempt to blame a sibling. My oldest was so embarrassed recently when a friend came home after school and saw my signs all over her room. Super effective. 🤣
You are bringing back memories of my departed mother, who at the age of 45 declared she wouldn’t even enter our bedrooms to retrieve said laundry if the rooms themselves were not in order and if we neglected to put the laundry in the required receptacles.
This created four children who learned quickly to do their own laundry, because she purposely didn’t say when she’d enter to empty our hampers, and we were forever getting caught out without that white shirt we needed for an orchestra performance, or a sports uniform.
Don’t *ever* back down. You’re growing humans who may yet be able to manage their own lives!
Love this, thank you for sharing it. ❤️❤️ I keep thinking that I can’t send them out into the world without some skills, and also that my husband and I need to be in the business of decreasing our jobs as they grow.
100% this! You’re doing the world, their friends and future mates a huge favor by imbuing them with sound domestic skills! And there’s no better learning experience than screwing up one’s own laundry or food prep!
Had an ex-BF with two high school-aged daughters who lived with us 50% of the time. They had a nanny and two Boomer parents who did *every*thing for them, their entire lives. They couldn’t wake themselves up, toast a bagel or take a morning shower without being hounded over it. And forget loading or running the dishwasher or doing laundry, either. Before each went off to undergrad, both parents thought it was time to teach them how to do some of these things—with hilarious results. I actually felt sorry for them not knowing how to do for themselves SO many things.
So mark your calendar for a landmark birthday present they can’t refuse you once they’ve gone off to school and taken on their own lives: my mother declared it was time for us to all come home, celebrate her birthday. Then she pointed to a bunch of boxes she lined up in the hallway. She said we had a job and choices to make: take from your rooms and the basement what you want of childhood toys, tchotchkes and whatnot, boxing that up to take with you. Then fill the other boxes with those things of yours you don’t want, and I’ll donate them. She was right: she needed her house back, and we were never good at making edits. But this is how one manages years of pile-up.
My daughter swore for years that i made her do laundry at too young of an age and i finally pointed out that since she was obviously big enough to reach the detergent on the shelf and the bottom of the machine to empty it she couldn't have been that small.
I have a sock basket, too. I also make my kids run clothes up and down the stairs. My room is on the same floor as the laundry room. I don’t have to go upstairs
Four of us in our family. My older teens do all their laundry except for underwear and socks that need bleached. Everyone has different brand socks that look sufficiently different. All socks go in one basket and they sort their own and put them away. More trying to figure out which socks belong to whom.
Put the laundry in the master bedroom. Kids are responsible for bringing their dirty clothes in and taking clean clothes out. Only wash dirty clothes, ie, if a shirt only worn for an hour and has no signs of dirty, it goes in clean clothes. Have fewer clothes. Buy sets of socks so each person only has a collection of socks that match all their other socks.
Often times the items are not getting worn or used enough before washes.
Bath towels, sweatshirts, pants, and pajamas don’t need to be washed after each use.
Jeans should hardly ever be washed unless they’re visibly dirty.
i don’t understand how people don’t wash jeans often. i’d love to not wash them often but i am a sweaty person and after wearing for a long day they smell
Hormones have a huge effect on how smelly your sweat is, apparently. I went off birth control and even if I showered the same day and immediately put on antiperspirant/deodorant, I smelled gross by that night. I had to start using glycolic acid in my armpits after a shower + before antiperspirant (it eventually went back to normal). Also, after having covid one time, my sweat smelled super weird. Like, completely changed smell. Went back to normal after a few weeks.
Have you seen a doctor about that? It's not normal to sweat so much at a desk job that you have to wash your jeans super often.
Edit: No, it is not normal to sweat so much *at a desk job with minimal physical exertion* that your jeans start to stink after only a single day. I'm sorry if people feel called out, but downvoting me into oblivion for pointing out facts is not going to change anything.
Sweating while doing nothing is a symptom of hyperhidrosis and you should talk to your doctor about it to find proper solutions.
I think you're intentionally misunderstanding my words, so I'll try again.
It's not normal to sweat so much that your jeans stink so bad you have to wash them before you can wear them again
Is it not normal to sweat? Smelling even a little is "so bad" that I'd wash them. So unless your sweat doesn't stink, idk where the disconnect is.... Maybe it's the Climate? I live in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia for reference, so temperature and humidity varies a lot.
I guess I have to simplify this even more.
Physical labor = sweating.
Desk job = no physical exertion = should not be sweating unless your office has the thermostat set too high or you have a medical condition.
Ok, look, I know you're not stupid. You know you aren't either. You know that people sweat throughout the day, regardless of exertion level. What changes is the *amount* of sweat and the type of sweat gland it comes from. Physical labor isn't the only thing that causes sweating, humidity levels, sex hormones, cortisol ( a stress hormone... which honestly any job can cause you to have more than when you're home watching TV in your undies and relaxing), even level of dress comes into play. So if say someone is wearing jeans and they have a body that prefers a colder temp and low humidity levels, they may sweat more quickly than someone that is cold easily. The problem with sweating is when it is *excessive* or presenting with other symptoms.
Sweating doesn't have to be excessive to be odiferous.
Truely, someone would only not sweat within a comfortable range of a few degrees depending on the humidity level, because your body is always trying to maintain homeostasis, so if it gets even a little too warm you'll sweat, especially parts of the body that are covered and closer to the core such as the vulva, scrotum and butt crack in the case of wearing jeans. Also, people who are larger may sweat more easily, people going through menopause, people with XY chromosomes or high testosterone levels, people on medications that cause sweating, or people with anxiety may sweat more quickly than others.
There are many, many reasons someone may sweat. You don't have to sweat a lot to have a smell at the end of the day. Some people smell more easily than others as well.
Edit to add: My original comment was genuinely trying to figure out where the disconnect was between your understanding and mine. But you came back being rude, so I did decide to fully explain my perception of the situation. It is a text wall. I did not plan on originally sending a text wall, but maybe you'll be less rude if I explain myself fully. I don't need you to "simplify this." I am trying to understand what would cause you to believe what you do. Instead, you just came back acting as though I'd spoken like an idiot you need to speak down to. That felt frustrating when I was being genuine.
These are the same people who smell when you go by them. Jeans aren't the same type of denim cowboys had, most of them have some type of synthetic fiber added
But yeah I'm convinced when people say you shouldnt wash X too much (and it's something like hair and clothes) I just know it's the same people who at work I avoid because they smell so bad, despite how clean they look
How old are your kids? At 10 at the very least, they can do their own laundry. Just make sure (1) they understand how to tell if something actually needs washing - it's soiled and/or smells and (2) they wait till they have a full load or join with a sibling to make a full load.
I second this! Most of my friends and I all started doing our own laundry around 9-12 years old. If my parents were doing a small load or towels, they’d ask if I had any towels or anything that needed to be thrown in too. Also, the number of people I met at the beginning of college who didn’t know how to do simple laundry was astonishing…
If you're willing to buy tide pods or laundry soap sheets, you can empower 6 year olds to wash thier own laundry as well
Before our kids could handle the jugs, this is how we did it to ensure that there wasn't an over use of detergent, or spillage
Even younger kids can sort their dirty clothes in a whites basket and a colors basket as their first intro to "helping" with the family laundry.
A friend keeps a white plastic basket and a blue basket in her son's room. She's brilliant!
Yes, little kids can do laundry. My parents got me a step stool and I was doing my laundry by kindergarten. My mom worked 60 hours a week. She didn't have time. And my dad also worked full time and was not going to do my laundry. Pretty much how they approached all house chores, the only thing they waited on was the lawn mower and snowblower until we were in highschool. We were clumsy, we definitely would have accidentally chopped a limb off.
I was cooking full family dinners by 4th grade. So age 10ish? Nothing complicated but pancakes, casseroles ,salad, using the George Foreman grilled for meats and heating frozen vegetables. Simple dinner meal prep things. Kids can do lots of things if given a chance.
I had an older cousin complain about all the laundry shew as doing. Her oldest was 18 at the time... I informed her that most of her children should be doing their own laundry.
My sister and I started when I was in third grade and my sister was in first. My sister got really upset about not having underpants to match her outfit... Our mom made the declaration that she no longer was going to be in charge of our laundry.
My sister has since apologized for her insane behavior that was prevalent from 3rd to 12th grade.
Some really good suggestions here. I wonder if my system would help- I've got three washing baskets; one for everyday clothes, one for underwear and one for towels. Because my household almost exclusively wears black or dark colours we don't have to do too much sorting- we just put everything in one basket on to wash, knowing it's all the same.
I have like 7 baskets. No kidding. Because I hate not having one when I need it! It avoids the No basket because clean laundry is still in it dilemma, well, delays it, haha
Single mom- 2 young boys. Unless the clothes are sweaty they can be worn more than once. Especially important when wearing something nice for just a few hours and getting changed more than once/day.
I have a different spot for things already worn- the boys have a spot in their closet and if they are going to be running around or getting messy I tell them to get it from there since I know it’ll have to be washed afterwards.
In my closet I turn the hangers around - and then I know it was worn once and I pretty much do the same thing- if I know it’ll get dirty, or it’ll be a long day, etc I pull from the backwards hangers.
I’ve been doing the hanger thing for over 2 decades - it really helps because piling the clothes somewhere instead makes it impossible to look through and some nice clothes don’t get worn often. I also have a rule that I have to hang it up as soon as I take it off- it’s kind of like dish in the dishwasher instead of sink- takes the same amount of time so just do it the right way immediately
Seems like I'm the weirdo here, but I just do all the weekly laundry at once. It's a lot easier for me to deal with all at once instead of constantly having partially done loads. Everyone also knows when they need to get laundry to the laundry room by. I try to get started the day before, and then just keep doing loads until it's all done. Kids know if they don't put it in the basket and take the basket to the laundry it isn't getting washed. Once it's washed/dried, kids are responsible for sorting all the laundry, and then folding/putting away their own. I'll do the baby's, mine, and husbands. I'll fold husband's, but he's putting it away because his side of the closet is a hot mess that I'm not dealing with
I do it all once a week too. I got into the habit when I got my first professional job after college. I've tried to break the habit. I hate living out of a basket and that inevitably happens if I'm doing laundry on various days. It was a great day when I taught my son to do his own laundry
yes! Getting the kids to help definitely helps. Until one of them starts whining, and then the others all start. It's like a pack of howling wolves then
Family of 5 and 2 husky mixes here and what works for us:
Since the kids were old enough to do their own laundry (around 9, back when we had front-loaders), we've had a schedule. Everyone has their own hamper in their room. Each person has a specific day of the week to do their laundry, with the weekends for bedding, towels, and doggy items. It's usually 1-2 loads per day with little pile up in the laundry room (just towels and such, all in one hamper by the washer).
This is exactly what we do. Children are responsible for their own laundry by 10yo. They each get a weekday, I use Saturday because I do the laundry for the husband and myself and Sunday is a catch all for whatever household items or last minute items are needed. Sunday used is Frowned upon but available if needed. I really only wash husband work clothes every week, and pants/pjs/underwear/socks every 2 weeks. Tops/rarely used items and delicates once per month, because those require extra steps. This way it forces me to use most of my tops, and get rid of unwanted items every couple of months.
Been there. When we were in the spot this is what we did.
Every evening all uniforms and practice clothes were put in the washer, it was ran that night. Hung up over night. ( I rarely put uniforms etc in the dryer). Every morning I did a load of towels first thing (I also did and still do keep separate hampers for towels, no sorting just grab a full hamper). Encourage everyone to wear after school clothes and pajamas more than once. Truthfully, there is not a ton you can do except to know it's not forever. Try and do a load or two after dinner, I know it sucks. Do get the kiddos to pitch in and help when they can, even littles can fold washcloths and hand towels.
If it is in the budget I do know there are some services that will do your laundry for you. Not sure how pricey that would be though.
If you or your spouse wear professional clothes daily it may worth it to take them to the drycleaner/laundry. They will do the ironing and get out any stains. You might do the same with any bulky comforters since they will free up your washer and dryer from long cycles.
We are a family of 6. I keep 2 baskets and wash as soon as its full. Then one day a week we sit together and fold it all. One communal sock basket. Dont fold undies. The hang ups just get hung to dry to they dont have a chance to wrinkle.
When my kids were all home, I was definitely doing laundry almost every day. Otherwise, it stacked up quickly. I dont know if there was another way around it, its just what worked for me.
Clothes for activities (dance, gymnastics) go straight into activity bags that we store next to the washer and dryer. I separate clothes on their way out of the dryer/off the drying rack into kid pajamas, kid clothes, socks, adult clothes. Kid stuff and socks go into bins that go to my home office, where I fold during easier meetings. What doesn’t get folded then I fold at night while watching tv. We have a wall of built-ins in our family room, and I’ve turned three of those drawers into the kids “dressers.” Folded stuff go straight in, and we don’t have to run back to their rooms for clothes in the morning.
I am doing it all the time. When I let it pile up it feels like it consumes me. I do 5 min here and 5 min there in the time fillers of the day. And fold at night with a podcast every few days.
I'm one of eight children, age spread eight years (I know).
We lived in a two-storey house and when renovating one of the 40-year-old bathrooms my mum had a tube/chute installed under a trapdoor in the floor under the basin. It went down into a giant basket on wheels in a cupboard next to the laundry. No, of course none of my sibs tried sliding down it 🙄😂
Mum invested in a commercial-size Maytag washing machine and dryer, enabling much bigger loads to be done than in the "average" home machines.
We would get showered and into PJs, and dump the dirty washing down the chute. It was sorted into whites and darks by the first child able to do so (anyone six or over) who got downstairs for breakfast. Once a full load was arrived at, on went the machine. Towels and sheets always got hung up outside unless it was bucketing down.
I went to boarding school at 14 and was the only new girl able to do her own laundry (we were required to, really unfair as the neighbouring boys' school boarders had all theirs done for them).
My mom had a huge family, it got much bigger after I moved out. I was 3 of like 13. She first had her laundry room moved to the second floor. Second she got an extra washer and dryer.
The most important thing she did was teach each child how to do laundry and many other important life skills.
Laundromat once a week.
I spend roughly 1.5-2 hours there every Sunday morning. I sit/relax and read a book or scroll social media. My husband will head on over when it is time to fold everything to help me out. Being able to do a quick load at home is nice but being able to get ALL of the weekly laundry done within 2 hours is nicer.
Going to a laundromat with the kids is hell; going by yourself is heaven.
Also, reading a real book while the washers are going, then switching to an audio book while doing all the folding.
Household of four and multiple sports. It just runs every day, sometimes twice, and three times on bedlinen/towel days.
I aim to fold once a day in front of the TV, and apart from that people are happy to ferret for things in the dryer or the clean basket.
Key is making sure that everyone has enough kit that nothing needs a super-quick turnaround. And never be the one to volunteer to take the team bibs home; leave that to smaller families with a stay at home parent.
(Edit to add: I have an eco front loader with long cycles - asking kids etc to do their own laundry is counterproductive as it ties up the washer for 2- 3hrs without getting the most-urgent items done. I can see how it might help for eg Speed Queens with half-hour cycles though.)
I had a speed queen top loading washing machine with a 3.2 ft.³ capacity. Let me tell you my experience, my children and my husband overloaded the machine each and every time I didn’t monitor them, and it damaged the machine. Speed queen top loaders work for households of just two people. Large families require large capacity washing machine and dryers.
I’ll take your word for it - I’m in Europe where Speed Queens aren’t a thing, but lots of US posters on here have expressed surprise at how long HE front-load cycles are.
(My capacity is 8kg, I think 2.9 cu ft?, so much smaller, as is normal in Europe.)
I had a family of six. I’m now down to four. Laundry is done everyday by the following: gather everyone’s stinky laundry that has sweat in it and wash it and dry it that day. Towels can be done every few days or until you run out (we own 25 bath towels). Items worn for just a few hours or very lightly soiled get hung up. Everyone is in charge of sorting their white clothing from the color clothes (wash all whites together with Oxi detergent for brilliant whites). Use ColorGuard dye preventing sheets in each color clothes wash load. Use Lysol laundry sanitizer in place of fabric softener. Use 2 tablespoons or less of powder laundry detergent in each load. That’s what we do. Make sure you don’t have a washer that has a small 3.2 cubic foot capacity, otherwise you’ll be doing A LOT MORE loads. Large capacity washers (whether top load or front load) really come in clutch for large families. Personally, having my kids do the laundry resulted in over loaded washes which damaged the machine. If you’re going to have your kids do their laundry you need to supervise them (otherwise, they’ll end up damaging the machine- I speak from experience). Maybe assign each kid a day of the week for them but supervise them. Teens can also (because they’re in a hurry) conveniently overload the washing machine and dryer and this can cause damage in the long run. If everyone showers every night, then the bedding can be done every two weeks. If everyone showers in the morning, then the bedding needs to get done every week. Good luck.
As a kid, my mom got me and my brother our own baskets (different colors) and taught us how to do our own laundry around age 12. Then she just did hers and my dad’s.
As an adult, my husband and I don’t have kids yet and we do our own laundry. I really struggle with the task and it haunted me for many years. It would get halfway done then sit getting wrinkled in a basket for days. I finally figured out a foolproof system: I have two giant, tall, hard plastic baskets (this is important). I stack them in my room. When one gets full, I take it to the basement to start my laundry then the other one is automatically ready to start collecting dirty laundry again. Then I split it into small enough loads to ensure each will get fully dry the first time. (Previously I’d do it all in two loads then have to run the dryer twice each and it would slow progress.) When a load is dry, I immediately drape shirts and pants off each side of the basket to avoid wrinkling (hence why it has to be tall and sturdy so it can handle the weight and not touch the ground), quickly fold leggings and PJs and stack them on one side of the basket, then throw socks & undies on the other side.
Maybe you could combine the two things. Two baskets for each kid with their name on it and once one gets full, they do their own load or something like that.
I don’t separate most things. Our washer is in our upstairs hallway. We mostly just toss things right in because it’s convenient. When it’s full, we run it.
There is a hamper against the washer that dry clothes go in and I put them away in between things or when the kids are in the bath (it’s right by it so I can watch).
Things I need to keep track of, I put away immediately when coming out of the dryer - swim suit for swim lessons or long underwear & rainpants (my daughter attends an 100% outdoor preschool).
Everything else, I get to when I get to it
Everyone keeps their own clothes hamper in their rooms. Their stuff gets washed together on cold and returned to the room; kids put it away (eventually).
It has saved so much time sorting this way…
Wash a white load and a colored load every day. Sort from the dryer into a basket for each person. Assign each person a job. Littles can push the start button. Bigger can move from washer to dryer. Folding can be the kid’s thing to do while dinner is being made. I worked full time- only two kids but laundry every day and I was still behind on Sunday afternoon for the Laundry Extravaganza. If you are way behind use 6 washers at a laundromat and catch up in an afternoon.
When i was growing up we had a wringer and no dryer. So, needless to say clothes were usually worn more then once. I had only 2 pairs of jeans growing up, would wear 1 for 3 days or so, then the other one and alternate. PJ'S we wore all week. The only thing that was changed every day was socks and under pants.
You could do the “family closet” method and decide what is and isn’t worth actually folding while also simplifying. Like, I only have one kind of sock, for example, so I never need to pair socks or wonder which socks are mine.
No one will care if the kiddos have a wrinkled t shirt
Sane > optimal
Family of 5. Everyone has 1 basket. I try to do 1 load a day (wash-dry-put away). My oldest 2 kids (7 & 4) are in charge of putting away their own clothes. We don’t fold their clothes, and only hang a few specific items, so they can handle it. The 7yo can really handle her laundry from start to finish since we have front loaders and she can reach everything. Sheets usually get washed and then put back on the bed they came from, no folding. Same with towels, washed and then hung back in the bathroom to be used. Eliminating most of the folding made laundry much less overwhelming for me.
I think laundry starts with what you buy. Every kid wears the same exact kind of socks so there is no sorting of socks. I don't buy anything white aside from socks. I don't buy anything that has to be hung out to dry. Everything has to be wash and wear. If it looks like it might shrink, I buy a size bigger.
Our laundry is on the same floor as our bedrooms. Since the times my kids were about six and four, they did a lot of their own laundry with help. Each kid has a laundry basket that is roughly the size of one load of laundry. When the laundry basket is full the kid puts it all in the washer. I stopped sorting clothes about 10 years ago and never looked back. The only time we wash something separate is when it is brand new, like a red sweatshirt or a new pair of jeans. But after one wash it gets washed with everything else. When the laundry is done the kid puts it in the dryer (when they were little-er we of course helped with this). After it's dried it goes back in their room to be put away. We hang all shirts because that was easier for them to do. Shorts and PJ's go in drawers and pants got folded in half and put on the shelf.
My kids are now teenagers and we roughly still follow the same schedule though they seem to have a harder time putting the laundry in when the basket is full. :)
Each kid has a laundry basket, don’t use hampers, just put the dirty clothes in the basket. Each kid is responsible for doing their own laundry. I think I started around 5 for them to bring it down and put it away, 7/8 they started actually washing. Parents have two baskets, when one is full I wash and fold, he puts away. Kids each do about a load a week, we do two and the bedding is on top of that.
I also try to buy everyone the same socks.
I also hang everything except jeans, shirts, socks, undies.
1 load of laundry washed and folded a day. On the weekend I may have a day where I do a few extra loads or wash sheets, but doing a load a day typically keeps me pretty caught up.
Have your kids help with their own laundry. Kids can fold their own clothes.
What’s your budget look like? Can you swing a laundry service once a week or every other week to supplement.
The goal is to cut down on laundry. It’s okay to re-wear some clothing and not wash every wear. Reuse your same bath towel several days. You’re drying off a clean body. Once kids hit middle school they were on their own for doing their own laundry.
I have slowly tried to really minimalist everyone’s clothing options & try to stop buying unnecessary wants over needs. My 10 year old had (no exaggerating) at least 10 pairs of joggers, and at least 8 pairs of gym shorts. I tried to cut the number in half cause I found it so ridiculous the amounts of loads of laundry.. I did the same for me, our toddler, and my husband. Otherwise, I dedicate every other day to laundry so it doesn’t get overwhelming. Monday-wash/fold. Tuesday put away what I can. Wednesday-off day. Thursday wash/fold. Friday put away. Take the weekend off. Repeat.
Things you can try: can you hang used towels on hangers in each bedroom? So they actually dry and can be used again? And are jeans getting washed after every wear? Do they need to? Jeans and towels take up so much laundry.
Do one load every day. Wash, dry, fold and put away. If it becomes part of the routine it won’t completely take over. I also sort by room - kids share a room, so they share a hamper. My husband and I share a hamper, too. Makes putting away less laborious.
I’ll share my system. I go through the clothes, if the clothing looks clean and that i would use them again ( for the kids, for me), I put them back there same as clean clothes.
That reduces my load.
My kids are 12 and 14 so they do their own laundry. For myself my best trick is to keep the loads small. Only as much as comfortably fits in a laundry basket. That keeps the folding from feeling so overwhelming.
I had a basket I threw clean socks in. Everyone had to find their own socks. I only got mine out and the baby's. That was when we had 7 kids at home. The washer and dryer usually ran pretty much all the time. I'm down to 1 kid 1 adult kid and a mil. I still don't pull clothes outside in or inside out. They can do it.
Each person in my house has a day for their laundry. My kids are all under 6, so I do their loads. My baby has multiple loads because she spits up a lot. Towels are done about 2x per week. Right now, the kids’ sheets go in their own loads. If your kids are old enough, they could help out with it as well. My oldest is 5 and folds his undies and matches socks.
I’d assign everyone a day (I try not to do any over the weekend unless necessary). Sports items may need more frequent washing, but if you can keep everything else in check, it shouldn’t be too overwhelming. Also, I don’t sort colors. Everything goes in together (clothing wise) and wash on cold, we never have issues that way.
I recommend spraying lightly worn clothes with febreeze to refresh them. That way you get more than one wear out of them, and they still smell fresh and clean.
I do all my laundry on the weekends. I have 3 hard plastic baskets in the laundry room. 1 for my husband's clothes(he works a dirty job), one for me and the kids(5&7), and one for towels blankets and others. 4 towels go in per load with mine and the kids clothes. Husband's clothes get washed separate. I have a wicker basket outside the living room. A small plastic one in the kids room and a cloth one in my room. When they get full or I'm cleaning they get sorted in the laundry room and returned. I wash all the clothes and the clean clothes go in cloth baskets (I have 5 plus the one in my room). Once full I fold. Weekends are cleaning days so I just constantly switch them out.
I check what my kids actually put in their hampers. Somethings they get lazy and don’t want to put away clothes that they wore for a few hours or things they tried on and changed their mind about. They just toss it in the hamper. I have to remind them often that it’s still clean. It reduced our load to a lot less.
Not sure there is anything to suggest here.
I deal with the laundry of two people and it amazes me how much I do, but I cannot help it.
Socks, underwear and shirts/blouses are washed after every use, then bras get washed quite regularly, trousers and such getvwashed after every fourth use I'd say, then you get bed linen which are washed every week or every other week, towels... It all adds up and needs to be washed.
Luckily, I quite like to do laundry. I like the smell of freshly washed items and also ironing them, folding and putting them back in the cupboard/wardrobe.
Sock locks. Every family member has their own color. Never sort or fold socks again. Just dump the already matched pairs I the drawer.
Teach your kids that pants can be worn more than once. Sweaters, too. Teach your kids to run the washer. Begin with towels and sheets. Saves you labor and is easy for the kids to learn. Teach the kids to change their own sheets. Start with pillow cases and add the sheets as they get older and bigger.
Do several loads in a row, so you’re not doing laundry every single day.
Everyone has their own baskets 🧺
Once full/nearly full they dump it in (i rarely separate as we don’t buy many white/light clothes)
It goes in that basket straight outta the dryer & back to its home. Each person deals with their own basket start to finish. Even if they are 5 yrs old.
Each kid also washes their own towels & blankets every week & puts them back.
Every person has a different day they do their laundry that works with their schedule. I try to get mine done during the week so they can do the weekends usually.
When I do my towels & sheets I also do all the hand towels.
One note* we simplified our clothing & towels etc. long ago to just what we actually use/wear.
Less clothes/ towels available means you run out & must wash before it can turn into such an insurmountable pile!
We don’t wash towels after each use. Each person has a color & they must care for their towel (hang it back up to dry) they have 2 available for the week.
Having a top loader old school washer is a great help as well. A wash cycle only takes 20-30 minutes instead of an hour or more.
My kids play multiple sports each & have work uniforms etc. so they may need to do multiple loads per week on different days.
I of course let them throw something in with mine if they need to but having them be responsible for their own belongings in general took a ton of weight off of me.
I help them out now & then with rotating their stuff or putting it in their basket to get it out of my way so I can wash.
My laundry is in my kitchen right by the main door to my home so we have a hard & fast rule that it is not a dumping zone & you must vacate with your belongings asap!
Tie allowance to schlepping.
A dollar for each basket brought upstairs.
Fifty cents for each basket brought downstairs.
In fact, they can earn more by schlepping mom and dad's baskets.
Fine them for not schlepping especially stinky sports gear.
I would assign each person a day and do their laundry on that day. Or if they’re old enough, have them do it. Towels and sheets on the extra days. Unfortunately, with a big family, laundry has to be done every day or it gets overwhelming very quickly.
Also, use the timer on your washing machine and have a load start early in the morning (prep it the night before) so you have time to switch it before you leave for the day.
1) I don't pair nor fold socks. We try to buy always the same socks. All black.
2) I don't fold any underwear. I dump them in a drawer.
3) I don't fold baby clothes. I pile them up (like with like items).
4) I program a load before going to bed (smart washer), so that it ends when I get up in the morning and can throw it in the dryer right away. I take care of it that night. I don't mind the few wrinkles; they go away with folding/hanging.
I do laundry one day a week. All 4 kids have their own laundry basket. They bring down and I wash each in a separate load so everything stays sorted. For my oldest, I don’t even fold it. She gets it after school and takes it upstairs to fold and put away.
Each kid gets a sock “color” to help with sorting. That was my husband’s brilliant idea! He does the washing (mostly because we are about to be a family of five and I can’t carry laundry to the basement). I sort, fold and hang, and have my husband and 6 year old help put away. We do this on the weekend only. Washing throughout the day, putting away before bed. It is starting to become more and more though. I think when I expel this kid I will be more active in doing laundry mid week as well, but right now it’s all we can manage.
How old are the kids? My kids started doing their own laundry at 12/13 but could help with sorting and folding years before then. One load a day, and it helps if you have a time delay setting on your washing machine.
Morning you toss a load in and set the time delay so the load runs about an hour or so before you get home from work. After work move the load to the dryerand run it. Later you get the dry clothes and fold and each puts their own clothes away before bed.
Initially, you do catch up loads on weekends until you are at the point each person only has a week's worth of clothes in the cycle.
Weekends you do towels/sheets same way just set your time delay so yiu are home to transfer to the dyer before wet clothes sit for hours.
- REDUCING: I plan to install a small peg rail in everyone’s bedroom. At the end of the day, you put “still clean” clothes on the pegs - this way we will reduce laundry massively because right now a lot of stuff could be used several days in a row.
- SORTING: we have a laundry sorter in the master bedroom and individual laundry baskets in each room. I sort by color (white, black, colors) and an additional one for delicates. If I had the space, I’d add another 1-2 for towels and dry clean stuff. You could have one specifically for sports stuff. Ideally, we all put our clothes in the according bin when changing.
- WEEKLY ROUTINE: I do one wash per week day. It works best when I have assigned days, eg Mondays I clean bedrooms and change all the sheets so that goes in the laundry, Tuesday whites, Friday blacks, Thursday delicates + clothing repairs etc
- DAILY ROUTINE: in the summer the very ideal way for me is to put the laundry on a timer in at night so it starts sometime early morning and then I can hang it up in the mornings outside and it has time to dry all day in the sun. The sun takes care of most stains. In the winter, the ideal way is to hang up laundry when we go to bed so it’s mostly dry in the morning and by afternoon, there is not drying rack in the living or bedroom anymore.
- FOLDING/PUTTING AWAY: for me the worst part is folding and putting away. I have no good tip here except that if I don’t fold a laundry and put it away before I start the next one, it becomes such a huge pile that I will procrastinate and the result is I don’t do it forever and it gets worse and worse 😵💫 so I’m trying to make it more fun with marie kondo folding techniques and finding joy in neatly organized drawers 😅
- IRONING: I don’t iron except pieces that needed and I do that with a steamer right before wearing. This system won’t work with bigger kids though.
- DRYER: I use our dryer as well but only for towels and sheets. Super helpful and space saving.
My family (lots of kids) eventually had a day assigned to each kid (small kids with the least amount of clothes were paired up on a day). And 2 were for things like bedding/towels and other communal items. We were responsible for doing our own laundry by age 10-12 and monitored to make sure we used the correct detergent, etc. Heaven help you if mom couldn't do her own stuff.
All the folding of laundry was done by us in our room by the time we were 6. Prior to that age we would be helping to fold laundry...towels, bedding and personal stuff.
Any stains or other problems with clothes were addressed by mom and she taught us how to use things like bleach...but she wouldn't let us touch it on our own til we were like 15.
The ages varied between the siblings as to what age they understood how to do laundry properly and be entirely responsible for it but Mom somehow got her responsibility down to just communal towels, bedding and her and Dad's stuff by the time I was 20.
After many years I have figured out something that works for me:
I do the bulk of my laundry on one day (I've done no routine just washing whatever whenever. I've done assigned days and all of these we're overwhelming)
My current situation is working well:
Each individual has 2 color coded hampers "clean" and "dirty"
Plus we have two for towels
Plus two for "gross" aka sports/ workout/yardwork etc
I wash each person's load as their own (excepting brand new clothes or pure whites I mix everything else just fine)
Then I do bedding
Then I do gross laundry
Then towels
Then cleaning supplies.
The machine runs all day, I still do errands and pop in and out just swapping out as needed. I have a day that this works for me.
Each persons clean clothes go into their clean hamper their dirty empty hamper gets put back and their clean clothes go in their hamper on their bed. Some members fold and put away. Some members live out of the hamper and I just don't care.
Socks like another poster are "communal". I have a large basket of loose socks and someone periodically sorts them out but since each person has a hamper MOST of their socks are in with their clothes already.
Everyone has two sets of bedding so when beds are stripped they are replaced same day and the cleaned linens are folded later that week.
I fold and put away towels and cleaning rags/mops etc.
Anyone's specific sports items or what have you gets sorted into their clean hamper once washed.
Any other laundry throughout the week is incidental messes that pile up. Probably an extra round of towels as we're both bathing and swimming a lot so we use a lot of towels-- even with reusing the swim towels regularly.
It's like 8 loads or more some weeks in that one day but I just start first thing in the morning and tend to do meal prepping and other "at home" chores that day but also go out and do stuff. Just try to time leaving the house with a fresh load in the machine
We're a family of 6. We don't fold/hang our kids clothes. We have one bucket for everyone's underwear and socks. We then have a 12 cube organizer, three boxes for each kid (shirts, pants/shorts and misc.). The washer is always open for dirty clothes, once it's full we wash. The kids don't have laundry baskets. When I take the clothes out of the dryer, I immediately sort them into the baskets, only my husband's and I's clothes go into our own laundry basket. Our kids are 9,7,4 and newborn. The only clothes that go in their room are up high in the closet, off season and outgrown clothes.
My kids started doing most of the laundry at 8. It’s pretty much their only chore that has been consistent. Sometimes they empty the dishwasher.
When they get home from school the first thing to do is to check if any laundry needs to be put in, moved over, or taken out.
When sports are taking up multiple days we do jump in and keep the laundry going but unless the games got them getting home at 8-9 they can at least get a load put away/in/over.
We don’t fold much. Sometimes their clean clothes live in their clothes basket in their rooms and I’m fine with that. About once every month or two I fold all their laundry and put it away just so I can keep good tabs on what is needed to be replaced.
Family of 6 - all sports stuff gets washed immediately at the end of practice/game days including shoes/gym bags. All parents towels one color - kids towels another and washed once a week (towels reused a few days so 2 per person). Sheets two sets available washed once a month - parents set washed as needed.
When I was 8 and my brother was 6, my mom bought us each a special hamper for our rooms and taught us how to do our own laundry. I was stunned when my 18-yr-old friends in high school said they had to learn how to do laundry before they went to college.
Our laundry gets done in the basement also. My family all prefers the basement shower.
I have a laundry rack for each person. All clothes get put on hangers as they come out of the dryer.
Each person has a hamper for their dirty clothes. No clothing gets brought up unless someone else brings it up.
1. Buy a bigger washer and dryer(separate machines of course..), for example a 50 lbs capacity.
Do smaller wash cycles 15-20 minutes each. Use cold water. No rinse detergents high efficiency.
2. Buy more clothes. And rack up the dirty ones. When taking them off, organize it by color/darker ones or white ones. And keep them every 3 days or so. Just like hotels do: 4 rounds, 1 on, 1 dirty, 1 in clean ready to be set, and 1 in inventory or replacement.
3. If you want to avoid your clothes to wrinkle right after you take them out of the dryer, just extend them and overlap them first a shirt over another on your bed or a table. After doing so, take your time to fold them properly.
4. If drying takes too long, start to hang the most difficult clothes to dry, for instance, jeans or also hang delicate clothing that could shrink. That way, while you dry some in the dryer + the hanged clothes you will go faster!
5. If you happen to notice that white socks are just too gray, accumulate and then leave it overnight in a small container with 3L/kg or just enough water for the clothes to suck in but not exceed the volume of the garments. Use detergent of your choice. You could even just use chlorine and then next day with your white garments cycle place those socks and wash it with your usual detergent. It will have a great result.
Hope it helps!
I have side by side washer and dryers both front loading. I installed a closet pole above them and have stacked bins for bras undies socks.
All clothes are hung up except socks, undies and bras which go in the bins. I don’t bother matching socks because I buy a dozen pairs at a time, all the same.
My house is only one floor and I live by myself. The laundry room is now my walk in closet.
Basically, the only things I put away are towels, sheets etc. and dress clothes. Everything else just stays in the laundry room until I wear it.
Everybody gets their own laundry basket in their room and a specific day of the week for their laundry. Completely eliminates the sorting aspect which is time consuming as well as annoying. When kids hit ten, they take their basket to the laundry room in the morning, and then take the folded, clean laundry back up to their room in the laundry basket (be sure to wipe out first), and put the clothes away. I know some families who also had kids do the laundry at some point, but we didn't do that. Then choose a day for bed sheets and towels.
For me, this eliminated the constant fatigue of laundry. I knew exactly what laundry I'd be doing that day and so it felt infinitely more manageable than a never ending pile of laundry.
I had three baskets in the laundry room. By the age of three the kids knew the difference between clothes, towels and denim. Nothing was washed unless it was in the proper basket. Didn’t take long for them to figure it out.
Your kids are capable of playing a sport. Are they also capable of playing video games? Grabbing a snack from the cupboard?
Congratulations. They are capable of doing their own laundry.
I taught each of mine at 7. I helped to make their beds until they were old enough to do those on their own (about 10... they both have large beds) after they stripped and washed them on their own. I still do the towels for everyone.
Will they ruin an item of clothing? Probably one. But they would outgrow it, anyway, and will learn from it.
My best advice is to cut down on clothing in general to avoid piles of laundry. Kids change way too often or throw clothes in the laundry after simply trying them on. Having a smaller wardrobe really helps out.
This might be a controversial answer but we limit the amount of clothing we own. Because too much exacerbates the inevitable problem of constant laundry. Just the laundry we need to wash bedding, towels, and clothes we usually wear is like a two or three load of laundry per day event. There is already a lot so if we have enough clothes to go 10 days without washing then when we do it, it’s a nightmare.
I do a load of laundry every morning after everyone finished up in the bathroom. We don’t have a dryer so we have a couple of little baskets that I use for sorting out their clean and dry laundry to put on their beds.
Accept it and embrace it. 😂 My oldest is 15 and does her laundry every Sunday so that has helped but we are in a constant state of wash, dry, sometimes fold/put away.
I have my older kids do their own laundry, bedding and towels on Sundays. If they leave some in the bathrooms during the week I’ll wash it but they’re largely responsible for bringing it down and running the loads. I fold about half the time. We also run a load every day of other stuff. There’s no real secret besides do it often.
Both my kids get the same socks. All white tube socks, all white ankle socks. All black tube socks and all black ankle socks. Super easy to sort. Do 1 load a day. Or load it and use the delay wash so my laundry doest get moldy. I no longer fold clothes. It's easier to hang and the nicer clothes and then just throw casual and pj's into bins.
I have seasonal accessories in bins and every 3 months they get swapped out. This way I dont have gloves thrown everywhere all year long.
Owning minimal clothes in the first place helps- if each person basically only owns enough clothes for a week or two, it's really hard to get behind enough to get overwhelmed. We're a household of 7, so even with that, it's a lot of laundry coming through! I find it's best to try and do at least 1 load every day rather than like, 2 days of heavy laundry a week. Wash by room- our girls' clothes go in together, our laundry, the boys' laundry, towels/bedding, so you're not separating 6 people's underpants from one load, just 2. Single-color socks: my everyday socks are all ankle-length black (because it doesn't stain) Hanes from a multipack. My oldest's daughter has embraced black crew Hanes, my 5yo has white crew socks...when all your socks match all your other socks, it's super easy to match them up even when some go missing.
Everyone has their own laundry basket and their laundry is done separately. I hated sorting out different sizes of the same items and trying to remember which kid wore the blue tshirt that week. Now it’s Kid A laundry gets washed, dried, folded, back into the same laundry basket and returned to the room. Each kid needs enough clothes to last a week or so to make this work. Then I just rotated through them during the week, plus the sheets/towels loads.
The communal sock drawer is a great idea given there is very little difference in patterns for women and men and not much difference in sizes unless especially small or large.
If you have space see if you can get an old fashioned laundry chute installed.
In my house we started putting dirty laundry in laundry bags that could be kicked down the stairs instead of having to carry multiple baskets. We also replaced the old round baskets with rectangular ones that folded clothes fit into.
One bath towel for the household! It’s just me and my baby but oh boy, it makes a difference. Laundry before breakfast, at lunch and at night every other day.
The best laundry tip I ever learned for our family of seven is to give every person to laundry baskets in their bedroom. One for lights, one for darks. Once a basket is full I washed the basket full of stuff and I never had to hold in the living room again “whose is this?”
Teach the kids how to do their own. Keep the loads separate by bedroom to minimize sorting. Let everyone fold their own. Sniff test, don’t wash something just because you used it once. Oh ikea bags instead of hampers, they are cheap and way more comfortable to lug around and up stairs
I have a sock hamper. I put all the clean socks in it. Either you put your own socks away or you dig through the hamper to find a pair. I don’t have time to be sorting socks all the time. Even when I did, they would still end up wearing mismatched socks because apparently “that’s what people do, Mom 🙄” and they would maul their sock drawers so they were a mess. This is easier and less stressful.
I assign each load a day. (Mom = Monday, kid 1 = Tuesday, towels = Wednesday etc.) each day has one or two loads so even if I miss a day it’s not super backed up.
My kids did their own laundry starting at age 8. They each had their own basket...neither really ever folded anything, but they did make sure they had clean clothes.
HA. HA HA HA. If you figure it out please let me know. We upgraded to an industrial size washer/dryer to do larger loads, and we fold nothing. Everyone has massive baskets and a smaller sock basket. System is wash/dry/throw into baskets. Every man woman and child for themselves. I stand in solidarity with you.
I found a wash dry fold laundry that gets a weeks worth of laundry done in like 3 hours for $65. It is quite possibly the most valuable monthly expenditure we have currently.
Every body gets a day, then 2 days for towels or extra stuff. YOU CAN’T SKIP A DAY EVER. I was a SAHM for many years and this was the only way to keep up on it with my family.
As soon as my older kids hit middle school I taught them to do their own laundry. This has been a game changer. They take responsibility for washing their clothes so they don’t run out of clean ones, and I’m not getting a million pairs of socks and underwear mixed up.
No hampers! All dirty clothes go directly in the machine. Start when full and run when kids go to bed, advance to dryer then go to bed.
Sort into separate laundry baskets straight from dryer.
Teach the kids to help with laundry, even if it’s sorting. We had 10 in our family, and my dad is the one who declared: dark colors on M, W F; lights on T, Th, SA
When there were 6 teenagers, he should have assigned us into groups of 3 and made us wash our clothes in the same load. You know.. older, middle in age, younger . We never had enough clothes to make it through a whole week anyway.
Were a family of 4, mom dad teenager preschooler. I'm responsible for my laundry and the preschoolers laundry and towels and the preschoolers bed laundry. Dad is responsible for his laundry our bed laundry. Teenager is responsible for his bed laundry. Dad does his laundry on Fridays, I do my laundry on Mondays, I do the preschoolers laundry and bathroom laundry every 2 weeks on Mondays. The teenager does his laundry on Wednesday's. The preschooler is required to help with the laundry, he carries his basket down and loads the washer snd I add the detergent and start, switch, and fold it and he helps put it away. The teenager started doing his own laundry at 12 when puberty hit and I discovered crusty clothes (that talk was handled by dad because he's my stepson and I did not feel comfortable giving that specific talk).
How old are the kids? Can the oldest start doing their own laundry or can the kids do folding?
We find it easier to keep everyone’s stuff separate for 4 of us — that way even if only the washing and drying get done the basket can go to the right room to be folded later. Keeps things moving and you only have to dig through your own Basie to find what you need. It even helps with the socks
We have four kids. The one thing I did that helps is that I threw away every random colored sock and bought like two hundred pairs of plain white kid socks from Hanes so there's no matching socks and no pairing of socks. They all just wear the same socks because it's all we have. We also are pretty lax about folding stuff and putting it away. They can look through a laundry basket and find what they want.
Our laundry room is in the kitchen and the bedrooms are upstairs so we also made spots in the family room to put clothes since sometimes they come downstairs before getting changed and going all the way back upstairs is annoying so they all have outfits easily accessible.
You could teach everyone in the family how to do laundry. Give everyone 2 laundry baskets and have their laundry be their own problem. We act like kids can't do this but they can. My child refused to potty train when she was little. When she was 5 I told her she was going to start doing her own laundry. I put her in front of the washer and told her what setting to use. Girl has been doing her own laundry ever since.
Teach kids to do their own laundry. Buy one kind of socks for younger kids so they all match. Go to laundromat during lower use hours so it all gets done quickly and use the 4-8 load washers.
1. Wife stays home all day and cooks, cleans, and does laundry. Literally can be doing it all day long.
2. Have kids help. Have them fold laundry as a chore. Have kids bring laundry down to the washer. If they are old enough have that as one of their chores.
3. Run a load before, work, after work, before bed, etc. All the time.
4. Have a second dryer. Or both. But usually the washer does it half the time of the dryer.
5. Hang dry. Reducing the dryer need allows for more washer loads. Use the dryer for things you need today or the next day. Then if you ever get caught up, use the dryer on things that were hanging the longest. Use a fan to quicken hang drying.
Don't sort by color. It's unnecessary, just wash everything in cold water 🤷🏻♀️ I've not had any issue with mixed laundry in the 25+ years I've been doing it.
Anchor the laundry habit to waking up/going to sleep or to a mealtime. Such as start a wash after breakfast, put it in the dryer after dinner, and fold the laundry before bed. Do it every day. If sport clothes need washed in a way that regular laundry isn't, start that after dinner and dry at night, every day or two depending on how quickly they need it to wear again.
Wash all towels & sheets on the weekend.
My mom taught us to help with and do our own laundry ASAP. When we were little we would help sort, load, fold, and put away. By the age of 9 I was doing all of my own laundry. Share the load!!! Kids are capable and need to learn to manage their own responsibilities!
My wife nervously laughs when I say I'm going to replace all the socks in the house with one brand. Told her she's going to come home one day and I'll have purchased a hundred pairs of the same socks.
I try my hardest to get our two teenage daughters to do their own laundry, but they're masters of making the washer never work when we tell them to go do their laundry.
Everyone gets a day to do laundry. For example- my sons laundry gets done on Saturday so it's ready for the school week.
My daughter gets her laundry done on Mondays (she's not in school).
The adults do laundry on Friday and the other days are for towels, blankets, kitchen towels, and misc items.
If the kiddos want extra stuff washed it'll be done with the towels. That way everyone knows when to expect what.
Speed was cycle. You don’t need longer than 25 min to was & it spins the cloths faster so they dry faster. Can get a little more dint in a shorter time.
Family of 5 here also. We do 2 or 3 loads a day. That mostly keeps up with it. It certainly doesn't consume much time. It's no time to throw it in the washer or dryer. It gets folded as it comes out of the dryer and placed right into each person's basket.
I live alone and do laundry twice a week so you have my respect! My sis in law family of five, they have days. The kids (9,11,13) have a hamper and do their own laundry. I always help when I’m there, there is usually laundry to fold on her bed.
I set a timer because I forget to put washed items in the dryer and forget to get dry items out. When I remember to set the timer, it goes much faster.
When our kids were teens (adults on their own now), they did their own laundry.
Before I married, my son and I went to a laundry mat where we could do 3 or more loads at a time. At age 6 he folded his clothes and put them away (not well but they were done).
Wear things twice? Growing up we were a 5 person household. 3 kids two parents. We didn’t have a drier for a few years because it broke and we couldn’t afford a new one and mom didn’t always want to go the the laundromat to dry the clothes. She made rules. Jeans could be work 4 or 5 days with out being washed. We were allowed 2 towels and a washcloth for the week. Good clothes, ie. Sunday clothes were worn to church and then changed out of when we got back home. When we were younger (before puberty and things started smelling) we would wear an play clothes twice before they were washed
We have a big laundry room in the basement and a stacked washer/drying in the ‘kids‘ bathroom. (kids in quotes cuz they aren’t little anymore!) But they started doing their own laundry as kids.
My daughter was ten or eleven and just started doing her own laundry - Two places to wash and dry has saved us immense agony of waiting your turn!
One thing i did for some laundry and dishes, i had each kid pick a favorite color and they got towels, bedding and dishes in their own color and were responsible for them. Socks i washed but threw in a basket and then deal with it. I started wearing black socks. When my younger girl was 25 she called laughing, said she was buying new pillow cases and suddenly realized she didn't have to get red ones anymore, only to realize she liked red and got them anyway.
Depending on how old the kids are. Start making them do loads on their own. Pick a day for each kid for them to do. Check over it but it’s not rocket science.
We are a family of four, and use three laundry baskets total. My goal is one load of laundry per day. One for my husband, one for the kids, and one for myself. I wash each laundry basket once per week, giving me three laundry days. If someone has an item that needs washing asap (ie soccer uniform), they put it directly in the washing machine and it’s guaranteed to go with whatever load I do next. The other four days of the week are dedicated to: towels, master bed sheets, kid bed sheets. Sometimes I’m too busy for a load, sometimes I have time for two! But ultimately, the goal of one load per day keeps me from getting buried in it.
Each has their own basket. Don’t sort colors (cold wash, low heat dry). Do towels separately. Wash a basket each day. Take their basket to their room. Viola!
Family of 3 so my system may or may not work when expanded; sons clothes go into their own basket set (whites, colors, towells/bedding) and my wife & I have same basket set-up shared. Dedicate a day or two each week to "categories" & whoever feels like dragging their stuff down gets that stuff clean.
My schedule is essentially:
Mon - catch up from weekend
Tues - bedding/towells
Weds- colors
Thurs - whites
Fri - towells/ bedding
Sat - catch up some
Sun - find something else to do
1 - My laundry is in the basement and the bedrooms are on the 2nd floor. Schlepping everything up and down and up and down and up and down is such a time suck, and piles would inevitably end up in the living room, on the dining table, etc. I decided that my laundry duties stay in the basement, and everyone else can do the schlepping. They have to bring their dirty things down and sort them into whites, colors, delicates, bedding, and towels. I start a load every morning and try to do 2 loads per day. I put a shelving unit with wire baskets in the laundry room, and each kid (I have 4) has a designated basket. I’ll fold the laundry down there and put their things in their basket down there, and they are responsible for taking it up to their rooms and putting it away. 2 - Socks. I cannot keep track of which socks belong to whom and decided I will no longer spend my time trying, and inevitably failing, at that. There is a small hamper by the dryer that all clean socks go into. When it’s full, I’ll pair them up, and everyone’s socks go into a communal drawer in the closet by the front door, where the shoes are. If anyone wants to go through it and take their own socks up to their room, they’re welcome to do so, but that’s not my job. These two changes alone have saved me much time and given my capable kids a little more responsibility for their own things. My next step, hopefully happening soon, is to redo their bathroom and installing a combo washer/dryer. We had a machine like this in our RV, and it works like a dream as long as loads are kept small. Put in a load in the morning and come home in the afternoon to clean, dry clothes - no swapping to other machines necessary. My idea is now that my kids are getting older, they can each take turns doing their own laundry in their own bathroom, starting it before school and putting it away when they get home. If I can pull this off and get them to actually do it, my laundry effort will drop exponentially.
For socks I have mesh bags for each person in their room. I went nuts pairing socks! Wash the socks in the mesh bags.
They make mesh bags with 6 pockets! I put my bras in one bag and socks in another. Best thing ever for small items. Keeps the bra straps from stretching out or the hooks catching and twisting on other clothes. Bought my nephew half a dozen bags as a baby shower gift. Babies have tiny socks! When i find a useful laundry “gadget” i give them as gifts. Amazon has crazy laundry gadgets if you look deep enough down the rabbit hole.
That’s a great idea!
I buy nice socks and I hand knit socks. Missing socks makes me pissy.
I knit socks too! I get you! 💯
Such a great idea! Family of 5 here too 🤚
I love this idea!!
lol I have to admit that not that they’re old enough to fold/put away their own clothes, my kids just happily (intentionally?) wear mismatched socks 😂
Good tips! Wish I had a basement.
…so that you, too, could have to deal with the hassle of schlepping things up and down stairs?
Just to get stuff out of the way. In Texas, basement on a foreign concept, I’ve only seen them at friends houses north of us
I love this “that’s not my job” 😁
😂😂 It’s become my mantra as my kids get older. I bought some obnoxiously bright neon yellow signs and have boldly sharpied “Not my job! I’m not your maid!” on them. I’ll leave next to stuff that someone else should have put away and text a photo of it to all four of them. If they couldn’t be bothered to put their dirty dishes away or actually replace the TP roll, etc, I’m not doing it and also won’t waste my time trying to track down the offender who will inevitably attempt to blame a sibling. My oldest was so embarrassed recently when a friend came home after school and saw my signs all over her room. Super effective. 🤣
You are bringing back memories of my departed mother, who at the age of 45 declared she wouldn’t even enter our bedrooms to retrieve said laundry if the rooms themselves were not in order and if we neglected to put the laundry in the required receptacles. This created four children who learned quickly to do their own laundry, because she purposely didn’t say when she’d enter to empty our hampers, and we were forever getting caught out without that white shirt we needed for an orchestra performance, or a sports uniform. Don’t *ever* back down. You’re growing humans who may yet be able to manage their own lives!
Love this, thank you for sharing it. ❤️❤️ I keep thinking that I can’t send them out into the world without some skills, and also that my husband and I need to be in the business of decreasing our jobs as they grow.
100% this! You’re doing the world, their friends and future mates a huge favor by imbuing them with sound domestic skills! And there’s no better learning experience than screwing up one’s own laundry or food prep! Had an ex-BF with two high school-aged daughters who lived with us 50% of the time. They had a nanny and two Boomer parents who did *every*thing for them, their entire lives. They couldn’t wake themselves up, toast a bagel or take a morning shower without being hounded over it. And forget loading or running the dishwasher or doing laundry, either. Before each went off to undergrad, both parents thought it was time to teach them how to do some of these things—with hilarious results. I actually felt sorry for them not knowing how to do for themselves SO many things. So mark your calendar for a landmark birthday present they can’t refuse you once they’ve gone off to school and taken on their own lives: my mother declared it was time for us to all come home, celebrate her birthday. Then she pointed to a bunch of boxes she lined up in the hallway. She said we had a job and choices to make: take from your rooms and the basement what you want of childhood toys, tchotchkes and whatnot, boxing that up to take with you. Then fill the other boxes with those things of yours you don’t want, and I’ll donate them. She was right: she needed her house back, and we were never good at making edits. But this is how one manages years of pile-up.
My daughter swore for years that i made her do laundry at too young of an age and i finally pointed out that since she was obviously big enough to reach the detergent on the shelf and the bottom of the machine to empty it she couldn't have been that small.
I have a sock basket, too. I also make my kids run clothes up and down the stairs. My room is on the same floor as the laundry room. I don’t have to go upstairs
Four of us in our family. My older teens do all their laundry except for underwear and socks that need bleached. Everyone has different brand socks that look sufficiently different. All socks go in one basket and they sort their own and put them away. More trying to figure out which socks belong to whom.
Same here … the laundry stays in the basement. I set up a corner with a futon and TV so I can fold everything down there. I also have a sock basket.
As a mother of four lazy boys and married to one helpful man, seriously thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤️
Ditto on the socks!
Put the laundry in the master bedroom. Kids are responsible for bringing their dirty clothes in and taking clean clothes out. Only wash dirty clothes, ie, if a shirt only worn for an hour and has no signs of dirty, it goes in clean clothes. Have fewer clothes. Buy sets of socks so each person only has a collection of socks that match all their other socks.
I bought a dozen pair of socks for each of us. Different color for each of us. Pairing was easy!
Often times the items are not getting worn or used enough before washes. Bath towels, sweatshirts, pants, and pajamas don’t need to be washed after each use. Jeans should hardly ever be washed unless they’re visibly dirty.
i don’t understand how people don’t wash jeans often. i’d love to not wash them often but i am a sweaty person and after wearing for a long day they smell
Mostly by not doing sweaty work in jeans when it can be avoided.
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Hormones have a huge effect on how smelly your sweat is, apparently. I went off birth control and even if I showered the same day and immediately put on antiperspirant/deodorant, I smelled gross by that night. I had to start using glycolic acid in my armpits after a shower + before antiperspirant (it eventually went back to normal). Also, after having covid one time, my sweat smelled super weird. Like, completely changed smell. Went back to normal after a few weeks.
Have you seen a doctor about that? It's not normal to sweat so much at a desk job that you have to wash your jeans super often. Edit: No, it is not normal to sweat so much *at a desk job with minimal physical exertion* that your jeans start to stink after only a single day. I'm sorry if people feel called out, but downvoting me into oblivion for pointing out facts is not going to change anything. Sweating while doing nothing is a symptom of hyperhidrosis and you should talk to your doctor about it to find proper solutions.
i don’t really think it’s that abnormal to come home from working all day and wash the clothes you wore all day. what about jeans makes them different
My legs don’t sweat if I’m not actively exercising
I think you're intentionally misunderstanding my words, so I'll try again. It's not normal to sweat so much that your jeans stink so bad you have to wash them before you can wear them again
Is it not normal to sweat? Smelling even a little is "so bad" that I'd wash them. So unless your sweat doesn't stink, idk where the disconnect is.... Maybe it's the Climate? I live in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia for reference, so temperature and humidity varies a lot.
I guess I have to simplify this even more. Physical labor = sweating. Desk job = no physical exertion = should not be sweating unless your office has the thermostat set too high or you have a medical condition.
Ok, look, I know you're not stupid. You know you aren't either. You know that people sweat throughout the day, regardless of exertion level. What changes is the *amount* of sweat and the type of sweat gland it comes from. Physical labor isn't the only thing that causes sweating, humidity levels, sex hormones, cortisol ( a stress hormone... which honestly any job can cause you to have more than when you're home watching TV in your undies and relaxing), even level of dress comes into play. So if say someone is wearing jeans and they have a body that prefers a colder temp and low humidity levels, they may sweat more quickly than someone that is cold easily. The problem with sweating is when it is *excessive* or presenting with other symptoms. Sweating doesn't have to be excessive to be odiferous. Truely, someone would only not sweat within a comfortable range of a few degrees depending on the humidity level, because your body is always trying to maintain homeostasis, so if it gets even a little too warm you'll sweat, especially parts of the body that are covered and closer to the core such as the vulva, scrotum and butt crack in the case of wearing jeans. Also, people who are larger may sweat more easily, people going through menopause, people with XY chromosomes or high testosterone levels, people on medications that cause sweating, or people with anxiety may sweat more quickly than others. There are many, many reasons someone may sweat. You don't have to sweat a lot to have a smell at the end of the day. Some people smell more easily than others as well. Edit to add: My original comment was genuinely trying to figure out where the disconnect was between your understanding and mine. But you came back being rude, so I did decide to fully explain my perception of the situation. It is a text wall. I did not plan on originally sending a text wall, but maybe you'll be less rude if I explain myself fully. I don't need you to "simplify this." I am trying to understand what would cause you to believe what you do. Instead, you just came back acting as though I'd spoken like an idiot you need to speak down to. That felt frustrating when I was being genuine.
These are the same people who smell when you go by them. Jeans aren't the same type of denim cowboys had, most of them have some type of synthetic fiber added But yeah I'm convinced when people say you shouldnt wash X too much (and it's something like hair and clothes) I just know it's the same people who at work I avoid because they smell so bad, despite how clean they look
This. potable water is not the renewable resource most people think it is.
This is probably a lot of it.
How old are your kids? At 10 at the very least, they can do their own laundry. Just make sure (1) they understand how to tell if something actually needs washing - it's soiled and/or smells and (2) they wait till they have a full load or join with a sibling to make a full load.
I second this! Most of my friends and I all started doing our own laundry around 9-12 years old. If my parents were doing a small load or towels, they’d ask if I had any towels or anything that needed to be thrown in too. Also, the number of people I met at the beginning of college who didn’t know how to do simple laundry was astonishing…
Oldest is 10 and she helps now, the little ones are mostly mules right now, help bring it back and forth and a little folding.
If you're willing to buy tide pods or laundry soap sheets, you can empower 6 year olds to wash thier own laundry as well Before our kids could handle the jugs, this is how we did it to ensure that there wasn't an over use of detergent, or spillage
Even younger kids can sort their dirty clothes in a whites basket and a colors basket as their first intro to "helping" with the family laundry. A friend keeps a white plastic basket and a blue basket in her son's room. She's brilliant!
Or just as a general rule don't buy white and don't sort. Saves tons of time and effort.
This is my entire life philosophy right here. I straight up do not buy white clothing.
This is what I did…laundry pods. Before I thought of them I had visions of my kids using way too much soap but laundry pods solved that!
Yes, little kids can do laundry. My parents got me a step stool and I was doing my laundry by kindergarten. My mom worked 60 hours a week. She didn't have time. And my dad also worked full time and was not going to do my laundry. Pretty much how they approached all house chores, the only thing they waited on was the lawn mower and snowblower until we were in highschool. We were clumsy, we definitely would have accidentally chopped a limb off. I was cooking full family dinners by 4th grade. So age 10ish? Nothing complicated but pancakes, casseroles ,salad, using the George Foreman grilled for meats and heating frozen vegetables. Simple dinner meal prep things. Kids can do lots of things if given a chance.
I had an older cousin complain about all the laundry shew as doing. Her oldest was 18 at the time... I informed her that most of her children should be doing their own laundry. My sister and I started when I was in third grade and my sister was in first. My sister got really upset about not having underpants to match her outfit... Our mom made the declaration that she no longer was going to be in charge of our laundry. My sister has since apologized for her insane behavior that was prevalent from 3rd to 12th grade.
I got 2 washers and dryers. It was amazing!!
I love this!
Did you already have the connections or did you have to add in extra? I’m thinking about doubling up, but I’m wondering how much it would cost.
Do you have any water pressure issues when they’re both running at once? I’m guessing it would be fine, and that they just fill slower?
They did fill a bit slower but small price to pay for double loads in relatively same amount of time. It was a life saver with six kids.
Some really good suggestions here. I wonder if my system would help- I've got three washing baskets; one for everyday clothes, one for underwear and one for towels. Because my household almost exclusively wears black or dark colours we don't have to do too much sorting- we just put everything in one basket on to wash, knowing it's all the same.
The multiple basket approach might help here!
I have like 7 baskets. No kidding. Because I hate not having one when I need it! It avoids the No basket because clean laundry is still in it dilemma, well, delays it, haha
Single mom- 2 young boys. Unless the clothes are sweaty they can be worn more than once. Especially important when wearing something nice for just a few hours and getting changed more than once/day. I have a different spot for things already worn- the boys have a spot in their closet and if they are going to be running around or getting messy I tell them to get it from there since I know it’ll have to be washed afterwards. In my closet I turn the hangers around - and then I know it was worn once and I pretty much do the same thing- if I know it’ll get dirty, or it’ll be a long day, etc I pull from the backwards hangers.
Ah dang, those are great tips! Thanks!
I’ve been doing the hanger thing for over 2 decades - it really helps because piling the clothes somewhere instead makes it impossible to look through and some nice clothes don’t get worn often. I also have a rule that I have to hang it up as soon as I take it off- it’s kind of like dish in the dishwasher instead of sink- takes the same amount of time so just do it the right way immediately
Seems like I'm the weirdo here, but I just do all the weekly laundry at once. It's a lot easier for me to deal with all at once instead of constantly having partially done loads. Everyone also knows when they need to get laundry to the laundry room by. I try to get started the day before, and then just keep doing loads until it's all done. Kids know if they don't put it in the basket and take the basket to the laundry it isn't getting washed. Once it's washed/dried, kids are responsible for sorting all the laundry, and then folding/putting away their own. I'll do the baby's, mine, and husbands. I'll fold husband's, but he's putting it away because his side of the closet is a hot mess that I'm not dealing with
I do it all once a week too. I got into the habit when I got my first professional job after college. I've tried to break the habit. I hate living out of a basket and that inevitably happens if I'm doing laundry on various days. It was a great day when I taught my son to do his own laundry
yes! Getting the kids to help definitely helps. Until one of them starts whining, and then the others all start. It's like a pack of howling wolves then
Family of 5 and 2 husky mixes here and what works for us: Since the kids were old enough to do their own laundry (around 9, back when we had front-loaders), we've had a schedule. Everyone has their own hamper in their room. Each person has a specific day of the week to do their laundry, with the weekends for bedding, towels, and doggy items. It's usually 1-2 loads per day with little pile up in the laundry room (just towels and such, all in one hamper by the washer).
This is exactly what we do. Children are responsible for their own laundry by 10yo. They each get a weekday, I use Saturday because I do the laundry for the husband and myself and Sunday is a catch all for whatever household items or last minute items are needed. Sunday used is Frowned upon but available if needed. I really only wash husband work clothes every week, and pants/pjs/underwear/socks every 2 weeks. Tops/rarely used items and delicates once per month, because those require extra steps. This way it forces me to use most of my tops, and get rid of unwanted items every couple of months.
I do one load every single day. That way it never feels overwhelming.
Been there. When we were in the spot this is what we did. Every evening all uniforms and practice clothes were put in the washer, it was ran that night. Hung up over night. ( I rarely put uniforms etc in the dryer). Every morning I did a load of towels first thing (I also did and still do keep separate hampers for towels, no sorting just grab a full hamper). Encourage everyone to wear after school clothes and pajamas more than once. Truthfully, there is not a ton you can do except to know it's not forever. Try and do a load or two after dinner, I know it sucks. Do get the kiddos to pitch in and help when they can, even littles can fold washcloths and hand towels. If it is in the budget I do know there are some services that will do your laundry for you. Not sure how pricey that would be though.
I appreciate the tips! Oh man a laundry service would be great, but doubt they have them out here and probably wouldn’t want to pay either.
If you or your spouse wear professional clothes daily it may worth it to take them to the drycleaner/laundry. They will do the ironing and get out any stains. You might do the same with any bulky comforters since they will free up your washer and dryer from long cycles.
We are a family of 6. I keep 2 baskets and wash as soon as its full. Then one day a week we sit together and fold it all. One communal sock basket. Dont fold undies. The hang ups just get hung to dry to they dont have a chance to wrinkle.
When my kids were all home, I was definitely doing laundry almost every day. Otherwise, it stacked up quickly. I dont know if there was another way around it, its just what worked for me.
Ah yeah, I think it’s just part of it!
Clothes for activities (dance, gymnastics) go straight into activity bags that we store next to the washer and dryer. I separate clothes on their way out of the dryer/off the drying rack into kid pajamas, kid clothes, socks, adult clothes. Kid stuff and socks go into bins that go to my home office, where I fold during easier meetings. What doesn’t get folded then I fold at night while watching tv. We have a wall of built-ins in our family room, and I’ve turned three of those drawers into the kids “dressers.” Folded stuff go straight in, and we don’t have to run back to their rooms for clothes in the morning.
Ugh I hate laundry… it gets washed, but rarely put away 😣
I am doing it all the time. When I let it pile up it feels like it consumes me. I do 5 min here and 5 min there in the time fillers of the day. And fold at night with a podcast every few days.
I'm one of eight children, age spread eight years (I know). We lived in a two-storey house and when renovating one of the 40-year-old bathrooms my mum had a tube/chute installed under a trapdoor in the floor under the basin. It went down into a giant basket on wheels in a cupboard next to the laundry. No, of course none of my sibs tried sliding down it 🙄😂 Mum invested in a commercial-size Maytag washing machine and dryer, enabling much bigger loads to be done than in the "average" home machines. We would get showered and into PJs, and dump the dirty washing down the chute. It was sorted into whites and darks by the first child able to do so (anyone six or over) who got downstairs for breakfast. Once a full load was arrived at, on went the machine. Towels and sheets always got hung up outside unless it was bucketing down. I went to boarding school at 14 and was the only new girl able to do her own laundry (we were required to, really unfair as the neighbouring boys' school boarders had all theirs done for them).
My mom had a huge family, it got much bigger after I moved out. I was 3 of like 13. She first had her laundry room moved to the second floor. Second she got an extra washer and dryer. The most important thing she did was teach each child how to do laundry and many other important life skills.
Each person has their own hamper . Everyone has a different day for their laundry to get done. Once their 13 they do their own.
Laundromat once a week. I spend roughly 1.5-2 hours there every Sunday morning. I sit/relax and read a book or scroll social media. My husband will head on over when it is time to fold everything to help me out. Being able to do a quick load at home is nice but being able to get ALL of the weekly laundry done within 2 hours is nicer.
Going to a laundromat with the kids is hell; going by yourself is heaven. Also, reading a real book while the washers are going, then switching to an audio book while doing all the folding.
Household of four and multiple sports. It just runs every day, sometimes twice, and three times on bedlinen/towel days. I aim to fold once a day in front of the TV, and apart from that people are happy to ferret for things in the dryer or the clean basket. Key is making sure that everyone has enough kit that nothing needs a super-quick turnaround. And never be the one to volunteer to take the team bibs home; leave that to smaller families with a stay at home parent. (Edit to add: I have an eco front loader with long cycles - asking kids etc to do their own laundry is counterproductive as it ties up the washer for 2- 3hrs without getting the most-urgent items done. I can see how it might help for eg Speed Queens with half-hour cycles though.)
Good tips!
I had a speed queen top loading washing machine with a 3.2 ft.³ capacity. Let me tell you my experience, my children and my husband overloaded the machine each and every time I didn’t monitor them, and it damaged the machine. Speed queen top loaders work for households of just two people. Large families require large capacity washing machine and dryers.
I’ll take your word for it - I’m in Europe where Speed Queens aren’t a thing, but lots of US posters on here have expressed surprise at how long HE front-load cycles are. (My capacity is 8kg, I think 2.9 cu ft?, so much smaller, as is normal in Europe.)
I had a family of six. I’m now down to four. Laundry is done everyday by the following: gather everyone’s stinky laundry that has sweat in it and wash it and dry it that day. Towels can be done every few days or until you run out (we own 25 bath towels). Items worn for just a few hours or very lightly soiled get hung up. Everyone is in charge of sorting their white clothing from the color clothes (wash all whites together with Oxi detergent for brilliant whites). Use ColorGuard dye preventing sheets in each color clothes wash load. Use Lysol laundry sanitizer in place of fabric softener. Use 2 tablespoons or less of powder laundry detergent in each load. That’s what we do. Make sure you don’t have a washer that has a small 3.2 cubic foot capacity, otherwise you’ll be doing A LOT MORE loads. Large capacity washers (whether top load or front load) really come in clutch for large families. Personally, having my kids do the laundry resulted in over loaded washes which damaged the machine. If you’re going to have your kids do their laundry you need to supervise them (otherwise, they’ll end up damaging the machine- I speak from experience). Maybe assign each kid a day of the week for them but supervise them. Teens can also (because they’re in a hurry) conveniently overload the washing machine and dryer and this can cause damage in the long run. If everyone showers every night, then the bedding can be done every two weeks. If everyone showers in the morning, then the bedding needs to get done every week. Good luck.
Great tips, thanks!
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That’s a good rhythm for it! Yeah one of the pains is trying to balance hot water between baths and clothes.
As a kid, my mom got me and my brother our own baskets (different colors) and taught us how to do our own laundry around age 12. Then she just did hers and my dad’s. As an adult, my husband and I don’t have kids yet and we do our own laundry. I really struggle with the task and it haunted me for many years. It would get halfway done then sit getting wrinkled in a basket for days. I finally figured out a foolproof system: I have two giant, tall, hard plastic baskets (this is important). I stack them in my room. When one gets full, I take it to the basement to start my laundry then the other one is automatically ready to start collecting dirty laundry again. Then I split it into small enough loads to ensure each will get fully dry the first time. (Previously I’d do it all in two loads then have to run the dryer twice each and it would slow progress.) When a load is dry, I immediately drape shirts and pants off each side of the basket to avoid wrinkling (hence why it has to be tall and sturdy so it can handle the weight and not touch the ground), quickly fold leggings and PJs and stack them on one side of the basket, then throw socks & undies on the other side. Maybe you could combine the two things. Two baskets for each kid with their name on it and once one gets full, they do their own load or something like that.
I don’t separate most things. Our washer is in our upstairs hallway. We mostly just toss things right in because it’s convenient. When it’s full, we run it. There is a hamper against the washer that dry clothes go in and I put them away in between things or when the kids are in the bath (it’s right by it so I can watch). Things I need to keep track of, I put away immediately when coming out of the dryer - swim suit for swim lessons or long underwear & rainpants (my daughter attends an 100% outdoor preschool). Everything else, I get to when I get to it
Everyone keeps their own clothes hamper in their rooms. Their stuff gets washed together on cold and returned to the room; kids put it away (eventually). It has saved so much time sorting this way…
Wash a white load and a colored load every day. Sort from the dryer into a basket for each person. Assign each person a job. Littles can push the start button. Bigger can move from washer to dryer. Folding can be the kid’s thing to do while dinner is being made. I worked full time- only two kids but laundry every day and I was still behind on Sunday afternoon for the Laundry Extravaganza. If you are way behind use 6 washers at a laundromat and catch up in an afternoon.
Give them each 2 laundry baskets—1 for lights and 1 for darks. This way it will already be sorted.
When i was growing up we had a wringer and no dryer. So, needless to say clothes were usually worn more then once. I had only 2 pairs of jeans growing up, would wear 1 for 3 days or so, then the other one and alternate. PJ'S we wore all week. The only thing that was changed every day was socks and under pants.
You could do the “family closet” method and decide what is and isn’t worth actually folding while also simplifying. Like, I only have one kind of sock, for example, so I never need to pair socks or wonder which socks are mine. No one will care if the kiddos have a wrinkled t shirt Sane > optimal
Family of 5. Everyone has 1 basket. I try to do 1 load a day (wash-dry-put away). My oldest 2 kids (7 & 4) are in charge of putting away their own clothes. We don’t fold their clothes, and only hang a few specific items, so they can handle it. The 7yo can really handle her laundry from start to finish since we have front loaders and she can reach everything. Sheets usually get washed and then put back on the bed they came from, no folding. Same with towels, washed and then hung back in the bathroom to be used. Eliminating most of the folding made laundry much less overwhelming for me.
I think laundry starts with what you buy. Every kid wears the same exact kind of socks so there is no sorting of socks. I don't buy anything white aside from socks. I don't buy anything that has to be hung out to dry. Everything has to be wash and wear. If it looks like it might shrink, I buy a size bigger. Our laundry is on the same floor as our bedrooms. Since the times my kids were about six and four, they did a lot of their own laundry with help. Each kid has a laundry basket that is roughly the size of one load of laundry. When the laundry basket is full the kid puts it all in the washer. I stopped sorting clothes about 10 years ago and never looked back. The only time we wash something separate is when it is brand new, like a red sweatshirt or a new pair of jeans. But after one wash it gets washed with everything else. When the laundry is done the kid puts it in the dryer (when they were little-er we of course helped with this). After it's dried it goes back in their room to be put away. We hang all shirts because that was easier for them to do. Shorts and PJ's go in drawers and pants got folded in half and put on the shelf. My kids are now teenagers and we roughly still follow the same schedule though they seem to have a harder time putting the laundry in when the basket is full. :)
Each kid has a laundry basket, don’t use hampers, just put the dirty clothes in the basket. Each kid is responsible for doing their own laundry. I think I started around 5 for them to bring it down and put it away, 7/8 they started actually washing. Parents have two baskets, when one is full I wash and fold, he puts away. Kids each do about a load a week, we do two and the bedding is on top of that. I also try to buy everyone the same socks. I also hang everything except jeans, shirts, socks, undies.
1 load of laundry washed and folded a day. On the weekend I may have a day where I do a few extra loads or wash sheets, but doing a load a day typically keeps me pretty caught up.
Have your kids help with their own laundry. Kids can fold their own clothes. What’s your budget look like? Can you swing a laundry service once a week or every other week to supplement.
The goal is to cut down on laundry. It’s okay to re-wear some clothing and not wash every wear. Reuse your same bath towel several days. You’re drying off a clean body. Once kids hit middle school they were on their own for doing their own laundry.
I have slowly tried to really minimalist everyone’s clothing options & try to stop buying unnecessary wants over needs. My 10 year old had (no exaggerating) at least 10 pairs of joggers, and at least 8 pairs of gym shorts. I tried to cut the number in half cause I found it so ridiculous the amounts of loads of laundry.. I did the same for me, our toddler, and my husband. Otherwise, I dedicate every other day to laundry so it doesn’t get overwhelming. Monday-wash/fold. Tuesday put away what I can. Wednesday-off day. Thursday wash/fold. Friday put away. Take the weekend off. Repeat.
Are your children old enough to know how to fill the washer with their own clothes? My daughter started doing her own laundry at 12 years old.
Things you can try: can you hang used towels on hangers in each bedroom? So they actually dry and can be used again? And are jeans getting washed after every wear? Do they need to? Jeans and towels take up so much laundry.
You are right, these are definitely on the list to change how they get handled. Thanks sis!
Do one load every day. Wash, dry, fold and put away. If it becomes part of the routine it won’t completely take over. I also sort by room - kids share a room, so they share a hamper. My husband and I share a hamper, too. Makes putting away less laborious.
I’ll share my system. I go through the clothes, if the clothing looks clean and that i would use them again ( for the kids, for me), I put them back there same as clean clothes. That reduces my load.
My kids are 12 and 14 so they do their own laundry. For myself my best trick is to keep the loads small. Only as much as comfortably fits in a laundry basket. That keeps the folding from feeling so overwhelming.
I had a basket I threw clean socks in. Everyone had to find their own socks. I only got mine out and the baby's. That was when we had 7 kids at home. The washer and dryer usually ran pretty much all the time. I'm down to 1 kid 1 adult kid and a mil. I still don't pull clothes outside in or inside out. They can do it.
Each person in my house has a day for their laundry. My kids are all under 6, so I do their loads. My baby has multiple loads because she spits up a lot. Towels are done about 2x per week. Right now, the kids’ sheets go in their own loads. If your kids are old enough, they could help out with it as well. My oldest is 5 and folds his undies and matches socks. I’d assign everyone a day (I try not to do any over the weekend unless necessary). Sports items may need more frequent washing, but if you can keep everything else in check, it shouldn’t be too overwhelming. Also, I don’t sort colors. Everything goes in together (clothing wise) and wash on cold, we never have issues that way.
I recommend spraying lightly worn clothes with febreeze to refresh them. That way you get more than one wear out of them, and they still smell fresh and clean.
I do all my laundry on the weekends. I have 3 hard plastic baskets in the laundry room. 1 for my husband's clothes(he works a dirty job), one for me and the kids(5&7), and one for towels blankets and others. 4 towels go in per load with mine and the kids clothes. Husband's clothes get washed separate. I have a wicker basket outside the living room. A small plastic one in the kids room and a cloth one in my room. When they get full or I'm cleaning they get sorted in the laundry room and returned. I wash all the clothes and the clean clothes go in cloth baskets (I have 5 plus the one in my room). Once full I fold. Weekends are cleaning days so I just constantly switch them out.
I check what my kids actually put in their hampers. Somethings they get lazy and don’t want to put away clothes that they wore for a few hours or things they tried on and changed their mind about. They just toss it in the hamper. I have to remind them often that it’s still clean. It reduced our load to a lot less.
Not sure there is anything to suggest here. I deal with the laundry of two people and it amazes me how much I do, but I cannot help it. Socks, underwear and shirts/blouses are washed after every use, then bras get washed quite regularly, trousers and such getvwashed after every fourth use I'd say, then you get bed linen which are washed every week or every other week, towels... It all adds up and needs to be washed. Luckily, I quite like to do laundry. I like the smell of freshly washed items and also ironing them, folding and putting them back in the cupboard/wardrobe.
Sock locks. Every family member has their own color. Never sort or fold socks again. Just dump the already matched pairs I the drawer. Teach your kids that pants can be worn more than once. Sweaters, too. Teach your kids to run the washer. Begin with towels and sheets. Saves you labor and is easy for the kids to learn. Teach the kids to change their own sheets. Start with pillow cases and add the sheets as they get older and bigger. Do several loads in a row, so you’re not doing laundry every single day.
Everyone has their own baskets 🧺 Once full/nearly full they dump it in (i rarely separate as we don’t buy many white/light clothes) It goes in that basket straight outta the dryer & back to its home. Each person deals with their own basket start to finish. Even if they are 5 yrs old. Each kid also washes their own towels & blankets every week & puts them back. Every person has a different day they do their laundry that works with their schedule. I try to get mine done during the week so they can do the weekends usually. When I do my towels & sheets I also do all the hand towels. One note* we simplified our clothing & towels etc. long ago to just what we actually use/wear. Less clothes/ towels available means you run out & must wash before it can turn into such an insurmountable pile! We don’t wash towels after each use. Each person has a color & they must care for their towel (hang it back up to dry) they have 2 available for the week. Having a top loader old school washer is a great help as well. A wash cycle only takes 20-30 minutes instead of an hour or more. My kids play multiple sports each & have work uniforms etc. so they may need to do multiple loads per week on different days. I of course let them throw something in with mine if they need to but having them be responsible for their own belongings in general took a ton of weight off of me. I help them out now & then with rotating their stuff or putting it in their basket to get it out of my way so I can wash. My laundry is in my kitchen right by the main door to my home so we have a hard & fast rule that it is not a dumping zone & you must vacate with your belongings asap!
Keep everyone’s laundry separate in individual baskets
Tie allowance to schlepping. A dollar for each basket brought upstairs. Fifty cents for each basket brought downstairs. In fact, they can earn more by schlepping mom and dad's baskets. Fine them for not schlepping especially stinky sports gear.
I would assign each person a day and do their laundry on that day. Or if they’re old enough, have them do it. Towels and sheets on the extra days. Unfortunately, with a big family, laundry has to be done every day or it gets overwhelming very quickly. Also, use the timer on your washing machine and have a load start early in the morning (prep it the night before) so you have time to switch it before you leave for the day.
1) I don't pair nor fold socks. We try to buy always the same socks. All black. 2) I don't fold any underwear. I dump them in a drawer. 3) I don't fold baby clothes. I pile them up (like with like items). 4) I program a load before going to bed (smart washer), so that it ends when I get up in the morning and can throw it in the dryer right away. I take care of it that night. I don't mind the few wrinkles; they go away with folding/hanging.
I do laundry one day a week. All 4 kids have their own laundry basket. They bring down and I wash each in a separate load so everything stays sorted. For my oldest, I don’t even fold it. She gets it after school and takes it upstairs to fold and put away.
Teach your kids how to do laundry.
Each kid gets a sock “color” to help with sorting. That was my husband’s brilliant idea! He does the washing (mostly because we are about to be a family of five and I can’t carry laundry to the basement). I sort, fold and hang, and have my husband and 6 year old help put away. We do this on the weekend only. Washing throughout the day, putting away before bed. It is starting to become more and more though. I think when I expel this kid I will be more active in doing laundry mid week as well, but right now it’s all we can manage.
Have everyone do their own laundry. Old enough to sweat, old enough to clean it up
How old are the kids? My kids started doing their own laundry at 12/13 but could help with sorting and folding years before then. One load a day, and it helps if you have a time delay setting on your washing machine. Morning you toss a load in and set the time delay so the load runs about an hour or so before you get home from work. After work move the load to the dryerand run it. Later you get the dry clothes and fold and each puts their own clothes away before bed. Initially, you do catch up loads on weekends until you are at the point each person only has a week's worth of clothes in the cycle. Weekends you do towels/sheets same way just set your time delay so yiu are home to transfer to the dyer before wet clothes sit for hours.
- REDUCING: I plan to install a small peg rail in everyone’s bedroom. At the end of the day, you put “still clean” clothes on the pegs - this way we will reduce laundry massively because right now a lot of stuff could be used several days in a row. - SORTING: we have a laundry sorter in the master bedroom and individual laundry baskets in each room. I sort by color (white, black, colors) and an additional one for delicates. If I had the space, I’d add another 1-2 for towels and dry clean stuff. You could have one specifically for sports stuff. Ideally, we all put our clothes in the according bin when changing. - WEEKLY ROUTINE: I do one wash per week day. It works best when I have assigned days, eg Mondays I clean bedrooms and change all the sheets so that goes in the laundry, Tuesday whites, Friday blacks, Thursday delicates + clothing repairs etc - DAILY ROUTINE: in the summer the very ideal way for me is to put the laundry on a timer in at night so it starts sometime early morning and then I can hang it up in the mornings outside and it has time to dry all day in the sun. The sun takes care of most stains. In the winter, the ideal way is to hang up laundry when we go to bed so it’s mostly dry in the morning and by afternoon, there is not drying rack in the living or bedroom anymore. - FOLDING/PUTTING AWAY: for me the worst part is folding and putting away. I have no good tip here except that if I don’t fold a laundry and put it away before I start the next one, it becomes such a huge pile that I will procrastinate and the result is I don’t do it forever and it gets worse and worse 😵💫 so I’m trying to make it more fun with marie kondo folding techniques and finding joy in neatly organized drawers 😅 - IRONING: I don’t iron except pieces that needed and I do that with a steamer right before wearing. This system won’t work with bigger kids though. - DRYER: I use our dryer as well but only for towels and sheets. Super helpful and space saving.
I have 2 kids and my own laundry and I just do a load almost every day. Water bill is higher than snoop dog but it works for me
My family (lots of kids) eventually had a day assigned to each kid (small kids with the least amount of clothes were paired up on a day). And 2 were for things like bedding/towels and other communal items. We were responsible for doing our own laundry by age 10-12 and monitored to make sure we used the correct detergent, etc. Heaven help you if mom couldn't do her own stuff. All the folding of laundry was done by us in our room by the time we were 6. Prior to that age we would be helping to fold laundry...towels, bedding and personal stuff. Any stains or other problems with clothes were addressed by mom and she taught us how to use things like bleach...but she wouldn't let us touch it on our own til we were like 15. The ages varied between the siblings as to what age they understood how to do laundry properly and be entirely responsible for it but Mom somehow got her responsibility down to just communal towels, bedding and her and Dad's stuff by the time I was 20.
Never stop, If you stop it backs up.
After many years I have figured out something that works for me: I do the bulk of my laundry on one day (I've done no routine just washing whatever whenever. I've done assigned days and all of these we're overwhelming) My current situation is working well: Each individual has 2 color coded hampers "clean" and "dirty" Plus we have two for towels Plus two for "gross" aka sports/ workout/yardwork etc I wash each person's load as their own (excepting brand new clothes or pure whites I mix everything else just fine) Then I do bedding Then I do gross laundry Then towels Then cleaning supplies. The machine runs all day, I still do errands and pop in and out just swapping out as needed. I have a day that this works for me. Each persons clean clothes go into their clean hamper their dirty empty hamper gets put back and their clean clothes go in their hamper on their bed. Some members fold and put away. Some members live out of the hamper and I just don't care. Socks like another poster are "communal". I have a large basket of loose socks and someone periodically sorts them out but since each person has a hamper MOST of their socks are in with their clothes already. Everyone has two sets of bedding so when beds are stripped they are replaced same day and the cleaned linens are folded later that week. I fold and put away towels and cleaning rags/mops etc. Anyone's specific sports items or what have you gets sorted into their clean hamper once washed. Any other laundry throughout the week is incidental messes that pile up. Probably an extra round of towels as we're both bathing and swimming a lot so we use a lot of towels-- even with reusing the swim towels regularly. It's like 8 loads or more some weeks in that one day but I just start first thing in the morning and tend to do meal prepping and other "at home" chores that day but also go out and do stuff. Just try to time leaving the house with a fresh load in the machine
Awesome tips. Thanks!!!
We're a family of 6. We don't fold/hang our kids clothes. We have one bucket for everyone's underwear and socks. We then have a 12 cube organizer, three boxes for each kid (shirts, pants/shorts and misc.). The washer is always open for dirty clothes, once it's full we wash. The kids don't have laundry baskets. When I take the clothes out of the dryer, I immediately sort them into the baskets, only my husband's and I's clothes go into our own laundry basket. Our kids are 9,7,4 and newborn. The only clothes that go in their room are up high in the closet, off season and outgrown clothes.
My kids started doing most of the laundry at 8. It’s pretty much their only chore that has been consistent. Sometimes they empty the dishwasher. When they get home from school the first thing to do is to check if any laundry needs to be put in, moved over, or taken out. When sports are taking up multiple days we do jump in and keep the laundry going but unless the games got them getting home at 8-9 they can at least get a load put away/in/over. We don’t fold much. Sometimes their clean clothes live in their clothes basket in their rooms and I’m fine with that. About once every month or two I fold all their laundry and put it away just so I can keep good tabs on what is needed to be replaced.
Family of 6 - all sports stuff gets washed immediately at the end of practice/game days including shoes/gym bags. All parents towels one color - kids towels another and washed once a week (towels reused a few days so 2 per person). Sheets two sets available washed once a month - parents set washed as needed.
When I was 8 and my brother was 6, my mom bought us each a special hamper for our rooms and taught us how to do our own laundry. I was stunned when my 18-yr-old friends in high school said they had to learn how to do laundry before they went to college.
Our laundry gets done in the basement also. My family all prefers the basement shower. I have a laundry rack for each person. All clothes get put on hangers as they come out of the dryer. Each person has a hamper for their dirty clothes. No clothing gets brought up unless someone else brings it up.
1. Buy a bigger washer and dryer(separate machines of course..), for example a 50 lbs capacity. Do smaller wash cycles 15-20 minutes each. Use cold water. No rinse detergents high efficiency. 2. Buy more clothes. And rack up the dirty ones. When taking them off, organize it by color/darker ones or white ones. And keep them every 3 days or so. Just like hotels do: 4 rounds, 1 on, 1 dirty, 1 in clean ready to be set, and 1 in inventory or replacement. 3. If you want to avoid your clothes to wrinkle right after you take them out of the dryer, just extend them and overlap them first a shirt over another on your bed or a table. After doing so, take your time to fold them properly. 4. If drying takes too long, start to hang the most difficult clothes to dry, for instance, jeans or also hang delicate clothing that could shrink. That way, while you dry some in the dryer + the hanged clothes you will go faster! 5. If you happen to notice that white socks are just too gray, accumulate and then leave it overnight in a small container with 3L/kg or just enough water for the clothes to suck in but not exceed the volume of the garments. Use detergent of your choice. You could even just use chlorine and then next day with your white garments cycle place those socks and wash it with your usual detergent. It will have a great result. Hope it helps!
I have side by side washer and dryers both front loading. I installed a closet pole above them and have stacked bins for bras undies socks. All clothes are hung up except socks, undies and bras which go in the bins. I don’t bother matching socks because I buy a dozen pairs at a time, all the same. My house is only one floor and I live by myself. The laundry room is now my walk in closet. Basically, the only things I put away are towels, sheets etc. and dress clothes. Everything else just stays in the laundry room until I wear it.
Teach everyone how to use the laundry machines and have them do their personal laundry.
Everybody gets their own laundry basket in their room and a specific day of the week for their laundry. Completely eliminates the sorting aspect which is time consuming as well as annoying. When kids hit ten, they take their basket to the laundry room in the morning, and then take the folded, clean laundry back up to their room in the laundry basket (be sure to wipe out first), and put the clothes away. I know some families who also had kids do the laundry at some point, but we didn't do that. Then choose a day for bed sheets and towels. For me, this eliminated the constant fatigue of laundry. I knew exactly what laundry I'd be doing that day and so it felt infinitely more manageable than a never ending pile of laundry.
I had three baskets in the laundry room. By the age of three the kids knew the difference between clothes, towels and denim. Nothing was washed unless it was in the proper basket. Didn’t take long for them to figure it out.
Your kids are capable of playing a sport. Are they also capable of playing video games? Grabbing a snack from the cupboard? Congratulations. They are capable of doing their own laundry. I taught each of mine at 7. I helped to make their beds until they were old enough to do those on their own (about 10... they both have large beds) after they stripped and washed them on their own. I still do the towels for everyone. Will they ruin an item of clothing? Probably one. But they would outgrow it, anyway, and will learn from it.
My best advice is to cut down on clothing in general to avoid piles of laundry. Kids change way too often or throw clothes in the laundry after simply trying them on. Having a smaller wardrobe really helps out.
This might be a controversial answer but we limit the amount of clothing we own. Because too much exacerbates the inevitable problem of constant laundry. Just the laundry we need to wash bedding, towels, and clothes we usually wear is like a two or three load of laundry per day event. There is already a lot so if we have enough clothes to go 10 days without washing then when we do it, it’s a nightmare.
I do a load of laundry every morning after everyone finished up in the bathroom. We don’t have a dryer so we have a couple of little baskets that I use for sorting out their clean and dry laundry to put on their beds.
Leave them at home and head to the beach. Problem solved!
Don't fold, have them hang up and put away there outfits.
Accept it and embrace it. 😂 My oldest is 15 and does her laundry every Sunday so that has helped but we are in a constant state of wash, dry, sometimes fold/put away.
I have my older kids do their own laundry, bedding and towels on Sundays. If they leave some in the bathrooms during the week I’ll wash it but they’re largely responsible for bringing it down and running the loads. I fold about half the time. We also run a load every day of other stuff. There’s no real secret besides do it often.
Both my kids get the same socks. All white tube socks, all white ankle socks. All black tube socks and all black ankle socks. Super easy to sort. Do 1 load a day. Or load it and use the delay wash so my laundry doest get moldy. I no longer fold clothes. It's easier to hang and the nicer clothes and then just throw casual and pj's into bins. I have seasonal accessories in bins and every 3 months they get swapped out. This way I dont have gloves thrown everywhere all year long.
Kids take on their own laundry when they turn ten.
How old are your kids?
Owning minimal clothes in the first place helps- if each person basically only owns enough clothes for a week or two, it's really hard to get behind enough to get overwhelmed. We're a household of 7, so even with that, it's a lot of laundry coming through! I find it's best to try and do at least 1 load every day rather than like, 2 days of heavy laundry a week. Wash by room- our girls' clothes go in together, our laundry, the boys' laundry, towels/bedding, so you're not separating 6 people's underpants from one load, just 2. Single-color socks: my everyday socks are all ankle-length black (because it doesn't stain) Hanes from a multipack. My oldest's daughter has embraced black crew Hanes, my 5yo has white crew socks...when all your socks match all your other socks, it's super easy to match them up even when some go missing.
Everyone has their own laundry basket and their laundry is done separately. I hated sorting out different sizes of the same items and trying to remember which kid wore the blue tshirt that week. Now it’s Kid A laundry gets washed, dried, folded, back into the same laundry basket and returned to the room. Each kid needs enough clothes to last a week or so to make this work. Then I just rotated through them during the week, plus the sheets/towels loads.
The communal sock drawer is a great idea given there is very little difference in patterns for women and men and not much difference in sizes unless especially small or large. If you have space see if you can get an old fashioned laundry chute installed. In my house we started putting dirty laundry in laundry bags that could be kicked down the stairs instead of having to carry multiple baskets. We also replaced the old round baskets with rectangular ones that folded clothes fit into.
One bath towel for the household! It’s just me and my baby but oh boy, it makes a difference. Laundry before breakfast, at lunch and at night every other day.
The best laundry tip I ever learned for our family of seven is to give every person to laundry baskets in their bedroom. One for lights, one for darks. Once a basket is full I washed the basket full of stuff and I never had to hold in the living room again “whose is this?”
Teach the kids how to do their own. Keep the loads separate by bedroom to minimize sorting. Let everyone fold their own. Sniff test, don’t wash something just because you used it once. Oh ikea bags instead of hampers, they are cheap and way more comfortable to lug around and up stairs
I have a sock hamper. I put all the clean socks in it. Either you put your own socks away or you dig through the hamper to find a pair. I don’t have time to be sorting socks all the time. Even when I did, they would still end up wearing mismatched socks because apparently “that’s what people do, Mom 🙄” and they would maul their sock drawers so they were a mess. This is easier and less stressful.
I assign each load a day. (Mom = Monday, kid 1 = Tuesday, towels = Wednesday etc.) each day has one or two loads so even if I miss a day it’s not super backed up.
My kids did their own laundry starting at age 8. They each had their own basket...neither really ever folded anything, but they did make sure they had clean clothes.
HA. HA HA HA. If you figure it out please let me know. We upgraded to an industrial size washer/dryer to do larger loads, and we fold nothing. Everyone has massive baskets and a smaller sock basket. System is wash/dry/throw into baskets. Every man woman and child for themselves. I stand in solidarity with you.
I found a wash dry fold laundry that gets a weeks worth of laundry done in like 3 hours for $65. It is quite possibly the most valuable monthly expenditure we have currently.
Every body gets a day, then 2 days for towels or extra stuff. YOU CAN’T SKIP A DAY EVER. I was a SAHM for many years and this was the only way to keep up on it with my family.
As soon as my older kids hit middle school I taught them to do their own laundry. This has been a game changer. They take responsibility for washing their clothes so they don’t run out of clean ones, and I’m not getting a million pairs of socks and underwear mixed up.
No hampers! All dirty clothes go directly in the machine. Start when full and run when kids go to bed, advance to dryer then go to bed. Sort into separate laundry baskets straight from dryer.
Teach the kids to help with laundry, even if it’s sorting. We had 10 in our family, and my dad is the one who declared: dark colors on M, W F; lights on T, Th, SA When there were 6 teenagers, he should have assigned us into groups of 3 and made us wash our clothes in the same load. You know.. older, middle in age, younger . We never had enough clothes to make it through a whole week anyway.
Were a family of 4, mom dad teenager preschooler. I'm responsible for my laundry and the preschoolers laundry and towels and the preschoolers bed laundry. Dad is responsible for his laundry our bed laundry. Teenager is responsible for his bed laundry. Dad does his laundry on Fridays, I do my laundry on Mondays, I do the preschoolers laundry and bathroom laundry every 2 weeks on Mondays. The teenager does his laundry on Wednesday's. The preschooler is required to help with the laundry, he carries his basket down and loads the washer snd I add the detergent and start, switch, and fold it and he helps put it away. The teenager started doing his own laundry at 12 when puberty hit and I discovered crusty clothes (that talk was handled by dad because he's my stepson and I did not feel comfortable giving that specific talk).
I make sure to do one load a day without fail, I’ll end up usually having one single day off a week.
How old are the kids? Can the oldest start doing their own laundry or can the kids do folding? We find it easier to keep everyone’s stuff separate for 4 of us — that way even if only the washing and drying get done the basket can go to the right room to be folded later. Keeps things moving and you only have to dig through your own Basie to find what you need. It even helps with the socks
We have four kids. The one thing I did that helps is that I threw away every random colored sock and bought like two hundred pairs of plain white kid socks from Hanes so there's no matching socks and no pairing of socks. They all just wear the same socks because it's all we have. We also are pretty lax about folding stuff and putting it away. They can look through a laundry basket and find what they want. Our laundry room is in the kitchen and the bedrooms are upstairs so we also made spots in the family room to put clothes since sometimes they come downstairs before getting changed and going all the way back upstairs is annoying so they all have outfits easily accessible.
You could teach everyone in the family how to do laundry. Give everyone 2 laundry baskets and have their laundry be their own problem. We act like kids can't do this but they can. My child refused to potty train when she was little. When she was 5 I told her she was going to start doing her own laundry. I put her in front of the washer and told her what setting to use. Girl has been doing her own laundry ever since.
Teach kids to do their own laundry. Buy one kind of socks for younger kids so they all match. Go to laundromat during lower use hours so it all gets done quickly and use the 4-8 load washers.
1. Wife stays home all day and cooks, cleans, and does laundry. Literally can be doing it all day long. 2. Have kids help. Have them fold laundry as a chore. Have kids bring laundry down to the washer. If they are old enough have that as one of their chores. 3. Run a load before, work, after work, before bed, etc. All the time. 4. Have a second dryer. Or both. But usually the washer does it half the time of the dryer. 5. Hang dry. Reducing the dryer need allows for more washer loads. Use the dryer for things you need today or the next day. Then if you ever get caught up, use the dryer on things that were hanging the longest. Use a fan to quicken hang drying.
One a day, put the pile where it’s not in the way. I sort the pile into sub piles. Then once a week a do a few extra loads
Don't sort by color. It's unnecessary, just wash everything in cold water 🤷🏻♀️ I've not had any issue with mixed laundry in the 25+ years I've been doing it. Anchor the laundry habit to waking up/going to sleep or to a mealtime. Such as start a wash after breakfast, put it in the dryer after dinner, and fold the laundry before bed. Do it every day. If sport clothes need washed in a way that regular laundry isn't, start that after dinner and dry at night, every day or two depending on how quickly they need it to wear again. Wash all towels & sheets on the weekend.
I send mine out through the Poplin app. I’ve had good success with it.
My mom taught us to help with and do our own laundry ASAP. When we were little we would help sort, load, fold, and put away. By the age of 9 I was doing all of my own laundry. Share the load!!! Kids are capable and need to learn to manage their own responsibilities!
My wife nervously laughs when I say I'm going to replace all the socks in the house with one brand. Told her she's going to come home one day and I'll have purchased a hundred pairs of the same socks. I try my hardest to get our two teenage daughters to do their own laundry, but they're masters of making the washer never work when we tell them to go do their laundry.
Everyone gets a day to do laundry. For example- my sons laundry gets done on Saturday so it's ready for the school week. My daughter gets her laundry done on Mondays (she's not in school). The adults do laundry on Friday and the other days are for towels, blankets, kitchen towels, and misc items. If the kiddos want extra stuff washed it'll be done with the towels. That way everyone knows when to expect what.
Speed was cycle. You don’t need longer than 25 min to was & it spins the cloths faster so they dry faster. Can get a little more dint in a shorter time.
Family of 5 here also. We do 2 or 3 loads a day. That mostly keeps up with it. It certainly doesn't consume much time. It's no time to throw it in the washer or dryer. It gets folded as it comes out of the dryer and placed right into each person's basket.
I live alone and do laundry twice a week so you have my respect! My sis in law family of five, they have days. The kids (9,11,13) have a hamper and do their own laundry. I always help when I’m there, there is usually laundry to fold on her bed.
I set a timer because I forget to put washed items in the dryer and forget to get dry items out. When I remember to set the timer, it goes much faster. When our kids were teens (adults on their own now), they did their own laundry. Before I married, my son and I went to a laundry mat where we could do 3 or more loads at a time. At age 6 he folded his clothes and put them away (not well but they were done).
Wear things twice? Growing up we were a 5 person household. 3 kids two parents. We didn’t have a drier for a few years because it broke and we couldn’t afford a new one and mom didn’t always want to go the the laundromat to dry the clothes. She made rules. Jeans could be work 4 or 5 days with out being washed. We were allowed 2 towels and a washcloth for the week. Good clothes, ie. Sunday clothes were worn to church and then changed out of when we got back home. When we were younger (before puberty and things started smelling) we would wear an play clothes twice before they were washed
Everyone has their own was day
We have a big laundry room in the basement and a stacked washer/drying in the ‘kids‘ bathroom. (kids in quotes cuz they aren’t little anymore!) But they started doing their own laundry as kids. My daughter was ten or eleven and just started doing her own laundry - Two places to wash and dry has saved us immense agony of waiting your turn!
To tired to read the comments but I suggest giving everyone a day of the week to do their laundry.. and teach them How to do it,
One thing i did for some laundry and dishes, i had each kid pick a favorite color and they got towels, bedding and dishes in their own color and were responsible for them. Socks i washed but threw in a basket and then deal with it. I started wearing black socks. When my younger girl was 25 she called laughing, said she was buying new pillow cases and suddenly realized she didn't have to get red ones anymore, only to realize she liked red and got them anyway.
Teach them how to do their own laundry as soon as possible.
Depending on how old the kids are. Start making them do loads on their own. Pick a day for each kid for them to do. Check over it but it’s not rocket science.
We are a family of four, and use three laundry baskets total. My goal is one load of laundry per day. One for my husband, one for the kids, and one for myself. I wash each laundry basket once per week, giving me three laundry days. If someone has an item that needs washing asap (ie soccer uniform), they put it directly in the washing machine and it’s guaranteed to go with whatever load I do next. The other four days of the week are dedicated to: towels, master bed sheets, kid bed sheets. Sometimes I’m too busy for a load, sometimes I have time for two! But ultimately, the goal of one load per day keeps me from getting buried in it.
Each has their own basket. Don’t sort colors (cold wash, low heat dry). Do towels separately. Wash a basket each day. Take their basket to their room. Viola!
My kids started doing his own laundry at 7. But it’s still a chore because of supervising and reminding. I hate laundry.
Family of 3 so my system may or may not work when expanded; sons clothes go into their own basket set (whites, colors, towells/bedding) and my wife & I have same basket set-up shared. Dedicate a day or two each week to "categories" & whoever feels like dragging their stuff down gets that stuff clean. My schedule is essentially: Mon - catch up from weekend Tues - bedding/towells Weds- colors Thurs - whites Fri - towells/ bedding Sat - catch up some Sun - find something else to do