laundry ? For family of 7

[2squared]

We tried having each kid have a laundry day but that was a bust. They couldn't handle the responsibility and it was affecting the rest of us. I refuse to have a laundry pile in my house. Now it is just part of the morning routine to bring out the laundry. They bring out the laundry from their bathroom every day also. I tell one unfortunate soul to start a load. I don't sort and I don't care if whites get a bit gray. Heck the only white clothing items I buy are socks. They can live with grayish socks. Although they don't actually wear socks ever anyway so who cares. All I want is that washer filled up and running.

 

:lol: I like your style. Sounds very similar to life over here.

[aCountingHouse]

I'll tell you my system and you can determine if it would be of any use to you at all.

 

I do a load or two of laundry each day. In my laundry room I have a laundry basket for each child. I fold clothes as they come out of the dryer. As I fold clothes I put each child's clothes in the appropriate basket. When the basket gets full (usually about twice a week) I call them to come get their basket, put the clothes neatly in their drawers and return the empty basket to the laundry room.

 

If they don't return their empty basket I know they haven't put clothes away. Not having a laundry basket to put clean, folded clothes into prompts me to follow up pretty quickly.

 

This is the exact same system that works for me! I never have clothes lying around waiting to be 'done'.

 

I don't have any benchspace in my laundry - it is very small. So I had the doors taken off my cupboards and the baskets are now easy to access. I have the nice wicker look baskets too so they look nice as well.

 

I not only have baskets for each member of the family (six of us), but also for towels, bed linen and teatowels.

[KidsHappen]

The older teens do their own laundry and I do everyone elses. I do laundry everyday. It is pretty easy to process towels, sheets, and clothes that are mine or my hubby's. I have a harder time with the younger two girls' clothing though because they wear the same sizes and styles (sometimes exactly the same). I never know what belongs to whom so it gets sorted badly in the first place and then they frequently borrow each other's clothing and it doesn't always get returned promptly. So there is always some girl looking for some piece of clothing that none of us know where, when or with whom it was last seen. I have been trying to get them to mark their lables so I can just put their items in a basket in their room. That would make it so much easier because currently it just stacks up in baskets in my room until at least one of them is available to help me sort them.

 

I do know that I could probably make it a whole lot easier by having everyone do their own laundry but that seems wasteful to me becasue I sort by color. I only have one load of red in the entire family in a week. Probably about the same with yellows and tans, greys. I probably do two loads of jeans and no one owns enough to wait until they have a whole load to wash them all. I have one load of sweatsuit material items (mostly school sports gear). If everyone was doing their own loads there would be a lot more smaller loads and I am sure the girls would still want my help looking for stuff only I would have any idea at all because I would have had no hand in managing it. The laundry itself doesn't bother me so much as the constant looking for missing items (especially when it turns out that the item is not even in my house to begin with).

[Joyofsixreboot]

Our system

Anyone over 10 has a basket in his/her room. They wash their own clothes on an assigned day. We hang all clothes to dry si I had to assign days or I run out of drying racks. I do towels, dh's and my clothes and two youngest girls. The 8 and 4 yo put away their own clothes. I reduced the number of clothes the kids may have to make it easier to put them away. YMMV

[Meriwether]

I've started hanging the boys shirts on hangers for them. If I do it in the laundry room, it makes the job of putting clothes away manageable for them.

[3and3]

I am going to sort the clothes in whites, boys, girls, mom/dads and towels/sheets. I already have sorter with hanging bar in the laundry room and a hamper so I can use them for sorting.:)

 

Then the girls can do their own with a little help from me. I can start teaching my 7yo and he can sort through after they are done and find his own. Twins clothes I am going to keep downstairs in the half of the den closet that is empty, this way it is closer to the bathroom too. (they're working on potty training)

 

Also, I love the idea of keeping socks downstairs. We have a bench by the front door that I plan to use for keeping everyone except dh socks in. A few shoe boxes one for girls and one for boys.;)

 

I will still be doing at least 2 loads a day except for days I have to do sheets. I have basket for each of the boys(3) and for towels/sheets, girls, and mine/dh clothes I use a large storage bins for the clean clothes. Hopefully this will help keep my family room from looking like a laundry mat:glare:

[Scuff]

The older teens do their own laundry and I do everyone elses. I do laundry everyday. It is pretty easy to process towels, sheets, and clothes that are mine or my hubby's. I have a harder time with the younger two girls' clothing though because they wear the same sizes and styles (sometimes exactly the same). I never know what belongs to whom so it gets sorted badly in the first place and then they frequently borrow each other's clothing and it doesn't always get returned promptly. So there is always some girl looking for some piece of clothing that none of us know where, when or with whom it was last seen. I have been trying to get them to mark their lables so I can just put their items in a basket in their room. That would make it so much easier because currently it just stacks up in baskets in my room until at least one of them is available to help me sort them.

 

I do know that I could probably make it a whole lot easier by having everyone do their own laundry but that seems wasteful to me becasue I sort by color. I only have one load of red in the entire family in a week. Probably about the same with yellows and tans, greys. I probably do two loads of jeans and no one owns enough to wait until they have a whole load to wash them all. I have one load of sweatsuit material items (mostly school sports gear). If everyone was doing their own loads there would be a lot more smaller loads and I am sure the girls would still want my help looking for stuff only I would have any idea at all because I would have had no hand in managing it. The laundry itself doesn't bother me so much as the constant looking for missing items (especially when it turns out that the item is not even in my house to begin with).

 

With my 2 girls, i just guess sort and give them their basket to fold. They then resort it by giving thier sister the things that aren't theirs. Makes things a bit easier.

[AdventureMoms]

The older teens do their own laundry and I do everyone elses. I do laundry everyday. It is pretty easy to process towels, sheets, and clothes that are mine or my hubby's. I have a harder time with the younger two girls' clothing though because they wear the same sizes and styles (sometimes exactly the same). I never know what belongs to whom so it gets sorted badly in the first place and then they frequently borrow each other's clothing and it doesn't always get returned promptly. So there is always some girl looking for some piece of clothing that none of us know where, when or with whom it was last seen. I have been trying to get them to mark their lables so I can just put their items in a basket in their room. That would make it so much easier because currently it just stacks up in baskets in my room until at least one of them is available to help me sort them.

.

 

Can you just stick all their combined laundry in one basket and put it in one of their rooms to deal with? Take turns maybe? If my twins (both boys) ever get to the point where they have their own clothes I will have this problem too, I think. Hopefully they will just always share a room and I can hand them a basket and let them sort it out.