Please help me tame the laundry monster!

[Haiku]

My family generates an unbelievable amount of laundry. I don't know why, and I have given up trying to figure out why. They just do.

 

The problem is that I can't keep up with the laundry. I can do two loads a day and still be behind.

 

Can y'all share your tips for efficiently handling the laundry?

 

THANKS!!

 

Tara

[Rosie_0801]

Make sure the clean washing actually gets put into the cupboard and worn, rather than tossed beside the bed. If it has been trampled on, it is dirty even if it hasn't been worn and goes straight back to the laundry, sometimes still folded. :glare:

 

Rosie

[Jennifer in MI]

We had this happening for a while. I finally started playing laundry-Nazi. I'd make them PROVE it was dirty before they could stick it in the laundry bin. Then, I'd stand over them as they put their laundry away so they couldn't just leave it on their floor.

 

Now, I can get by with six loads of clothes/week. And, yes. We wear things twice and sometimes three times. (Not underwear or socks though!)

 

Sheets and towels are another few loads/week.

[CalicoKat]

I reduced the number of outfits per person drastically and the laundry beast stopped roaring. I like to keep wardrobes to

 

1-2 Church outfits

5 pairs of pants/shorts

7 pair panties

5 shirt/t-shirts

1 swim suit

1 tennis shoes

1 sandals

socks - white, mis-matchable with our huge faux-pas

 

I get kind of ruthless when the laundry gets folded and I weed out clothing with stains, holes, and too small.

 

It's an ongoing battle to keep the hand-me-downs from taking over. It's nice to get them, but I only take what we need and give away the rest.

 

The younger kids have always had more clothing while they're potty training.

[CalicoKat]

I reduced the number of outfits per person drastically and the laundry beast stopped roaring. I like to keep wardrobes to

 

1-2 Church outfits

5 pairs of pants/shorts

7 pair panties

5 shirt/t-shirts

1 swim suit

1 tennis shoes

1 sandals

socks - white, mis-matchable with our huge faux-pas

 

I get kind of ruthless when the laundry gets folded and I weed out clothing with stains, holes, and too small.

 

It's an ongoing battle to keep the hand-me-downs from taking over. It's nice to get them, but I only take what we need and give away the rest.

 

The younger kids have always had more clothing while they're potty training.

I will say that when you get a kid going through a growth spurt of several sizes then this can get tough. All of a sudden there's nothing that fits! One of my daughters went from a size girls 10 to a ladies' medium in one year, rough!

[Impish]

I'm thinking of a quick laundry fix.

 

Involves a rake, some gasoline, and a match. :glare:

[blakereese]

I reduced the number of outfits per person drastically and the laundry beast stopped roaring.

 

 

:iagree: I feel like I am much happier when the kids have less clothing. Not as many arguments over what to wear, their drawers will close without things getting stuck, and less laundry!

 

I also try to throw in a load of laundry AS SOON AS I get up in the morning, because even if we are heading out for the day, I'll still have enough time to get a load in the dryer. I find that when we have a busy couple of days or a weekend that we are gone a lot, then the beast multiplies. ;)

 

I pretty much do 3-4 loads every day, and that keeps things mostly caught up. I am counting towels and diapers in that. Oh, and while I am mentioning towels, we use those several times, just hang in the bathroom when we are done.

 

Summer is coming and we seem to have twice as much laundry during that time. I guess the kids are outside more and get diry, and then have the swimwear stuff and extra towels. It does get crazy. I have been known to wear the same outfit two days in a row just so I don't have to throw something else in the laundry basket. :blush:

 

My DD loves to "help" with laundry. She's only 5 now, but I am hoping she still feels this way when she is around 12. :lol:

[skissugar]

i have the same issue back home i am always swimming in laundry.. currently we are in korea visiting hubby for a few months. he has a washer/dryer combo thingy in his apartment but its way to expensive to run the dryer so we have to hang dry clothes.. ive started making the kids wear their jeans for 3 days ... unless they are visually filthy they get reworn..(new shirts etc each day though lol) each person has a towel and it is getting hung up after use to be reused a few times.. its not my fav tip to do these things but it has cut our laundry down a lot! while here.. another tip (which would be hard for me to do) is to give each person maybe 10 shirts, 10 bottoms and a few sunday choices.. get the kids color coded towels 2 each ..one to wash and one to use.. etc..

[Peela]

My system:

 

Lots of baskets. Everyone has one in their room and their clothes, and their clothes only, go into that basket.

 

When the basket is full, that basket gets washed. If there are any delicates or whites they get put separately in the laundry to be dealt with, but generally, all clothes get washed together on cold wash. I have had very few colour bleeding incidents over the years. Maybe we just dont buy clothes that bleed colours. I wash lights with darks unless there is enough for 2 loads in which case I will separate them. It's never been a problem- on a cold wash. I also use minimal powder.

 

That load gets hung on racks (we have a large laundry with 4 racks)- we don't have a dryer. Its takes about 24 hours to dry. Then that rack of dry clothes goes back into the basket and taken back to that person's bedroom where it is put away (hopefully by them but often by me). In the past, clothes would be hung outside, but the birds get to them here.

 

By keeping the washing separated by person I save a whole stage of the process- sorting. I keep a basket for ironing but rarely iron.

 

Towels, sheets etc get done separately, obviously, usually once a week or so.

Most days I try and do a wash. I try not to let it build up- its just 10 minutes a day or so of passing things onto the next stage.

 

I remember pre-Flylady, I would have a mountain of unsorted, washed clothes all the time and it would be so daunting to go in there and sort out the pile, that generally everyone would just go and get what they needed from the pile. That hasn't happened for years now, though.

[Grateful for Grace]

Without reading everyone else's comments, I'll tell you what has worked for me:

having the laundry room near the children's rooms (I know you probably can't move the washer and dryer... but if you can...HUGE help)

and

not sorting clothes- just put everything in together (This will mean not buying some kinds of clothes, which is fine by me. When I read A Sane Woman's Guide to Raising a Large Family and she shared she gave up sorting years ago, I felt vindicated.)

and

everytime someone walks by the washer, tell them to change/put in a load (Pay them, if necessary at first. Train them, obviously, but train them how to wash and how to 'notice' it needs to be done.)

 

HTH

[CalicoKat]

I'm thinking of a quick laundry fix.

 

Involves a rake, some gasoline, and a match. :glare:

:rofl: make some smores and it's a party! Love it. :D

[bookfiend]

If you want to give up sorting, Shout makes a dye catching cloth that keeps things from getting grungy and grey looking.

[Haiku]

I'm thinking of a quick laundry fix.

 

Involves a rake, some gasoline, and a match. :glare:

 

I love it.

 

When the kids were small I had dreams of all their clothes being mix-and-matchable and limiting them to seven outfits each.

 

Ha!

 

My dd9, whom one of my dear friends call Pigpen, can dirty three outfits a day without even trying. :banghead:

 

Tara

Edited April 28, 2011 by TaraTheLiberator

[lllll]

...

Edited December 20, 2012 by ksva

[Chris in VA]

Kids do their own laundry starting around 9 or 10. The 3rd grader could be responsible for helping fold as a chore three days a week. I make the young ones run the stairs as part of their job--they can take small stacks multiple times and not get as worn out as Mom! LOL

The 16yo could completely handle her own clothes.

 

You can centralize used towels. We have a basket just for that. When the basket is full, toss it in. It takes me less than 5 minutes to fold 8 towels (that's what fits in our washer).

 

I do some laundry nearly every day, but I like to get it all caught up once a week--usually a day I'm home for several hours, like a Saturday, and I do my sheets then, too.

 

Said this on another thread, but sometimes I'll set the timer and see what I can get folded in, say, 5 minutes. Once I start, it's easier.

 

A friend has a rule--in order to wash a load, she has to fold a load! :D

[RobinF]

All laundry comes directly to laundry room (I remind the boys several times a day). No basket in their closet. Dh and I both have a basket in our closet and we take them to the laundry room when they are full.

 

In the morning, I start a load and fold a load while I am waiting for my coffee to brew. I don't sort clothes unless we have a mountain of laundry. This means that I always have a full load of clothes. I wash everything on cold and am trying Purex with Zout (usually use Tide). I don't have a problem with fading or stains. During the day I switch loads as I go to the kitchen (my laundry room is beside the kitchen). At the end of the night I put the last load in the dryer. If I do 2 loads a day then I stay caught up. But I don't do any laundry on Sunday (and sometimes Saturday) so usually have several loads to do on Monday. Usually on Monday I will sort loads by whites/colors/jeans. I always wash my towels and sheets together.

 

Each person has a basket and I fold and put in the basket and remind them during the day to put up their clean clothes and return the basket.

 

One thing that keeps clean clothes from going into the dirty is I charge $1 per item that I find in the dirty clothes. It is an effective means to make sure that clean clothes get put away correctly.:D

[Sherry in OH]

I love it.

 

When the kids were small I had dreams of all their clothes being mix-and-matchable and limiting them to seven outfits each.

 

Ha!

 

My dd9, whom one of my dear friends call Pigpen, can dirty three outfits a day without even trying. :banghead:

 

Tara

 

 

I do laundry every 2-3 days. My children do not automatically get clean clothing when something is dirty. If it is dribbled food or other dirt on the front, I wipe them down and they continue to wear the clothing until bedtime. Mud on the seat does require a change.

[aggieamy]

I do laundry every 2-3 days. My children do not automatically get clean clothing when something is dirty. If it is dribbled food or other dirt on the front, I wipe them down and they continue to wear the clothing until bedtime. Mud on the seat does require a change.

 

This is what I do also. Little Librarian is very messy so she'd go through a clean outfit for every meal/snack.

[Sasharowan]

I assigned each of the older 3 a wash day. MWF belongs to the older 3, although I throw in a load as needed. T,TH I wash mine, dh's and ds5's clothes, any sheets or towels or anything else that needs doing. I started at 3 teaching ds15 and dd how to fold clothes and put them away. Ds9 started at 5yo but is at the same skill level as the other two. They each have their own hamper (one of those folding mesh ones) and they can start a basic load, wash, dry, and fold and put away. We do tend to stick with wash and wear clothes. I need to teach ds5 folding and the others to do towels and sheets.

[Ellie]

I would expect a 16yo to be doing her own laundry.

 

I don't sort clothes by color (lights, darks, etc.). I sort all-cotton whites (usually only Mr. Ellie's underwear), because those get bleach. Most other clothing all goes in together. If I have something new that is red or denim, I'll wash that separately a couple of times, but then it goes in with the rest.

 

So my laundry is this: Mr. Ellie's whites; the rest of our clothing; towels (bath towels, handtowels, dishtowels); sheets/other all-white linens (dish cloths, bath cloths--I only buy all-cotton white, and I add bleach to them). When the dc were little, it would have been Mr. Ellie's whites; his and my clothing; dc's clothing; towels etc.

 

I can do laundry once a week, even when dc were home, usually just 4 loads, maybe 5 (especially if there are extra towels, or bathmats or other washable rugs).

 

I do all the laundry on Friday. I don't want to do any laundry on Saturday, because it's the weekend and we want to do other things. I don't want to do laundry on Monday because I want to ease into the week. :-)

 

I don't know if any of this helps you, though. :-)

[KidsHappen]

I leave the dirty laundry distributed around the house until I actually plan to wash it. It's less noticeable that way. Especially since my two dd are responsible for at least 3/4 of it.

[kalanamak]

I have two laundry days, and I am teaching kiddo to sort and stuff. I load up the soap and vinegar in the tray, to avoid messes, and preset the drier. It is kiddo's job to get it into the drier, too. We fold together to keep him on task and not learning to hate it. Or it gets dumped on hubbys kingsized bed and he folds while watching a movie, late in the night. Clothes are deposited in a basket on a bed, and each person is to put it away before bedtime.

 

By making the fellows are of the chain, they are aware of what they are putting in the laundry. Kiddo, however, really likes his clean clothes, and thus far, he puts a lot of clothes away.

 

I vote get help, and convince your kid folding while the clothes is still warm is fun, and easier.

Edited April 29, 2011 by kalanamak

[alpidarkomama]

Here's what helps me!

 

•We only have about an 8-day supply of clothes so it can't pile up

•It MUST be dirty to go in the laundry

•Each kid has their own day to their own laundry (for the 4, 5, and 7 year old; I do the 3-year-old's, but he puts it away!); washer before breakfast, drier before lunch, put away after dinner. (I do grownup laundry and the other stuff on the weekend.)

[Impish]

:rofl: make some smores and it's a party! Love it. :D

Smores and hot dogs. Sounds good.

[2squared]

What works here:

 

1) Wash all the laundry in the house every day = no dirty clothes backlog

2) Fold all the laundry every day where we will eat dinner = no clean clothes backlog (dc have to put laundry away before we can eat)

3) Serious restriction of clothes ownership = forced effective laundry system

 

Seriously, once I decided that ALL the laundry would be completely washed and put away EVERY day, my laundry problem disappeared. It just took a while to figure out how to get it done. My biggest problem was letting clean clothes sit unfolded. Once I figured out how to fold them every day, they sat in neat piles downstairs on the couch. :glare: So, I decided to fold them on the dining room table. Now I fold them while I'm making lunch or dinner, and they have to be put away before we can eat. If we don't eat dinner at the dining room table for some reason, they still don't get put away. So, the dining room table step is critical for us.

[Haiku]

My husband suggested we become nudists. He claims we would save much time on laundry. ;)

 

Oh, and the 16 year old does do her own laundry. A few years back we had the Epic Laundry Battle, and I won. :D

 

Tara

[Lovedtodeath]

 

while here.. another tip (which would be hard for me to do) is to give each person maybe 10 shirts, 10 bottoms and a few sunday choices.. get the kids color coded towels 2 each ..one to wash and one to use.. etc..

Wow. Is this a reduction? We don't have near that much. Seriously. I just upped our clothing budget... right? :confused:

[plansrme]

I am going to go against the grain and suggest not doing laundry every day. The two things that have helped me control the laundry are:

 

1. I only do laundry twice a week: Wednesdays and Saturdays. If it is in your basket by the time I go to bed Tuesday or Friday night, it gets washed the next day and returned, in some fashion, by the following evening. Until I went to a twice-weekly system, I constantly had laundry in various stages of readiness all over the house. It drove me batty. Also, for some reason, I despise putting away laundry (don't really mind the collecting, washing and folding parts), so putting it away twice a week, all at once, is less painful and much more efficient. I have to make the same number of trips, and open the same number of stuffed drawers, whether I am putting away 2 shirts or 5; might as well do it with 5.

 

2. I bought everyone a square basket (square takes up less space than oval, and my aim is better when they are closer as I am throwing laundry into them). When laundry comes out of the dryer, I sort it into the owner's basket. The children who are old enough to fold their own do so, right out of the basket, and then put it away in their rooms. The beauty of the sort-and-then-fold system is that if, heaven forbid, I do not get it all folded by evening, it is in tidy little sorted piles, rather than all over my bed in a big jumble. Also, I can fold all of one person's laundry in front of the TV or during another short break. It is harder to do that with more volume.

 

Terri

[Haiku]

Also, for some reason, I despise putting away laundry (don't really mind the collecting, washing and folding parts)

 

Me too.

 

We don't have a laundry room. The washer and dryer are located in the basement, which is not easy to get to due to stairs that make a sharp turn right by a shelf that sticks way out. I don't even like going down there. :(

 

We have devolved into opening the basement door, leaning over the railing, and tossing things down to the basement floor. Recipe for disaster, I know.

 

Last night I bought the little kids four laundry baskets. They will nest, by twos, in the kids' bedroom. One is for darks, ones for lights. When the top basket is full, it will be taken down to be washed (on whatever schedule I end up with). The bottom basket will remain to begin collecting the next load. I will leave the other basket in the basement to collect the dried laundry, so all the kids' laundry will remain together in certain loads. I hope it helps.

 

Now I just need to get my husband to stop leaving his dirty laundry lying all over the house: socks here, underwear on the bathroom floor, dirty hockey stuff thrown in front of the washer, etc.

 

*sigh*

 

Tara

[Princess Peach]

I do 1-3 loads a day and that keeps things running smoothly. I just got a huge washer and dryer set that makes my life much easier. Are you able to do super large loads with your machine?

[kamom]

I came from a very large family and this is how it's done there. (I don't have to now.)

 

The bathrooms each have two or three hampers. One for lights and one for darks and maybe one for jeans.

Monday wash the clothes in the light hamper. Tuesday wash the darks. Wednesday the towels and sheets. Thursday the light hamper. Friday the darks again. Saturday can be a free day or towels again. This system really ran very smoothly and trouble free.

[Harriet Vane]

I stopped trying to do everyone's laundry. Now they all have an assigned day. I do sheets and towels in addition to my own laundry. The kids wash on Tues and Thurs, and dh washes on Sat. I do check the my ds' sorting and keep him on track because he's young to remember an on-and-off-again task all day, but other than that they do it all on their own. It's one of the best decisions I've made for managing the home and has been great training for them.

[AK_Mom4]

My system is a bit painful....

 

We have 2 puppies who spend their time mostly in the laundry room when inside (need to contain the havoc until we finish house breaking). No one can "dump" their laundry in the laundry room anymore or it becomes property of the puppies!

 

So, instead of dumping the clothes and walking off, everyone has to bring it down a load at a time and put it directly in the wash. Suddenly, the kids are all wearing jeans 2-3 times before washing because it's "inconvenient" to wash them. :lol: