The never ending laundry pile - Page 2

[Llyra]

Good grief, I think I probably do about twelve loads a week, and that doesn't include DH's clothes. When I still had kids in diapers I was washing probably twenty a week (for about six months, I had three kids in cloth, full-time, so it was a LOT of diapers.)

The laundry is the most time-consuming chore I do besides shopping for and cooking food. Actually, like the PPs said, it's not the washing of it-- that's simple. It's the hauling it up and down two flights of stairs, and the hanging and folding. So I have heaps and heaps of clean unfolded clothes all around. I've managed to teach DD1 to fold and put her own away (She's 5.) but the little ones just aren't there yet.

[Alyantavid]

Let's see:

1 load of coloreds on Wednesdays
2-3 loads of towels on Saturdays
1 load of whites Sunday
2-3 loads of coloreds on Sunday

Sheets are 2-3 loads about once a month.

That's normal, so 5-7 loads a week. Obviously if someone's wet the bed or there's been some big spill or something, there's more. Oh and we're a family of 4 as well.

[sunnysandiegan]

Family of three (2 adults, 1 school-age child)

Average week:
1 load of darks
1 load of "mediums" (anything not white/super light or dark/bright)
1 load of sheets
1 load of towels/rags
1 load of either: whites OR another load of "mediums" or darks (all half-loads, so I just wait until they are full loads before washing...)

Generally speaking, I wash one load a day and I wash whichever load is fullest that day. When the clothes are all clean, I wash a load of towels; then a load of sheets. All is done before the weekend usually, so my average is 5 loads per week.

[blizzard_babe]

I have NO CLUE! DH and I work opposite shifts, so laundry is one of those things that is just kind of an ongoing team effort. Right now there are three loads waiting for me to fold them.

But yeah, no idea how much goes through the process every week. Is that weird?

[OkiMom]

Thanks for making me feel more normal! I was talking about laundry with another mom in church on Sunday and she told me she only did 2 loads for her family (of 5) so I was wondering if I just had a huge amount of laundry to do!

We do go through a LOT of clothes. Its rainy season right now, so very muddy, and the girls love to play outside. Added to that the clothes that got dirty doing art, cooking, gardening etc and the girls probably go through at least 2-3 outfits a day. Not wearing clothes isn't an option since my DH is really against our daughters running around nakkie, probaby since we live on the ground floor and you can see directly into our living room.

As for putting things away thats the easy part. My girls love to help me (even the 18 month old) so things get put away really quickly. Everything put undies and workout clothes/undershirts get hung up so my 3 year old puts things on hangers while I fold and my 18 month old puts things in drawers. When Im done folding I hang the clothing up that DD1 has put on hangers. A lot of times things don't end up where they belong technically but it works out in the end. Laundry time is actually a lot of fun since the girls love it so much. Im really blessed with my girls though, they are always looking for a way to help me out.

Blizzard, before I stopped working to stay at home I couldn't have told you how many loads of laundry we did. We didn't have our own washer/dryer so when one of us was home we would do a couple of loads at the laundry mat near our apartment. It got to be where I had no clue how much laundry was being done until I needed to go get more quarters.

ETA- I didn't add in sheets and blankets since they aren't done weekly. I usually will wash them every two weeks but I admit if the bed isn't used it doesn't get washed very often. We have a trundle bed that isn't used yet (got it for DD2 when shes ready for her own bed) and I haven't washed those sheets in almost 3 months since the bed isn't being used. The linens that are actually used get washed every 2 weeks or more often if someone has an accident/throws up/illness etc.

[chely7425]

When you said your kids go thru more clothes during rainy season I am totally with you... during the fall/winter when it is rainy and wet my kids go thru way more clothing!!! I also have a feeling once we are potty trained and can't get away with fleece shorties as a diaper cover AND pants at home we will have more laundry... and I am so jealous that you have room to hang everything!! We so don't have that much closet space...

[treeoflife3]

We are a family of three with the husband in the military and I swear the laundry is never ending. I'm not even sure how as none of us bathe every day and me and the baby rewear things a lot if they aren't dirty/smelly.

Most of my laundry is definitely the husband's laundry... whats weird though is.. he rewears some of his stuff. Mostly he doesn't because he isn't weird like me (hehe) but he rewears the blouses and pants for his ACUs... sometimes the whole week depending on how things were.

Its insane!

[mimom22]

We are a family of 5. I do at least two loads a day. We can't hang our clothes on the laundry line because two of the three children have allergies. I love the smell of sun-dried sheets...but if I'd rather have children who don't itch all night. I need to find a way to reduce the laundry, but how?

[Paigekitten]

Originally Posted by zoebird

i do a load of laundry every other day, and it's mixed with mine, DH's and baby's clothes. it's all colored so no "whites" per se, though i prerinse every diaper (when they are used--we EC). once a week, i do a load of our linens (sheets, towels, etc). once a month, i wash all of the baby's diapers in hot with vinegar.

other than one hot wash, i use cold. i use oxygen cleaner from the health food store and organic/what not detergent. i am thinking about moving to soap nuts, though, as they are cool.

I've been using soap nuts for over 6 months now, they are awesome! I do two or three loads of diapers, two loads of clothes, and one load of sheets and towels a week. That is for DH, me, a two year old and a 12 month old. If DD1 refuses to wear a diaper to bed or use the potty I sometimes wash all her bedding every day too.

I felt like I was drowning in laundry, so we cut down our clothes by about half. I find it easier to keep up if the loads are not huge, especially since we line dry everything.

[proudmomof4]

2 adults and 4 children (16y down to 6y) here, about 7 to 10 loads a week. I try to do one load a day consistently, from time to time I have an extra load (e. g. winter clothes put away for the season, beddings etc.).
I (obviously) don't wash CDs anymore but some family members use family cloth, I use washable menstrual pads (in combination with a diva cup, so that's not a whole lot), I have "unpaper towels" in the kitchen - and we have a lot of sports going on here.

Tip for towels: I usually use them twice (as I'm not in the habit of rolling in mud on a regular basis), and I try to encourage my children to do the same. My husband usually doesn't but I try to reuse those at least for standing on them when leaving the shower.
I also found it helped a lot to have more "tea towels" handy for drying your hands - saves on space in the machine.

[delightedbutterfly]

I don't keep count and don't have a schedual... Laundry gets done when it needs to get done and so often we have laundry "blitzs" where a whole wack of laundry gets done at once.

Partly this was because my tenent was able to do laundry whenever and was often using the machines ALL THE TIME! For her and her (potty trained) son she litterally was doing 7-10 loads a week on average. *I* couldn't handle it. Not only was my water and power bill nuts but we could never do laundy on a consistant basis!... So I went back to the limit she set at the begining (3-4/week) and days and it has made my life so much better!

But if I had to come up with a number it would be 4-5 loads a week for a trades husband and myself and a 4.5 year old and an almost 2 year old.

We rewear A LOT! I don't care if it gets messy while we are at home they can wear it until it's bath time or we are going out... or it is really really messy... but everyday wear doesn't seem to be too bad.. a little bit of water or marker doesn't really bother me...

[OkiMom]

One of the things I LOVE about this apartment is that it has a ton of closet space. We store all our clothes in the two closets in the master bedroom (its awesome to keep all the clothes in one spot), we have two closets in the den (one is an "office" and the other is for school stuff) and a large one in DDs' room thats used for toys. Im so spoiled, Im going to be bummed when we move back to the states and don't have the closet space!

Towels we use 2-4 days between washes. A lot of the time the girls will use the same towel all week before it gets washed. It depends on if it smells icky. I think a lot of our laundry comes from not being able to wash full loads. Our machine sucks and if the load is anything above 3/4s the clothes come out still stinky. We do a lot of outdoor stuff here as well (hiking, camping, swimming, making mudpies, playing in the rain etc) and DH/I work out 6 days a week adding a lot to the laundry. Probably doesn't help that I wear only skirts and tops so its harder to rewear (my DH is sweet and buys me clothes when I need it but it tends to be one skirt only matches one top so when ones dirty so is the other).

[mumm]

Every spring I think I'll do fewer loads of laundry. Switching out heavy jeans for cotton shorts, bulky fleece sweatshirts for t-shirts, etc. But in reality, I end up doing so much more. The kids go through 3 (or 5!) outfits a day because they are in the mud, or got soaked in puddles or fell in the pond, etc.

4 kids, 2 parents. About 8-12 loads a week, but I don't do linens as often as I should. (okay, I probably do the kids linens only when they start to smell or seem crusty! They more often sleep in my bed anyway.)

[nolansmummy]

I do laundry only on the weekends unless someone needs something special washed before then or they do it themselves.
I'd say its about 5 loads.
One for mine and dd's clothes
One for dh and ds's clothes
One hot load for towels and underwear
One for sheets and blankets
One for leftovers- the stuff i find after i've done all the laundry already

I hate laundry, and I'm glad we don't really own that much clothing.
I also wanted to add that as a rule we pretty much don't buy white clothing. It never stays clean and it makes one less load of laundry.

[TwinMom]

I do at least two loads every weekday, but try to not run laundry on the weekend so that the older kids can wash their clothes. I don't wash any of their laundry so am washing for dh, myself, and two boys as well as towels, sheets, and kitchen linens. The teenagers also wash their own linens and towels. We go through enough kitchen linens in two days for a full washer load and no matter how much I ask/beg/plead, towels are thrown on the floor after every use, then stepped on, smeared with toothpaste, etc., so there are about 4 full loads of towels each week. All the kids and dh take tae kwon do classes 3-4 times a week, so even with me only washing the three uniforms in my laundry hamper, that's half a load right there. I am so sick of laundry!