Trashing Clothes

[dharmamama]

I am very frustrated with the clothing situation with my two youngest. They trash their clothes faster than any kids I've ever met, especially my daughter. She can wear something once and it's completely stained and misshapen.

We get a lot of hand-me-downs, and they come in very nice condition, and after one wearing by my kids, they look terrible. I don't even know where the mystery stains and tears come from!

I really try not to be hung up on clothing, because, after all, it's just clothing, but it does frustrate me that the kids usually look dirty in their clothes. Even if I try to save an outfit for when I really want them to look nice, it doesn't matter. They wear it that one time and it's trashed.

This has really been bothering me lately as I am in the process of switching their clothes over from summer to fall. I'm really turned off by the state of their summer clothes and I'm really getting anxious about their fall clothes, which will look horrible in a few weeks.

Any ideas?

dm

[Peony]

Sigh, this is my DD1 as well. I also try to not get hung up on clothes, I keep repeating to myself "it's clean, even though it doesn't look like it". but when every single thing she owns is COATED in stains, it's hard. We bought DD1 and DD2 matching outfits to take pics in, it was a special thing for me to do since I rarely buy brand new clothes for her, neverless at full price. I'm sure you can guess what happened, I had the dresses put up, she found them, put her's on, I was gone and DH didn't care, and now it's ruined before pic day.


I've even started using oxiclean when i wash her clothes, it gets out some of the stains, but I don't know what else to do, I do hate using use harsh chemicals.

[sweetfeet]

Well if it helps I've never noticed what you're talking about. They always look happy and comfortable. That said are there particular activities that seem to get them dirtier than just normal play? Have you tried smocks or cover ups? I keep thinking back to Little House on the Prairie because I'm currently reading that (to myself: ) and the children had overdresses to keep themselves clean. For the most part my children are clean, a miracle as I'm the messy one. Sophie is a sloppy artist and she likes to play in dirt I make extra sure that she's wearing a smock or old clothes.

I'm really sick so if it doesn't make sense sorry.

[dharmamama]

Originally Posted by sweetfeet

That said are there particular activities that seem to get them dirtier than just normal play? Have you tried smocks or cover ups?

Yep. Eating and playing.

Seriously, just as our carpet is trashed from all the food that gets spilled on it, Ramona's shirts all have food stains and the butts of Efram's pants are all brown from eating and playing outside.

I have an ever-dwindling supply of clothing that I consider acceptable to wear out of the house, but every time I do the laundry, I take another shirt out of "outside the house" rotation and assign it to "at home only" status.

I'm honestly thinking I need to spring for Tide with bleach and see if that helps. Even though I hate the chemical smell of detergent.

dm

[Starr]

Can they have an eating shirt? Like an oversize button shirt that they can put over their regular clothes? Then when they are done eating you can just wash the eating shirt. Maybe put them on little hooks in the kitchen and make it a habit?

DD is still pretty small but she is a messy eater. Before when she was a baby she ate without her shirt on, much easier cleanup. Now I have some lafge flour sack drying towels and it makes one huge bib when tied around her.

Also check your detergent, you may want to try something else. I used to use the same brand and it worked fine for DH and myself but now with DD we needed to switch a brand to really get stains and make them look clean and white not grey.

[Ruthiegirl]

My son is this way. He trashed clothing in a few wears. We just got a load of hand-me-downs from a neighbor and I was amazed at how clean and undamaged the clothes were. His mom just shrugged and said that her son has always been gentle with his clothes.

Three weeks at my house and those same hand-me-downs are showing a lot of wear. I figure it is just the boy and how he is. We do strip his shirt off at meal time to reduce a few stains, but honestly, we just go through a lot of clothes.

Second hand clothes are the best. I hit the half price sale at the Salvation Army each month and pick up an armload of T-shirts and jeans.

[sweetfeet]

What detergent are you using now? Do you have hard water? We had hard water when we lived near there and it is really much harder to get stains out with hard water imo. I had to add Calgon water softener to my loads. Here we have a city wide water softener and I use the same detergent as always (All F&C) and it works much better. So that may be an issue as well. Also I've found that some materials can just hold the dirt or not wash up as nice no matter what you do.

[avedagrrl]

My miracle cure for bad laundry accidents is an overnight soak in Oxiclean and color-safe bleach in a sink or bucket of water (1 scoop Oxi, 1 cap bleach). I do hair and often get permanent color on myself, this usually gets it out! It has also gotten cat pee stink out of DS's handsewn quilt without changing the colors or damaging the fabric.

[pigpokey]

Really if you do not want to use the oxygen bleaches and chlorine bleaches and this troubles you, you may need to switch to a very dark wardrobe or one heavy on the whites, where you can just use chlorine bleach on all-white loads.

I usually wash my darks in cold just with detergent. Visible stains are rare.

I wash my colors and whites together initially. I often use Clorox 11 type bleaches along with the detergent.

I hang all my knits (except extremely preworn hand me downs). I do put some woven fabrics in the dryer (plain khaki shorts, for example, and unembellished jeans). Hanging allows me to look for stains and deal with them without setting them in the dryer. Also, in my experience children's knits and many adult knits are very cheaply made and will not look good for long if you use th dryer.

I have various ways I remove stains and it depends on what it is. Generally if I have several stained items at a time I will soak them overnight in a bucket of water with Clorox II and dishwasher powder. This would be a first round of attack for a garment I picked up used that had some pre-existing stains. It works great probably 90% of the time. The rest of the time it is either going to come out with more soaking, discolored from the treatment, or isn't going to come out.

Sometimes when I don't feel like doing this, I will just re-wash on hot, with either Clorox II in the wash again or spot treated with a spray stain remover.

Bleach pens are great for stains on white near colored areas. I pre-rinse this before I put it in the wash so the bleach doesn't touch a colored area. Sometimes cheap whites will yellow. That's the end of that, if you yellow a white with bleach. I just had that happen on a shirt that was very cheaply made. This will also happen eventually if you move to a lot of whites ... eventually they will get dingy from the bleach damage.

I also don't typically pay much for the clothes so if it's not a favorite, I will just throw it out after one special stain removal attempt. If it's a favorite I will work harder, but ultimately I will get rid of anything stained.

As far as lifestyle, when we are home I will often have them eat in between clothing changes ... for example, maybe they will take off their clothes before dinner if we are eating right before a bath. If they get ketchup, tomato sauce, or chocolate on their outfits I will change their clothes right then and do something like throw it in the bathtub after their bath so it will sit wet until I wash; get together a load quickly and wash it right away; or wet it with hot water and dish soap in the sink, get some out and throw it in a wet ball to the laundry room floor to wait until tomorrow.

If you don't like nekkid (or shirtless) eating, maybe get them black pajamas and feed them breakfast before you put them in their clothes for the day.

I will also dress my son, who's messier, in a shirt that matches lunch if I won't be able to change him before he is in public again. So, if he is having sphagetti and I can't take his shirt off I'll put him in a red Phillies shirt.

Please wade through the typos and let me know if any meaning is lost.

[hottmama]

My toddler stains EVERYTHING but he's only 21 mos. old. My 4.5 yr. old doesn't stain stuff but he wears holes in the knees of every pair of jeans he's owned. I don't know how he does it.
I second the recommendation for dark clothes. My toddler's wardrobe has, through the weeding out of stained clothes, become pretty much all red/dark blues/brown/black.
I am usually able to get stains out by scrubbing the heck out of them with Zout and then soaking them in Oxyclean for 6 or so hours. But I hate the smell of Zout and it clings to my skin so I only do that once a month (or two ), and a week later we're back down to the dark shirts.