Please share your laundry routines before I throw all the clothes out and devote myself to naturism

[WitchyBrew]

2 adults and 5 kids in our house. DH does the washing and drying part of our laundry and I do the folding and putting away (ie, total fucking ballache part of the process). For various medical reasons, our kids are unable to help.

DH does at least 1 wash a day (if he doesn't then the pile gets totally out of hand). Before I went back to full time work, the clean clothes would accrue in a relatively small pile and I would fold and put away twice a week. However, since going back to work full time, I actually cannot get on top of it. It just piles up and up and up, and the only time I get a chance to tackle it is at the weekend, by which time there are 2 huge overflowing tubs of it strewn around my bedroom (which stresses me out no fucking end), and it takes the bones of 2 hours to fold and put away. And starts piling again immediately.

Unfortunately, we don't have a spare room that we could dedicate as a laundry room, and can't afford to get someone else to do the folding etc. And even if we did, it wouldn't really help unless they would actually come in and out the stuff away.

Please please please share your winning laundry routines/systems before I totally crack up and burn all the clothes!!

@Spaceman1

I think the inefficiency here is doing one wash a day. If you instead start early on Saturday or Sunday with one hour wash, straight into dryer, next one hour wash, fold and store, on rotation, you can get five /six washes done in one day, probably better if you rotate between you and your DH alternate weeks so the other can look after the children!

Surely you'd hope to be out for at least a good chunk of the day on a Saturday though?

Storing school uniform in one big basket (folded and clean) or a large deep drawer has saved us time.

Also the uniform at our school states white or blue polo shirts. We initially chose white as it looked smarter but found most our clothes are dark. So we swapped to blue and now wash ALL the uniform in a “uniform wash” on a Friday. Saved us SO much time.

I also wash all the underwear in one go. It’s easier to sort when you know you’ll have a mountain of socks to pair. But then it’s done for a week.

I strongly recommend this. So you need to make sure you can all go a week with your clean underwear supply and if not - buy more so you can!

Your DH can make your life easier by washing in categories like this.

And you can make your own life easier by adding it to your daily routine whatever it takes. What would you rather? Going to bed 10 mins later or having laundry negatively impact your mental health?

Honestly, when you put it like that it seems trivial and ridiculous. Just add it to your routine.

It’s only laundry after all

family of 5
we have 3 washing machine drum sized washing baskets.
-lights (we have no pure white clothes)

• darks
• jeans

when full we wash
the dc get their stuff into their room to put away after drying.

@Spaceman1

I think the inefficiency here is doing one wash a day. If you instead start early on Saturday or Sunday with one hour wash, straight into dryer, next one hour wash, fold and store, on rotation, you can get five /six washes done in one day, probably better if you rotate between you and your DH alternate weeks so the other can look after the children!

But then you have to spend all day stuck at home doing laundry

Ok so it seems the key here is to stop separating the taking out of the drier/folding into 2 steps, and also to consider bringing back the wash basket for each child. And obvs not to let it slip and build up (which is probably the biggest issue really).

Also, I think the timing of when we do our washes is having an impact, and we need to make sure that there is a dry load ready to take out and fold each evening before the kids go to bed. I think often what happens is that the dry clothes don't come in (our washer and dries are in a shed) until the kids have already gone to bed and I'm absolutely shattered at that stage and also don't want to be waking them back up by going in their rooms to put stuff away.

Love the idea of laundry bags, will look into those thanks. And not sure why it never occurred to me that the out of dryer/fold and put away should be all one process. And no I'm not American

And yes, as I've said before, leaving the washing for a week ends up taking 2 hours to sort, fold and put away. And as I've also said before, no we are not overwashing.

Will need to have a sit down and write out the process and make 15 minutes daily to tackle it. Thanks everyone

I fold when I’m upstairs waiting for the kids to stop dithering and go to bed, while they brush their teeth etc.

You're creating extra jobs because it should come straight out of the dryer and be folded straight into Separate piles (or ideally separate baskets) for each person. Then all you have to do is put it away. It's much easier to do a load at a time, so if you can't manage to do it straight from the dryer then at least try and do it every day. Its a 5 minute job on the day or a 2 hour job once a week? Well, I'd be aiming to do the one that takes much less time over The whole week and doesn't become overwhelming.

@fairylightsandwaxmelts I would rather get it out of the way in one go rather than it being a never ending process every day but it does mean one parent being stuck at home all day on either Saturday or Sunday which is not ideal!

I’m loving the look of these. My laundry life may just have been revolutionised.

Thanks to the poster who suggested them.

@WitchyBrew lol I know you are saying you aren't over washing but I just can't see how your dh fills a load everyday 🤷🏼‍♀️. I apologise if I'm wrong if just seems a lot if you wear trousers more than once

I do a load almost every day and we only have two kids. We do bedding every fortnight, towels every week maybe. I like to keep on top of it.

Yes OP, I agree with you that basically you have to start seeing it as a daily task, like washing the dishes or having a shower or cooking. If you do 15 mins a day (maybe not even all in one go) then you should be able to keep on top of it going forwards.

I cannot imagine having 5 kids and working full time tho! So go easy on yourself.

We have at least one full load per day, usually 2.

Whoever empties the dryer folds it. It takes about 5 minutes.

I would be doing washing in the evening instead of in the morning.

So, whoever gets home from work/school first sticks a load of washing on, then as soon as it's done washing, put it in the drier. Out of the drier and folded. Next load in the machine ready to go the following day.

If it's too late to put away that days' load of washing, leave it in the basket and fold it after you've put the load on to wash the next day - so you're still doing one days worth of putting away at a time, but just a day behind it being washed iyswim.

Sharing what I do, but I think you need to work out what fits in with your family routines for it to work.

1. There are no clothes in this house that cannot take a 40 degree wash.
2. No ironing.
3. No sorting, I have through test and trial come to the conclusion that colour sorting is completely unnecessary. I do sort out underwear as I was that on 60.

My 3 kids have a shared wash basket. Saturday morning while I make coffee, I carry this down, strip out all underwear and fill 1st load. Now that they are older and it's winter with longer arms and sleeves I mostly have to split 1/3 of the laundry out and leave for next load. In the summer, it's one load per week for 3 kids. Once finished, dump all of it in dryer and load mine and DHs washing, same again strip out underwear. Repeat with the third load which is a mixture between both kids and adults. Last load is underwear and towels.

Once it's out of the dryer, I fold and put away. I have foldable washing baskets from Amazon and dump in there until I have time to fold. Now I am picky with my folding and if my husband tries to help I mostly redo it to get it to my standard. This is also because I feel the clothes are less wrinkly if they are properly folded. To fold 1 load of kids clothes, i.e a week's worth would take me about 20 minutes. I put on a TV show on my tablet and do it, it's honestly quite pleasant. When I fold I also organise to make my week easier, i.e my eldest has pe on Monday, so I put his pe shirt on the top of his school shirt pile, my middle has pe on Wednesday so I put his pe shirt 2 shirts down in the pile.

Can you reduce the number of loads you do? I do 3-4 per week as above. I find that because I do all the kids laundry together that the folding is quicker since it's 7 pair of trousers per kid etc. Also means that I can put everything in one wardrobe rather than running around to every wardrobe of the house.

@LondonGrimmer

I do a load almost every day and we only have two kids. We do bedding every fortnight, towels every week maybe. I like to keep on top of it.

Yes OP, I agree with you that basically you have to start seeing it as a daily task, like washing the dishes or having a shower or cooking. If you do 15 mins a day (maybe not even all in one go) then you should be able to keep on top of it going forwards.

I cannot imagine having 5 kids and working full time tho! So go easy on yourself.

@LondonGrimmer like you we do a load most days but I don't do that plus a load for my dh- this is what's confusing me 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Itmustbeaproblemwithyourdoodad

Don’t wash as much. In winter we can get away with washing school uniforms about once a week or even less. They just don’t seem to sweat or get smelly or dirty much.

Trust me, teachers will smell it. Urgh. Winter children. And worse .... wet boys.

Family of 6
Every evening I sort a load of dirty laundry and put it in the washing machine. I set the timer for it to come on as we’re getting up. As part of my morning routine I clear the airers -anything that’s not quite dry and can go into the dryer to finish off does- anything else gets folded as it is taken off and put into a pile for the right person. Then I hang up the wet washing and then fold the stuff out of the dryer (it only takes 15-20 minutes to finish off).
Bedding and towels are an extra 3-4 loads a week. These sometimes get more time in the dryer depending on how much other washing I have hanging around but again are folded straight out of the dryer or off the airer

@CrumblyCrimble

If you air dry things, then dry them on whatever you use to put them away. If it lives on a hanger, dry it on a hanger (hung on a shelf edge or door frame or whatever, ideally in the room where it lives space permitting).

We have this system, almost everything goes on hangers, including T shirts and gets hung up (spaced apart) with a dehumidifier running. Virtually no ironing, the dehumidifier is cheaper to run than the heating and blows out lovely warm air. Smalls and socks go on a drying rack (no folding needed) and all random socks go in the "sock snap" box to be paired by eager children once a week in exchange for a Freddo frog. Any sock missing a partner at the end of the dance becomes a duster.

@UpDownRound yes!
I’m so glad you understood I meant fold lol

But honestly I’ve know these women over 20’years. Since our kids were under 2 and it’s 3 jobs. Wash. Dry. Fold.
I’ve had soooo many conversations over the years 😂
It’s two bloody jobs ffs 🤦🏻‍♀️

In our previous home when the DC were younger we too dried virtually everything on hangers bar knickers and socks and it worked really well. Their clothes dried and put in the wardrobe as "outfits".

In reality it front ends the work load into when the washing finishes. We did it as an evening job. Put wash on tea time and hung up to dry early evening.

We had 2 in washable nappies at a time too.

Don't let it build up. I never empty the dryer or line into a basket or pile, it needs to be folded and put away immediately. If the dryer is full I can't empty the washer, so I can't use it. I do a wash once a day on average.
I personally find it easier to be responsible for the whole thing, as if someone was just tipping clean clothes out into a basket I'd find it really easy to get behind, and hard to get it started again. Maybe swap things around so that one of you does the whole process and the other does something else entirely?

I get two days off a week, not always consecutive and not always weekends. I wash, dry and put all the washing away on my days off. Each load that comes out of the dryer goes upstairs to be sorted into piles on my bed. Once all the washing is done I put it all away. Had to start doing this when I was so sick of not knowing what we had clean or dirty and constantly running out of pants and socks.

I do sometimes have to do a load on a workday if me or one of the children are running low on uniform.

I've just thought about something that me and dh do actually... It applies to most chores around the house... We basically decided years ago that if something needs doing and you see it, you do it.

So if he's sees the washing machine is finished he'll empty it and hang it around, if I see that stuff is dry I'll fold it and put it away etc

That said, I'm the one who puts it on as I prefer to separate stuff and keep on top of it. When I'm ill for a few days it doesn't cross his mind to put a wash on as I always do it.

Could you have a more flexible approach OP?