Tips for keeping up with laundry

[Adamsmama]

I'm having trouble. History: We have 3 small kids, we've just decluttered and are trying to downsize our stuff and simplify everything. We are almost done!!! It is so great. Anyway, I'm having trouble with one last thing ... the laundry. I can't keep up, our laundry room is a mess all the time. What do I do? Any tips on keeping things sorted and done? I feel like I have to do 500 loads of laundry a week. Like I'm in a race with the laundry and the laundry is always winning. It is crazy. The kids go through a lot of clothes -- I've got 2 young boys who are potty trained and that do have accidents (one more than the other) and a toddler who makes a mess of her clothes everyday. I just started to get caught up this week and now I've still got 5 real loads plus a few random loads to go.

I need a simple routine. Do I need to go out and buy better sorting containers? What are your suggestions?

[luv-my-boys]

I know where you are coming from!! I have a bunch of little ones at home and it always seems like there is laundry that needs something..wash,fold,dry put away! I literally have to do a little bit every day or we'll either run out of clothes or I'll be washing non stop for days. I ended up buying several laundry baskets and labeled them (label them how it works for you) lights,darks,kids lights,kids darks, towels/linens. Then everyday I put the clothes into their appropriate basket when a particular basket was full I washed. I found for me that i had very limited time to do laundry and I would always spend half my time just trying to sort the mountain of laundry so I found if i did a little each day then it wouldnt be overwhelming and if i had a few minutes I could just grab and basket and dump in the washer and plus I knew everything in the basket went to the same place (room wise at least) I also set up a schedule of laundry for each week day. Monday-linens tuesday/thurs-kids wed-lights thurs-darks I knew what i needed to get done for that day no thinking about it. It has helped me keep on top of our mountains of laundry. Plus it has helped when DH has been home and he sees my "schedule" and automatically knows what to do and I dont have to stand there and help him sort laundry.

[broodymama]

I have trouble keeping up with it myself. I have a sorter in our closet (one part for DH's uniforms, one for other clothes, one for towels & sheets), DS has a basket in his room and there's another basket in DDs' room. If I do one load of clothes and one what I call a maintenance load (diapers, family cloth, kitchen linens, basically anything not clothes) a day then that will keep me caught up. But, I have to actually get caught up first for that to work.

[cristeen]

I would probably start by doing a load a day. Even if that means that you put it in at bedtime and swap it out in the morning. Make it a part of your daily routine so that you never get buried under a mountain of it. If you generate 7 loads a week, then you're doing 1 load a day and it's much more manageable than spending all day doing 7 loads.

For myself, we don't generate quite as much laundry as you do, but what's really helped me to get it done is rather than just walking away and forgetting about it, I set a timer that I take with me wherever I wind up, so that I know when the washer is done and needs to be swapped, or the dryer is done and needs to be emptied (our laundry's in the basement, so I can't hear it). Then the clean laundry gets dumped on our bed, so we can't go to bed until it's folded and put away. Usually that means DH has to help me with it.

Because neither of us has to wear professional clothing anymore, our clothes laundry consists entirely of jeans/sweats/tshirts, etc., so I don't bother to sort it. I just grab a load's worth and go. I have a hamper in the bathroom that is just family cloth/kitchen cloth/towels/sheets, and the hamper in the bedroom is just clothes, so everything in a single hamper gets washed in the same way - again, no sorting needed. For me that was a huge time saver.

[Lazy Gardens]

Originally Posted by Adamsmama

I can't keep up, our laundry room is a mess all the time. What do I do? Any tips on keeping things sorted and done?

Not more bins! Over-sorting leads to lots of piles or bins waiting to collect enough more items to justify being run through the washer.

Getting clothing in and out of the washer is the primary objective.

Most clothing can be washed together ... it doesn't hurt towels to share with the sheets, or the underwear to share with shirts. Make every load count by running a full load as often as possible, or at least a medium load.

Most clothing can be washed in cold water: The stuff that says "Warm Wash, Warm Rinse" will do just fine in a cold/cold load. Set the washer on Cold Wash, Cold rinse, large load and forget about it. I've washed clothes for years with no hot water at all, except for the rare "ewwww, gotta hot water and bleach this" one.

Laundry soap will kill any germs you may be worried about.

Don't buy clothing that can't tolerate this laundry style - any exceptions that have to be washed on delicate, hung to dry, bleed dye even after the second washing, or are otherwise a pain in the patootie to launder have to have something really special going for them - like being outerwear, or fancy dress clothing.

Kids clothing and bedding: Pretreat the stains and toss it in a bin. As soon as you have one load accumulated, throw it in the washer. If you have energy restrictions on when you can run the dryer, it can wait in a laundry basket for the dryer. But it's washed!

Speed sort the dried clothing ... one bin per child, toss the items in there or hang it up and drape it on the side of the kid's bin. Stack the bins, take the bins to their rooms, hang up the hangers and fold and stash the clean clothing. An alternate 1-basket method is to go to first bedroom, hang and stash the clothing for that child, repeat in each room. Fewer bins, same amount of sorting work.

Even with occasional bed-wetting and a messy toddler, this method and one load a day should keep up with the kid's clothes and bedding.

Adults: one load of sheets, one load of towels, and three loads for clothing (split however makes sense ... levis, shirts, underwear?) should keep you for a week. I take the sheets straight to the washer on a set day of the week, towels go from rods to washer, so there are no piles or bins for them. Clothing accumulates in the hamper and gets sorted onto the bedroom floor and then goes into the washer. Depending on the mix, I may wash shirts and undies together, levis and towels, or whatever makes the fewest sensibly sorted loads.

ADDING: I don't even sort lights and darks after their first wash ... I've never noticed a problem with color transfer.

[DeerMother]

I don't sort light/dark either and also do everything cold/cold. Exception - dog blankets and sometimes sheets/towels get washed in hot. I rarely line dry and only in the summer, but everything except diapers is dried on low heat. There are very few things that have to be line dried. (a few of dh's 100% cotton shirts, my cashmere sweater).

My problem is not doing the laundry but putting it away. I wash everything together and then have to go to every room in the house to put it up. Last night I decided to sort by what goes where and do laundry this way. Kitchen and bath towels together. Kid clothes. Grown up clothes. I only change sheets once a month and usually wash all blankets at this time too.

I do a load of non diaper laundry every day, sometimes more like 2-4. I do diapers every day. I have eliminated the "hot spot" for holding the folded laundry - my ironing board - so if I want to sit on the couch I have to put it up. I also find that smaller loads are easier for me to put away. This is not the greenest method, but if I have to put up everyone's entire wardrobe it just doesn't get done in a timely manner.

[ABmom]

To keep up with my laundry, I don't sort other than darks & whites. I do a load or 2 every few days when the baskets are full. There's on in our room and one for the kids. I throw a load in in the morning while they are eating breakfast (takes 2-3 mins) by the afternoon I fold and make it a family activity with dd and ds. Yes it takes longer with them helping but we learn about colours, textures, groups/similarity, recently I'm teaching dd how to spell the items. Bedsheets are done once a week. Towels are done with the clothes.

[orangefoot]

Firstly, if your laundry room is full and you go to your rooms and find the closets are full too then you need to get rid of some clothes.

If you find that you are regulalry washing the same clothes then you can probablylive without a lot of what you have stored in closets.

There are 6 of us and we have this system: 2 small sized bags in the bathroom which hold just under one washload. One for colours and one for whites. the onlything that is washed seperately is wools. Whichever is full first goes in the washer with whatever else I can pick up to add to it; towels fom the bedroom or sheets or stuff from the kitchen - handtowels, odd socks wet stuff etc. The empty bag goes back up and sometimes becomes a pink bag or goes back to being a dark or white bag.

I wash every other day more or less but I am rtuled by the bag not by the day! When everything is washed and dry I put it away straightaway. I have to force myself to do this but it really makes a difference in the battle.

[Sihaya]

I ran across this blog the other day and I thought it was great. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff you already know, but I thought it was a really good comprehensive guide to remind me of the basics and I even learned a couple new things.

Another thing that helps me is starting laundry the second I wake up, second only to using the restroom. Even if I don't get back to switch it for a couple of hours, at least it's clean and no matter what I can generally get it dried and put away before bed.

[brittneyscott]

One thing that I started doing is NOT sorting! I wash everything on cold wash and it can all go in together. Large items like bedding do get washed separately though. If there are items that are extra grungy then I do wash them separatly, other than that it all goes in together... darks, colors, whites, everything. Every now and then I will sort out all the whites and bleach them.

[~Megan~]

Just keep up on it. I fold (and dh helps sometimes) and the kids put away everything except dh and my clothes. It may not work if your kids are too small, mine are 6 and 3.

Don't let it get too big. Do a morning load and another one at night.

[ColoradoMama]

There's 6 (soon to be 7) of us, and here's what I do. I have a big 3 pocket bin in my closet (white, lights, darks). Every morning, I take a load down and it gets wash, dried and put away during the day - every day. Sometimes (clean sheet day and when diapers need washed) I do two loads. When I undress, I throw my clothes in the appropriate bin. The kids bring in their dirty clothes every evening. I don't have them sort it, but they put it on the floor in front of the bin, and I sort it when I go to bed. It's doesn't feel overwhelming when it's one or two loads a day. If it piles up - whoa - that is overwhelming.

[Peppermint Leaf]

All of our laundry is kept in a very large rubbermaid laundry basket in our ensuite.

I do one load per day -- I spend about 10 minutes perday at it:

sample:

• 8:00 am - the first thing I do every morning is grab a handful of laundry from our ensuite and go downstairs and stick it in the washer (this takes approx 1 minute)
• 9:00 am - I take what is in the dryer from yesterdays load and fold and put away (its only socks, towels, jeans --- so takes approx 5 minutes)
• 9:05 am - I take what is in the washer and either throw into the dryer or put on hangers to dry (takes approx 4 minutes)

DONE:

I do this 7 days a week

[wendyland]

I try to do a load of laundry or two everyday. I do this for a few days and then I take a couple days off for my sanity. oh, and I rarely ever sort anything, unless it's summer and we have more whites. Otherwise, I don't buy white clothes.

I'll also note that it is so nice having a child that is old enough to sort her laundry. I was hers separately and give her the whole basket when it comes out. I can't wait until they can all do their own.

[SuzyLee]

Reading through all these posts the things that jump out at me is that all these systems took people 5 paragraphs to explain.

Here is our system: We have one laundry basket in the master bedroom. All laundry goes in there. When it gets full, I wash it (everything gets washed on warm), dry it, and dump it in the living room. While sitting and playing with DS I fold it and put it away. (really if you sit down and fold and put away one load it takes maybe 10 minutes. it is only when it piles up that it gets bad).

We also of course have a seperate CD laundry basket, but it sounds like you are past CD's.

The key to all of this is that you have to get caught up. Ask a friend to come over and hang out for the day and your kids can help entertain each other while you climb Mt. Laundry.

[PenelopeJune]

I totally feel you. I hate laundry. I hate folding more than anything. Right now I'm doing at least 4 loads a day trying to get caught up, and hopefully after I'm caught up I can just do 1 a day.

I finally figured out that there is no system that will work. You just have to DO IT! That's all there is to it. No procrastinating. No skipping days. Just wash the clothes, dry them, and fold them. (I'm not talking to you here, I'm talking to myself )

I don't sort, either. If I have enough towels to do just a towel load, so be it. But other than that, I just cram everything in there together and wash on cold. The only thing I wash separate is diapers, and even then sometimes I throw towels or something in there. (I do wash diapers on hot.)

And now with American Idol on TV, I Tivo it and watch it while I'm folding clothes. I watched 2 hours of Idol yesterday and two today while I folded. I need something mindless to do while I watch a mindless show that doesn't require I look at the TV every second.

[jennifercp8]

I do at least a load a day, and every day is a different "day". I wash sheets on one day, towels another, DS's clothes another, DH's shirts another, diapers another, etc. Some days have 2 loads, and I find that I can keep up with it this way. And I always know when I have missed something - this way DH isn't guessing about the last time the bed sheets were changed. Each day is scheduled out, and always happens on the same day of the week. The day I wash towels is the day I also clean the bathrooms. The day I wash the bedsheets is the day I vacuum the bedrooms/mop the upstairs floors.

I fold and put it away that same day. I usually fold it while watching TV after DS's nap (he usually helps), and then it gets put away right after. I don't have a laundry room, and I think that is helpful. My mom always had a laundry room, and the laundry would sit in piles forever until she got motivated to clean it out, and then it would fill up again in a few weeks. And my sister and I always did our own laundry!

[hillymum]

All dirty laundry goes into the one basket in the master bedroom. When it's almost full it all goes in the wash. Our washing machine has a buzzer so I know when it's finished. When time alows I switch it to the drier. Clean clothes get folded and sorted into piles belonging to each child and adult clothes are put away right away. The only problem I hae is taking the baskets up to the boys room to be put into their draws. I am working on getting them to put their own clothes away.

I long ago did away with sorting colours/whites etc. Too time and space consuming.

[AlwaysByMySide]

I took a cue from the Duggars and turned our laundry room into the family closet. There's a couple of hanging racks in there, and our dressers, and a retractable clothesline. It makes things SO much easier.

I also made a pact with myself that once I did that, the clean clothes would not leave the laundry room unless they were on a body. (As in, I don't put the clothes in a basket and take them somewhere else to be folded. They get folded while I'm standing in the laundry room and put away right there.)

[jjawm]

We have a sorting bin in the laundry room, and two baskets. The boys bring down and sort their own laundry when the basket in their room is full. I wash pretty often, especially when you consider the cd that we have to do. Dh's job is to put away the full baskets. It helps me to just have two baskets because it prevents me from just letting the laundry pile up in them.