Seventeen Loads of Washing... I'm not am I?

[RedRainRocks]

AIBU in the slightest? Seventeen (spelt out so you're sure it's not a typo). 17 loads of washing this week I have done and put away. (As well as working 72+ hours) I accept I am a little bit OCD about the sheets and towels being on a hot wash alone and that only white things go in the white wash but I do not understand how this household can make so much damn washing!?!!! These are all full loads.

AIBU to ask how many loads you do on an average week, if towels and bedding are done at least once a week and if 22 flannels are an average weeks usage in your household?? I probably am but please ...tell me they are not going to put "now we have no clean clothes to wear" on my gravestone?

There has to be an easier way than this... Surely?

I do about 14, but most of them are small loads ( and I'm obsessed with an empty basket, it makes me pathetically happy ).

Could you leave it until there's more "full loads" to do?

Do people still use flannels?!

Buy a large capacity washing machine, mine saved my sanity.

I do between 12-16 loads depending on bedding/towels for a family of 6 (children between 12 and 18, youngest has continence issues) and dry them on airers. 17 loads for 4 seems excessive even to me!!

I do 2-3 loads a week: one whites, others mixed - 8yo + DH & I.
Towels & Bed linen once a week inc swimming stuff once a week for DS & I
Occasionally do an additional special wash such as silk or wools but otherwise always do a full load. I expect to do another wash a week once our new baby arrives.
17 washes would probably wash everything washable we own a few times over.

Four/five in the household.

Sheets once a week, towels twice a week. 22 flannels is not one load but it made me wince when I was refilling the shelf where they live

Oh and PPie10... most of my workwear is dry clean only and I change into Pj's when I get home as I'm so damn knackered after my day (which is over 12 hours) I never go anywhere to wear anything else!? I don't create the washing..

Youngest is five so I guess they can't load the washer but the others can - wonder if my whites would stay white tho?

I take it you're not on a water meter

3 of us in the house normally, all adult-sized. I do 3 or 4 loads of clothes washing and shove odd bits of towels and sheets as they fit into the machine. There will usually be at least one other wash for things I haven't squeezed in that week, but the machine is used less than 7 times a week in total. . No flannels.

That's a mental amount of washing.

I used to do about 10 loads a week when I had 2 young DCs both in cloth nappies and thought that was a lot!

17 is excessive, unless you have a VERY big family. For comparison, DH and I do fewer than 1 load a day between us, for two adults and a two-year-old. We are less exacting about separating colours etc, but if all your loads are full ones then it's not that that's causing the issue anyway.
Do you always wash things after a single wear/use? We use towels 2 or 3 times before washing, trousers and jumpers are worn a minimum of twice (unless they specifically need washing), and tops get a sniff test before being put in the basket/drawer for another day, depending. How many people are in your household, and also, unless you're a single parent with very young children, why are you doing all this yourself?

4 of us and we do 7, 8 or 9 loads a week in a slightly larger machine (think it's an 8kg one?). Bath towels are changed weekly, hand towels more often, all beds fortnightly. I won't be a martyr to the laundry.

6 loads, 2 darks, 1 mixed, 1 mixed with swimming, 1 bedding, 1 karate kits.

There's 4 of us, but DH wears suits and has his shirts laundered near work.

Whoops, sorry OP, I got distracted in the middle of the post, and the thread has moved on in the meantime!

1 load for DD
1 load for DS
1 black load
1 white load
1 coloured load
1 load DCs bedding
2 loads adult bedding (superking size)
1 load towels
2 quick rinses of swimming stuff.

I can see how it adds up - but you could realistically aim to reduce your no. of loads by a quarter.

Good lord. We have 4 people in our house and I do 1 X towels per week and then maybe 2-3 other loads. No flannels. None of us have dirty clothes nor do we smell! I can fit almost a full washing basket of stuff in my machine though.

Sounds about right to me.

TheGhostOfBarryFairbrother Yes. Thank you. I do have therapy for my aversions. . One of them being no one else can use my towels- hence the twice a week wash.

4 of us and I guess we average one a day. Maybe 1-2 white wash, 4-5 coloured washes (including towels, they don't get done separately) and 1 bedding.

Thats 2-3 washes every DAY. How do you have time for that? And how the hell do you get it all dry? I don't see how its even possible, tbh.

I do 2 loads every day so that's 14 then when I change beds which I did this week that's another 3 so I'm 17 too

To reduce your laundry load you have GOT to look at the supply stream. Either you just say 'I am OCD' and accept this insane level of hamster-wheel life, or you have to challenge yourself a little bit.

I change bedding fortnightly. Admittedly we used to move the top sheet to the bottom weekly in our house when I was growing up but in general fortnightly was enough. Weekly only became standard once home washing machines were invented - the work expanding to fill the time available. Nobody will die if you move to fortnightly bedding change - adults one week, children the next? Obviously different if your 5 year old is not completely dry at night but for the rest?

Flannels need to be washed every time, I wouldn't change that, but towels don't, they really don't (depending on what you are doing with them). An ordinary shower, a quick dry, hanging up to air, surely that can go for three or at least two times?? Alternatively encourage the strip wash - a single flannel and two half basins of water and I can wash face, underarms, bottom, feet, with the result that I don't have a towel to put in the wash.

Get tough(er?) about use of big napkins for meals and aprons for messy tasks, and invest some time in working on your family's neatness of eating, with a view to clothes being put in the wash less often. Consider instituting a rule whereby people change out of work or school clothes as soon as they get home - provided they don't then get into a new set of home clothes that they promptly put in the wash - encourage a few days' use out of these.

Rediscover undershirts? When DH was wearing shirts to work he had white t-shirts and would change those daily, with the result that his shirts could go three days without a wash.

I found on a recent thread that some people get into fresh nightclothes every night with the results that they will launder fourteen complete outfits per person per week - if this is you, don't.

2 adults and 2 children (4 and 8). I do 4 loads a week. Sometimes 5.

I have a big washing machine though.

I do about 12. Not all full loads, but mine and kids sports wear gets wash separate as its black and needs washing hit as we sweat in them so much.

This includes flannels.

I don't iron. And the kids (12 and 5) both help. They help pair socks. The oldest puts all her own stuff away and dh or me help the youngest put his stuff away.

I do most of the washing rather than dh. But he does the supermarket shopping and the cooking. So I don't mind.