Need help laundry with sorting! (especially if your laundry room is downstairs)

[mom2hunangirls]

For us, there are 3 rooms with laundry baskets and the main 3-basket sorter (whites/colors/towels) by the washing machine. Dd1 empties on Monday, dd2 on Tues, mine/oph Wednesday and then start rotation again on thurs...so every 3 days or so. I wash 2 loads a day. 2 kids put their stuff away and fold

towels/socks. I usually don't have to wash on Friday or Saturday so that's when I do special stuff.

Sometimes, if the kids are filling up fast, I just dump their basket in, unsorted with a color catcher sheet.

It's such a fine oiled machine now I hardly think about it. Oh, if only I could get more of the chores down like that.

[ZeeMommy]

The only sorting I do (and washer/dryer is downstairs) is one basket for boys clothes, one for girl clothes, one for parent clothes, one for sheets and towels.  We have laundry bags in the dirty laundry hampers that get pulled out when full.  Children drag the bags downstairs.  Most of the time they give the bag a swift kick at the top of the stairs and let gravity do the job of getting it down!  :)

Load are done by what's in the bag.  I don't sort colors.  Clothes get warm wash, towels and sheets get hot wash.  So each load goes through washer, dryer, into basket, and theoretically I or one of children will stand in appropriate room and put clean laundry from basket into drawers/closets.  Folding into basket and then unloading basket is extra step.  If stuff doesn't get folded right away, it does get wrinkly but everything is mostly tee shirts, jeans, etc that doesn't need to be ironed.    

[Ripley]

I like to sort. I micro-sort:

khakis, lights, darks, jeans, uniforms, kitchen linens, bathroom linens, bedroom linens ...

It's relaxing to me :lol: it also breaks up laundry for me, ironically.

I find several, smaller loads more manageable than a few, larger loads.

I hang-dry everything but undergarments (which are another separate load) LOL.

 

Here's an easy tweak to your current system -

it's especially easy if you only sort minimally (lights, darks, others):

 

Instead of dumping everything on the laundry room floor, have the kids dump everything on the living room floor.

Turn on a 30 minute show, have THEM sort while they watch.

Each kids' hamper becomes a holding place/hamper for one of the sorted piles.

The hampers go into the laundry room pre-sorted and contained.

 

I love laundry baskets, and carrying them on my hip.

That didn't work so well with my laundry room set-up, though.

So I bought those inexpensive collapsible mesh ones from Target or Walmart - like $5-8/each.

They take up less floor space when open and virtually none when closed.

 

If it's easier, label each kids' collapsible hamper with a Sharpie -

on one corner write the kids' name and on the other write the load.

So one might read *Sarah* and also *darks* or something like that.

[Susan C.]

I don't do everyone's laundry together. Ugh. Dh gets his own loads. His stuff can be washed together (white socks move w/white wash rags in that load). He keeps his dirty laundry in the bathroom in its designated spot. Ds has a hamper in hall bathroom and gets his own loads. He has yucky work clothes that need to be washed alone. Most of the time he does them. I steal from his non work clothes if I have room in my load. Dd and I share loads, she has a hamper in hall bath, I have a spot in my closet, for some reason we don't have as many dirty clothes and we share to complete loads. I only gather what I'm washing and take it to the laundry room, off the kitchen. There is room to hang things there, but not to collect extra dirty laundry, and it would stink near where we eat... I wash, dry, fold or hang, then away. Towels are in with dirty clothes, retrieved when the towel load is done, in hamper otherwise. Sheets are taken off of beds, washed, put back on beds. And laundry room is downstairs, bedrooms upstairs. I like it that way, I can cook and handle laundry without having to go upstairs. Also, I do not do laundry every day. I will do 3-4 loads when I have them. And I agree, no nice clothes washed after yucky clothes. I try to do in this order when I wash: 1) dh clothes, some are pretty yucky from yard work 2) dh 2nd load, lights/darks/less dirty 3) towels 4) ladies jeans 5) if room to hang more, I only half dry then hang on racks in room, guys jeans. Then next day after all is dry and put away, 6) dd and my darks then 7) dd and my lights then if all white/lights/towels are dirty, 8) bleach load w/shower curtain, rags, socks.  Doing loads belonging to one or two people are much easier to fold and put away. No sorting, they all belong to one person. If I put the guys stuff together, their socks and other items would get mixed up. Dd and my stuff are different enough I know what belongs to who.

[BusyMom5]

I finally conquered the Laundry Beast!  I have the kids sort, and I wash as a load needs done.  If I were you, I would put 3 hampers in the basement- towels, jeans, play clothes.  Each morning kiddos take all laundry to the basement and put into the correct hampers.  Even my 3 year old can do it ;)  When a load needs done, do it.  I do about 2 loads per day, sometimes more, but I have a bigger family.  I actually have 2 laundry rooms, and sort according to kids, but with a smaller family you wouldn't have to do that ;)   If you bathroom is big enough, you can put one of those bin sorters in there, and only haul one load at a time downstairs. 

[AHASRADA]

5 people here, 2 storey house, laundry in basement. I have 3 tall baskets with handles: whites (including towels), mediums and darks. Our master bedroom has the most space on the second floor, so the baskets reside at the foot of our bed (they could have gone in the hall, but that's filled with bookcases:). The bathroom is right outside our door, so as each person showers, they throw their clothes in the appropriate basket. When a basket is full, I bring it down, wash, dry, fold and place the clean piles in each room. Everyone puts away his/her own clothes.

 

If you want to keep hampers in each child's room and continue to sort colors, I would have sorting baskets somewhere in the house to keep sorted piles off the floor.

[LuvToRead]

The only thing I sort is DH's work clothes (which get filthy) and towels.  I do one load of clothes per day M-F.  We have septic issues, so it is best if I space out the loads as much as I can.   I wash DH's work clothes and towels on the weekend.  Everyone is required to deposit their dirty clothes in the clothes hamper in the laundry room.  We are a family of 4, and I do about 9 loads per week.  

[Guest level2mommy]

We are a family of 6 (myself, DH, DS 6, DD, 4, DD22 month, and DD 5 months) and I don't use a hamper for the kids and I don't sort clothes (I know, I know). I have the kids drop their clothing off directly into the washer (okay... usually it's on the floor overnight and then they bring it to the laundry in the morning since the laundry room is off the "school" room). And then it gets washed when the washer is full.  I do keep a basket in my bedroom because DH is AWFUL at this and it's easier not to fight him over this when in general he's a very helpful man, but for the kids this system works well for us. The only exception is the really gross clothes, when those happen they get washed in a separate load.

I also make my 6 and 4 year old fold their own clothes.  I sort the laundry out of the dryer into piles according to whose clothes they are and they need to fold and put away their own.  I help the 4 yo, because otherwise she'll end up in tears because inside out clothes are beyond her, but she does do a lot of it herself. No, they don't get folded perfectly. Yes, there are wrinkles. But they will get better at it and it helps me with my allergies to do less of the laundry myself.

[dirty ethel rackham]

How old are your kids?  Can they each help more?  It sounds like a big job on your house. 

 

In our house, each bedroom has a hamper.  Everyone is responsible for bringing their own hamper downstairs and sorting it into a 3-bin laundry sorter.  If we had more, I would probably just have 3 laundry baskets for sorting.  No dumping on the floor.  I have a bad back and I hate that.  Often, I just announce which load I am doing first and they sort that group directly into the washing machine.  If I did all the folding, I would have 1 laundry basket for each room and fold clothes directly into that laundry basket.  Then it can be brought upstairs and put away.  Dh does a lot of the folding (and he drives me nuts how he does it, but, hey, he does it.)  Laundry baskets are relatively cheap and they stack.  Now, if I could just get my family to stop using laundry baskets to store everything else and use them just for laundry :cursing: . 

[Annie]

We do one load (almost) every day. We have one basket we put everything in. My four year old loads the clothes from the basket to the washing machine and picks up any stray things that didn't make it to the basket. Depending on how much space is left, I throw in a couple towels or a sheet. On occasion I'll do a whole load of towels or sheets, but they usually get done with everything else. I start the laundry washing. Once it's done, the little guy transfers it to the dryer (except for the stuff on the very bottom that he still can't reach). When the dryer is done, he moves the clean clothes to a chair in the living room where I fold them.

[Mandylubug]

Family of 6 here. We wash daily. I keep a basket for whites near our washer/dryer. After everyone's baths, they hang up their towels in the bathroom (we reuse) and they immediately take their dirty clothes to the washer and throw them in. Any whites like socks or underwear will go in the basket and all colored clothing in the washer. I start the washer before I go to bed and in the morning, I change it over to the dryer and if the whites basket is full, I start a whites load and change it over midday sometime. It works for us. No laundry baskets in rooms or bathrooms.

[candicane]

Ours has never been downstairs, but when our house was rather large it was pretty far away so for my elderly parents it was hard to get things many times a week. So we did this.

 

We have 3 baskets (whites, colors, jeans) and then on certain days Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays/Sundays dad would do the wash (he manages to get all days except Sundays done before 7am) and we'd gather up the clothes the night before. And this worked for 3 people, it also worked for 4 people when we made the 4th realize he wasn't going to be getting a new fresh clean towel everyday. Towels get washed Sunday as do sheets and whites, regular clothes on the other days.

 

If our laundry room ends up further away, I'd take over the job of gathering all the clothes instead of just taking mine.

[MomOfABunch]

After the third kid came, I quit sorting kids clothes by color. It was too much work. We have a laundry basket in the kids' bathroom and when it's full, I wash the whole basket on cold. It has worked fine. If whites are looking dingy, I collect just whites throughout the week and run a load with bleach. Voila, good as new!

 

Oldest DS is in charge of his own laundry, and also in charge of putting away (supervising the little ones putting away) the 3 and 5 year olds laundry. I usually fold it, but not always. I put away DD and baby clothes. Oldest DS or DD carries baskets up and down the stairs for me.

[AprilTN]

I do all of my laundry one day a week.  My dh and I have a laundry hamper in our closet, and I do one white load and one dark load of our clothes, then I fold and put away that day.  Then I take the kids' clothes and do the same thing.  I do not mix my and dh's clothes with the kids' clothes, because then we have to go back and sort them all out again.  Too much work!   They sit together that evening and fold their clothes while watching Netflix.  I also do a few loads of towels after the clothes are finished, and finally a load of delicates that are gathered from everyone and have to be hung overnight.  

 

Previously I did laundry all through the week and I hated the feeling of never being finished, and always having a load of laundry somewhere, and forgetting to put it in the dryer, and all the sorting, sorting, sorting.  

 

Now we have enough laundry at one time to make complete loads, so I don't have to sort.

 

I keep a laundry basket in the laundry room during the week that is for dirty kitchen towels, cloth napkins, etc.,  but all of the clothes stay in their laundry hampers until laundry day. 

 

I LOVE my system and it works so well for us.  And I don't have to think about laundry for the rest of the week!  It is wonderful!

 

This podcast is where I got the idea, and then I tweaked it a little to fit our day.

 

http://www.aslobcomesclean.com/2013/11/013-laundry-conquered-more-podcast/

[Desert Strawberry]

For those of you who don't sort, Do your clothes get dingy? Sometimes, when I have smaller loads, I combine them, but I find the lighter colors come out all dingy.