If you do lots of laundry at once..? And pls add laundry tips.

[SJ.]

If you are like me and do a lot of laundry at once do you put it away as it is finished or do you wait to put everything away at once?

 

I usually fold everything sorted into piles on a couch. My plan is to put it all away at once so I don't need to make multiple trips upstairs but in reality the laundry stays on the couch :leaving:

 

I am trying to do better with my domestic duties this year and am trying to streamline recurring duties. Any tips for laundry? If you do laundry every day do you sort colors?

[Jennifer in MI]

I take the laundry into the laundry room every day and sort it. If there is a full load, I do it. Fold right away when it's dry (we hang our clothes in the laundry room). I have a table there. The clothes stay there for about a week and then we'll take them upstairs!

[Parrothead]

Really for me it depends on the house I'm living in. At this stage of my life laundry has to be carried up two flights of stairs. I don't carry it up since I fell on the second flight last year.

 

So I do all the laundry in fits and spurts during the week. It is all finished by Friday at 5p.

 

Dh carries it up on Saturday and we all put our own laundry away.

 

 

The last house I lived in only dd's laundry went up one flight of stairs. I did laundry every day and once a month I sorted out the whites to bleach them.

 

I hope to never again to have to wash laundry in the basement.

[KS_]

I do all our laundry on the weekends, sorting the loads in the laundry room. The kids each have their own load and after it's dry, they're expected to fold it and put it away. For dh and my clothes, I fold them as they come out of the dryer, into a laundry basket. Once all the laundry is done, the basket gets taken to our bedroom and put away sometime during the week (but since it's all folded, it doesn't get wrinkled). There are some things that i use a drying rack to dry (mainly shirts and wool socks) and those things get left until the next weekend, when I put them away before starting that week's laundry.

 

Bath towels get hung up after they're dry, and the basket of kitchen and hand towels doesn't get folded as it comes out of the dryer, but usually folded and put away in a day or two. Sheets get put back on the bed after washing/drying (I usually have one set out at a time, so I don't have to worry about folding and putting them away).

[Melissa B]

I do all of the clothing in one day, usually six loads. I have four laundry baskets - an individual for each younger child, older two dds share one and dh and I share one. I fold each load as it comes out of the dryer, putting it into the proper basket. Once the laundry is done (around dinnertime) all of the baskets go upstairs and the kids put away their clothes that evening or before school the next morning. I do towels/sheets on other days and send a child up with each load after I fold it.

[mycalling]

When I do the kids' laundry, each child has a small laundry basket with their name Sharpied on it. As the laundry comes out, it gets sorted directly into those. If I'm keeping up on the laundry, it gets folded on it's way into the basket. If not, the kids fold it themselves.

 

At the end, I send the baskets up with their owners. My 3yo needs help, but my 4yo on up put their own laundry away.

 

My 1yo's clothes get done with dh's and mine as he sleeps in our bedroom. Towels get sorted to the side and done on a day when I only have time for quick folding.

[mycalling]

Sheets get put back on the bed after washing/drying (I usually have one set out at a time, so I don't have to worry about folding and putting them away).

:iagree:This makes things so much easier.

[MeaganS]

I do all my laundry at once and then when it is all done, I fold it all at once. Usually, this includes a movie that I want to watch. Folding laundry is actually one of my favorite chores because I get to make everyone go away or they have to help, and I get to watch my movie. :001_smile:

 

ETA: This happens all in one day.

[LaxMom]

I dump on my bed all day, then we sit in bed watching something completely mindless and fold into stacks, put away and take dd10's folded stuff to her room to put away in the morning.

[butterflymommy]

(Looking at your sig)-- the 7 year should be putting away the laundry for you, and the 5 year old should be "in training!" Once kids start putting away laundry, life is much more enjoyable :001_smile:.

 

Either my son or I haul the laundry down to the basement. I put it through the washer/ dryer and then either he or I haul it back up. It gets dumped out on the couch and everyone helps to fold it and put it away. My developmentally delayed 6 year old does a great job so your 7 yr old should have no problem.

 

forgot to add-- I don't sort colors unless I'm doing a bleach wash. I wash everything on tap cold and it makes no difference if I sort or not, except for the occasional piece of clothing that bleeds, which has only happened once in ten years.

Edited January 3, 2012 by butterflymommy

[Alte Veste Academy]

If you are like me and do a lot of laundry at once do you put it away as it is finished or do you wait to put everything away at once?

 

I usually fold everything sorted into piles on a couch. My plan is to put it all away at once so I don't need to make multiple trips upstairs but in reality the laundry stays on the couch :leaving:

 

I am trying to do better with my domestic duties this year and am trying to streamline recurring duties. Any tips for laundry? If you do laundry every day do you sort colors?

 

I go back and forth between two systems of doing laundry. The first (and most successful) is to do it all on one day of the week. I gather it all up in the morning, sort it by color and get it started. My laundry room is tiny and can't serve as a proper folding area so I carry it to my bed...right past the couch (and that is the important part!). I dump each basket load on my bed, then immediately fold and sort it into piles--one for each child, DH, and me. At the end of the day, my bed is completely covered in folded laundry (and my room smells intensely of lavender :D) and I have no choice but to clear if off if I want to go to sleep. Again, that is the important part and why the bed works better for me than the couch. :tongue_smilie: Each child has a personal basket into which I put their laundry. I take their baskets to their rooms and they put it away. I have taught them how to do this properly and yours are old enough to do this too (the key, especially for the younger, being to minimize the amount of clothing as much as possible). Then I put away mine and DH's.

 

The other way I do laundry is to do one load a day (put it in first thing in the morning and have it folded and put away by lunchtime). I use those Shout Color Catcher sheets and they work beautifully so I don't have to fuss with sorting. This is only as successful as my energy and give-a-darn allows. :tongue_smilie: Sometimes it goes great and then the next thing I know, I've got laundry left in the dryer when another load is waiting to go in and then it just gets thrown in a basket and... OK, apparently I only have one working system for doing the laundry, if working is defined as actually getting done and put away on schedule. :lol:

[MathGirl]

I don't do laundry all at once. I tried, but it got overwhelming. But maybe you can still use some of these ideas. I do a load of laundry every day. I don't separate laundry. I wash everything on cold. We have very few white shirts and not a lot of reds either, so I can wash everything together and not worry about it. I do laundry by hampers-Monday-mine and DH's, Tuesday-girls, Wed-DS, Thurs-towels/washcloths, Fri and Sat.-sheets and blankets. Then I fold the load in the evening while watching TV and put it away the next morning after the kids have gotten up (if it's one of their loads). Our laundry room is upstairs by the bedrooms so there's no going up and down the stairs with it.

[butterflymommy]

I do 2 loads a day which is the bare minimum to stay on top of things (9people in the house). I try to completely wash 2 beds a week, though I should do 3 or 4 a week. In the winter it's more difficult because there are so many blankets.

[Mommee & Baba]

I don't do it all at once. It leaves me overwhelmed.

 

I do a load of laundry everyday, sometimes 2 loads if needed for some reason. I start the washer first thing in the morning while my coffee machine perks. By 10am my laundry is done. If I have to do another load I can without any hiccups in my daily schedule. I fold the laundry and put it away, except the kids laundry as I expect them to put it away after breakfast.

[*Lulu*]

In our home everyone, including the 4yo, helps with laundry and we do it all on the weekend.

 

Everyone brings out the baskets from thier bedroom and bathroom. DS9 is in charge of gathering all bath towels, hand towels, and washcloths.

 

I do loads in between school and whatever other stuff we have going.

 

I wash kids' clothing first, and they fold. The 4yo folds his pants and everyone's all the kid underwarend socks. The older kids help with his shirts. Everyone over the age of 5 folds and puts away thier own clothing. The two oldest help hang everyone's clothing that goes in the closet.

 

Next is bedding; like pp it goes right back on the bed.

 

I wash adult stuff after that, and I fold it in the evening.

 

Last I wash all the towels. The kids and DH fold these.

 

I used to wash a load a day, but doing it this way and having everyone help has drastically reduced my stress. I love starting the week with everything clean.

[Julie Smith]

My advice.

 

Just do it!

 

I have huge piles of clean and dirty laundry waiting, and I know they wouldn't get done till I go do them. Perhaps I can find a nice movie or tv show to watch when doing them. For me when I get behind it's because I have been ignoring the laundry. ... I think I'll go clean the kitchen now. :) .... I can't be expected to do laundry when the rest of the house is a higher priority. After all I think we all still have some clean clothes.

[KungFuPanda]

If I do two loads a day, I can keep up. Thanks to watching shows about large families, I hav discovered sorting cloths by person :-). This means a load of my son's cloths will get washed, folded, then put away, so there is no reason to leave stacks out all day because the next stack will not go to ds's room. I tend to wash mine and DHs together and sort lights from darks.

 

Inevitable, I will hit a busy week once or twice a month when I just get behind on laundry. THIS is when I sort properly, bleach the whites, deal with the delicates I put off, or wash anything I didn't want in an improperly sorted load. Like other posters said, this becomes a stay-home-and-watch-movies day. My teen does her own laundry. My son is in a wheelchair, so laundry is a main chore that he CAN do. He's learning to be responsible for a lot of sorting and folding.

 

If I don't put the clothes away as I fold them, I get tired and stack the clean clothes in baskets. We then fish through those baskets for clothes all week. This is a BAD system, so I try to put each load away as it's folded.

[T'smom]

One thing that I've started that has made things soooo much easier is to wash each persons things together (instead of by colors) But, I wash everything in cold except towels, so ymmv. Then, I fold into outfits- a pair of pants, shirt, underwear and socks. Then I stick each days clothes into an organizer in the closet that has cubby holes marked Monday-Friday (and I use the 'shoe' cubbies for Sat/Sun) Then I can just tell the 4 year old to go put on "monday's clothes". There's no rifling through drawers and I can make sure that 'nicer' clothes are put in days where we are going someplace. Since I sort them into outfits while I'm folding, the whole process seems much faster. . I'm also motivated to get them put away before somebody messes them up!

[Ellie]

I fold laundry and put it away (or give piles to children for them to put away). I just do it. :-)

 

I don't sort by colors. Back in the day that was more important because of the dyes used and whatnot, but it is no longer true.

 

I sort 100% white cotton (at this point, mostly Mr. Ellie's undies); if I had lots of denim jeans I might do those separately, or it's blue or red and new; otherwise, generally, everything goes in together.

 

100% white cotton clothing gets bleach (an all-fabric bleach, which can be used on color-safe clothing, but I don't bleach colors; to me, the point of bleaching is to make it whiter).

[TammyinTN]

I normally do laundry twice a week...Wednesday and Saturday. I always wash, dry, fold and put away as soon as each load is done. I can't stand laundry laying around. :D

[Stratford]

The goal is to do a little laundry every day so it doesn't build up into a big chore.

 

The reality is I marathon it and usually do it all in one day. I have a 2nd floor laundry "closet", I fold the clothes as I take them out of the dryer and stack them. If I put them in a basket they never get folded. They get put away when I am finished. DH puts ours away, I put the youngest kid's away, and DSs age 4 and 7y put their own away.

[Julie Smith]

My tip for myself.

 

Get a laundry movie, watch it well folding / hanging up clothes. I do this in the laundry 'room' while watching on my iPad.

[chai]

Stop putting your folded clothes on the sofa--put it on your bed! It has to be put away if you want to sleep. :D We have a small family and I do all of our laundry in one day. I fold it and place it into piles for everyone to put away at the end of the day. There are some days when I KNOW I wouldn't put them away--but I have to so that I can go to bed.

[rwjx2khsmj]

I do at least one load of laundry a day. I have shelves in my laundry room and keep a basket for each family member on the shelves. I fold things as they come out of the dryer and hang them or put them in the basket for their wearer. When the baskets are full, I call the kids to come get their basket and put their clothes away.

[Ellie]

We have a small family and I do all of our laundry in one day. I fold it and place it into piles for everyone to put away at the end of the day.

I do the same thing. All laundry is washed, dried, folded, put away on Fridays. That way we all have clean clothes on Sunday morning, lol, and on Monday we just...get up and ooze into Official School Stuff. :D

 

I have known people who moved the clean, unfolded laundry piles off their beds so they could get into them. :-/

[twoxcell]

I wash laundry throughout the week and pile it in the laundry room. Once a week on the weekends I fold the whole giant mound and put it away right away. It really stinks when I don't get to it on the weekends because I really do not have time or energy for it during the week. I need to fold tonight because last weekend was too crazy.;)

[SorrelZG]

I do it daily as allowing it to pile up is a huge mistake for me (getting chills at the thought - I only just started getting good at this daily routine so piled up laundry is fresh in my mind).

 

The only separating I do is dress clothes (I do a load on delicate once a week) and maybe whites - depending on how many are in the wash.

 

I fold/hang it up and put it away before bed.

[Ali in OR]

I wash 5 loads on Friday. Folding and putting it away happens on Saturday morning. The clean clothes are in laundry baskets after coming out of the dryer. I dump them all out on the sofa, put a DVD on (often a Teaching Company video), and commence folding. Everyone puts their own clothes away.

 

There may be a couple of loads mid-week: dd's swim stuff and exercise clothes, sheets if they need to be done. But most of it happens on Friday.

[ashfern]

I do 2-3 loads of laundry daily. Each kid has their own hamper. This way I don't have to sort. :D They also have their own day that I do their clothes. I've had way too many days of having to do all the laundry (10+ loads) that I don't want to ever do that again! The two older kids are responsible for putting away their own clothes. Some days I get the clean laundry folded & put away on the day that it's washed but most days it sits until I can get to it.

[G5052]

We have an iffy well (sometimes) and a septic field that really isn't enough for a family that is home all day.

 

So almost every evening I put a big hamper in the hall upstairs and have everyone put in their colored, whites, sheets, or whatever I'm doing the next day. Then I drag it down in the morning, do the load, and then have them take up their own stuff when they go up for bed. If I get behind with having folks put away their clothes, we do it on the weekend.

[2squared]

I do laundry every day with absolutely no sorting.

 

I fold every other day.

 

The kids (excluding the baby) put all the laundry away.

*3yo puts away her clothes and kitchen linens

*5yo puts away his clothes and replaces bathroom hand towels

*7yo puts away his clothes and transfers clothes to master bedroom

*9yo puts away her clothes, the 1yo's clothes, and bathroom towels

 

My 1yo is in training to put away kitchen linens. He's such a cute little helper!!!

 

We have one set of sheets per bed, so sheets get washed and returned to the beds in the same day.

[Sandy in Indy]

I do "regular" laundry twice a week--usually. (Bedding gets done and returned to bed immediately.) I used to throw everything in a basket and we'd dig through for stuff. I've abandoned that plan as too impractical. Now I'm somewhat anal about folding clothes as soon as they are finished in the dryer. I don't like wrinkles.

 

I still sort, even though I wash almost everything on cold. My dh is a machinist and has really dirty jeans/shirts. His clothes I wash on a long, heavy duty cycle in warm water with an extra rinse.

 

I also fold everything on the couch and ds runs it to the correct rooms. Then everyone is responsible to put things away.

[kathkath]

This has seriously changed my life:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=202572475&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=202572475&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googlebase-_-D23X-_-202572475&locStoreNum=732

 

I got 6 on amazon and the handles make them stackable or nestable depending on how they're turned. I fold straight into the bins-1 for each child, 1 for dh/me to share, and 1 for kitchen/downstairs linens. they sit collecting clean folded laundry til i'm ready to put it away then back to the laundry room they go.

[justamouse]

I am totally spoiled and have a large walk in closet with the machines in there. I TOTALLY was going to have Dh move the whole shebang into the basement, but after a few months of doing laundry upstairs, I won't go back. There's all kinds of shelves and stuff in there, and under one of the windows, there's a table where we fold.

 

I do laundry whenever I go upstairs.

 

I'm teaching the youngers to fold well, and we all fold and I pile (and fix) and they put all of their own clothes away. Whoever I ask is who takes the mopines down to the kitchen, and puts the towels in their respective bathrooms.

[NatashainDFW]

Well since I have to walk about four blocks to do laundry.....I was everything we wear on a regular basis on the same day and fold it all up then put it away. Of course when I had my own washer and dryer I would fold as items came out of the dryer and when the top of dryer could handle no more stacks of folded laundry I would go put them away lol.

[kewb]

I tend to do all the clothes one day a week.

1. Sort by dark, light, white

2. Wash.

3. Hang what needs to be hanged, throw other items in the dryer. I wash all the loads and then run the dryer once I am done. That way I only run the dryer once. Most of our clothes are hung to dry.

4. Unload dryer-I fold as clothes go into the laundry basket.

5. 2 or 3 days later remember that there are clothes hanging to dry and go get them.

 

Everyone is responsible for putting their own clean laundry away. I sort it onto my bed by person and then the kids come and get their piles.

 

Towels and sheets are done on different days from clothes.

 

I will admit that there are some weeks we live out of the laundry basket. I am okay with this. I hate putting laundry away. I don't mind washing and folding but for some reason the put it away aspect makes me want to run for the hills.

[Mom22ns]

After each load of laundry I sort it into 3 piles, one for each child and one for dh & I. Then I yell "Laundry" at the top of my lungs. The kids come and get theirs and put it away. I put away mine and dh's or at least lay it on my side of the bed where I have to put it away before I can sleep. ;)

 

If there isn't much for the kids in a load or for a particular kid, I might tell them not to worry about it until after the next load or skip yelling, but they put away laundry 3 or 4 times some days. I don't like it to stack up.

[momofmiracles]

I usually fold and separate the clothes according to who they belong to. As soon as one load is folded, I call all the kids to take their clothes and put them away. For dh and I, I just put our folded clothes in a basket and leave them in the laundry room until all the loads are done.

 

Typically, I will also put all the towels, washcloths, dishtowels, etc in the basket and put them away as I go to put my clothes away.

[Audrey]

I fold as I go between loads and put them away right after folding. Look at it this way... multiple trips upstairs is more exercise for you. That's a good thing. :)

[Myeightkiddies]

When you separate the clothes prior to washing (be sure to zip zippers too to reduce possible damage to clothing), make two extra piles. One of the extra piles should be designated for donation clothes - too small for the child or not worth storing for another, and the other should be for disposal (too many stains or holes). If you clean through and get rid of clothes that no longer work for your family, it will eventually reduce your laundry load.

[sgo95]

Our laundry room is on the main living floor and has a 3 compartment hamper in it: towels, whites, colors. Everyone carries their dirties to the hamper daily.

 

I wash 1 or 2 loads a day, whichever hamper compartments are full or sheets (we only have one set of bedding per bed so I wash and replace same day).

 

I have a 5, 7, and 9 year old and, after I start a load in the washer, each one is able to switch the load to the dryer, set the dryer, take out dry clothes, sort clothes, and put clothes away. I do sort out and put away clothes that belong to me, DH, or the 2 year old, but the kids their own laundry work as well as towels (I do sheets and blankets for them).

 

So I agree with other posters about involving your kids as much as you can. Also, it would be a nightmare here to do all the laundry on a single day (shudder).

[extendedforecast]

I have known people who moved the clean, unfolded laundry piles off their beds so they could get into them. :-/

 

*Raises hand ashamedly*

 

What works for us is the same as most of the previous posters. I wash once a week as much as I can (my washer is slow). I fold as it comes out of the dryer and try to have it put away before the next load is ready to be folded. I also try to have the kids put it all away, but inevitably I end up putting away most of the little ones' clothes, DH's and mine, and the kitchen and bathroom towels. The older kids put away their own clothing.