Husband can't return the right kids clothing to right child when putting washing away

[IncessantNameChanger]

We have 4 kids. 18, 14, 10 and 8.

14 year old and 18 are the same size so ok maybe that's OK to get mixed up. But...

10 years old clothes go to the 14 year old who has SEN so he will happily wear 10-11 trousers that are 6 inches to short as he can get them on ( all the kids are very thin, except the 10 year old)

20 year old gets his sisters clothes that are unisex but she is tiny so some things are age 6.

Ten year old gets everyone's clothes.

8 year old only gets her things.

I get that I buy all the clothes so I know who everything belongs to, but dh sees the kids wearing these things, they have age labels, the kids are 4 years apart except the youngest.

Do I really need to use a dot system on the labels to help him? ( one dot for eldest, 2 dots for 2nd child etc)

Occasionally he gives me or him the 18 year olds clothes. Ds18 is eight stone, 5,8 with a 28" waist. Neiyher me and dh could dream of fitting into his clothes.

Is this just him?

I was just thinking exactly that. How does this work?! It seems a ridiculous suggestion to be honest. It is so much more efficient to do a whole family wash than everyone doing their own, surely? I don’t know anyone IRL that does this!

I was absolutely astounded to find DH getting both DD and DS's birthdays wrong a couple of weeks ago - one on the phone to NHS111 and the other at the hospital! Mortifying! He's the most engaged, loving, adoring parent I've ever witnessed, and he's never forgotten anything else (birthdays, anniversaries, etc). He just said that for some reason the day went into labour with DS sticks in his mind and the day we brought DD home sticks in his mind so he gets each of them a day out.

When I was a teen doing my own laundry I had to co-ordinate with others (i.e. going to others and saying "I'm putting a wash on, do you have anything to throw in?" and then I'd deliver a basket of wet clothing back to my siblings for them to hang up (and I'd just hang mine, and a parents if they'd thrown some in, or any "household" items like tea towels). Then, when my siblings were doing a wash then they'd ask if I had anything to throw in and they'd do the same. It's just as much effort to put a whole load on rather than half a load and takes ten seconds to ask your siblings if they have washing - and it means you don't have to do as many washes yourself because they reciprocate the offer.

My kids wait till they have a full load then wash it 🤷🏻‍♀️

@outtheshowernow

How does depression stop him doing his laundry 🙄

Really?

Depression can be massively debilitating.

Before I fold I sort into individual piles. If he does this with you around, he could check before choosing the pile.

Mine is like this with socks. Me, ds 3.5 and baby girl, he can't tell the difference. Mind boggling, he doesn't have massive feet either. Fortunately he is not incompetent in any other areas so I assume it's not strategic!

He has a penis. He can't possibly be expected to understand such things 🙄

You are both assuming all households work the same as yours. Try imaging different home lives.

We have a house of 6, 3 of which are teens. We do 10-15 loads of washing per week, which includes (per week)

• 8 football kits
• 5 sets of gym clothes
• around 6 running kits
• 10 sets of school uniform
• 20 sets of work/college outfits
• 6 sets of leisure centre uniform (where eldest two work outside of college)
• then everything else everyone wears

Ours goes like this:

DD18 - 3 loads per week (to my immense disapproval)
DS16 - 1 or 2 loads per week
DS13 - 1 or 2 loads per week
DD8 - 1 load per week
Me and DH - 2 loads per week
Then a family whites wash, towels, bedding etc.

My DH is the same, it drive me mad. The number of times I’ve pulled a pair of socks belonging to my 5 year old out of my sock drawer is insane.

Although not as bad as the time he put a pair of my knickers in her drawer because he thought they were a child’s vest! Cheeky bastard.

Wet lettuce

Tbf there is 7 of them 😁

This seems sensible approach

One wash per child? Then the whole load is one child’s clothing. Works for pretty much all stuff- sometimes you might need to separate out delicates or whatever but otherwise it’s way less hassle.

My DSs are of similar size and overlapping taste so I forget who owns what sometimes. If I've passed from DS1 to DS2, he sometimes forgets and has no issue in forcing his body into out-grown favourites (SNs at play). They're also in a weirdy size range at present, so that's not consistent.

They have a laundry box each. They never have difficulty filling it. Keeping things seperate helps a lot; mixed washes are a lot slower to put away. If a load needs doing but is a bit light, items like towels can go in to fill. It's not usually worth sweating over the last ¼ of a load anyway and overfilling is bad for the machine and wash quality anyway.

My DH has this issue with DD1 and DD2's clothes. Also mine and DD1's clothing. He has ASD and dyslexia, organising is not his forte so we play to his strengths. He does the ironing instead because he is fastidious about it and I hate it. Colour coded dots on labels would be the way to go to help with sorting, but he would actually have to look at them for it to work.

Does your husband hold down a responsible job? Bet he doesn’t fuck it up like he fucks up the laundry. It’s strategic incompetence to get out of it - he thinks it’s beneath him and that it’s ‘wife work’. By all means put a Sharpie mark on clothes. If he needs to be treated like a 4 year old to get the job done then so be it.

Depression stops you from seeing the point in doing anything, it's hard to get out of bed. Easy to dismiss as laziness if you've never had it or supported anyone with it. Hopefully it's short-lived following a break up. Chronic depression is awful.

My teenagers are required to do their own laundry. You have 2 teenagers. That should solve half your problem, no?