…to not understand where all the washing in my house comes from??

[Newbie887]

I can’t understand how I am constantly doing washing. I’ve just been doing it without thinking but this week it’s occurred to me, how is there so much?? I’m putting on at least one wash a day, full to the brim, over the weekend it’s more like 3-4 washes each day, to try and get through the backlog. It’s constant. It’s sooo fucking dull.

we are a family of 5. Is this a normal amount to be doing? I reuse clothes where I can, ie ynderwear and socks goes straight in after a days wear but I often reuse my own outfits for two (maybe even three) days. Kids often get a second wear out of school jumper / trousers / t shirt, pjs generally last about a week. We aren’t perfectly turned out every day in a fresh outfit by any means. Beds get changed far less often than is hygenic.

I can’t understand where it’s all coming from and I’m fed up with it. I’ve worked for people who change their beds twice a week and dirty two sets of clothes per day. I seem to have the same amount of washing as them. Ffs.

I do a wash a day for 3 adults so that sounds perfectly normal. It's never ending especially with small kids.

I find that laundry grows proportionate to how much clothes you have. When I lived alone, I could get away with one load per week. I have exactly the number of sets of pants and socks to get me through 8 days and I wear the same outfit from two, sometimes three days + pjs and a separate load of bedding and towels.
My now ex partner has enough clothes to wear two outfits per day. The wardrobes are full to the brim with his crap and he keeps buying more. Once I empty the basket, it is full again by lunchtime the next day because he may have unpacked an old suitcase and got three bath towels out of the cupboard at the same time and now I don't know which one is clean(er) and there will always be a couple of pairs of socks at the bottom of the wardrobe which hasn't made it to the laundry pile a month ago... I absolutely hate it!

I agree that it sounds like there are too many clothes in your home. Can you do a declutter as you wash? Throw away anything that is old, tatty, stained or too small. Pare back the kids wardrobes so they only have the things they like and wear regularly. Then you will be able to notice whether one child is constantly changing outfits and dumping clean clothes into the washbag instead of hanging them back up to rewear, or whatever is happening now.

You do less than me and I've a family of 5

@LoafofSellotape way more work once kids are bigger! Small kids -small clothes .
We are a family of 5 too and totally relate to what you are saying @Newbie887 . It’s actually a big part of my housework , I actually have to set aside a few hours at the weekend to do it as it builds up during the week and I’m working. It’s v tiring ..

I think you should dig through it next time you put a load on and see if it's disproportionately one person's laundry - is someone chucking stuff in after 5 minutes / not putting clean stuff away so it gets muddled up and all chucked in to wash / something like that.

I do about 5 loads a week for a family of 3. (dark, light, colours, dirty work gear, linen)

It’s def all very dirty clothes / bed linen / towels etc. I guess it just is what it is…I never considered how many hours a week would be spent doing this specific task before having a large family though. Maybe I was niave 😂

I bet there are a lot of clean clothes going straight onto the floor and then straight back through the wash, if your kids are anything like mine!

To lower it even further , we try to rewear jumpers and trousers if they aren't grubby at least a couple of times before they are washed . It is amazing how much it cuts down on washing because they are the bulky things which take up lots of space. It also means that the clothes wear out slightly slower because the machine isn't smashing them about as often.
With this I can get away with about 7 loads a week. With a family of 5

We are a family of 6, and we do at least 2 loads a day. The younger children get messy or wet (can go through 3-4 outfits a day easily) and also I've always washed towels after each use which my husband discovered from a random conversation at work that lots of people don't do that. Probably am washing too often but people just dump things in the laundry pile I guess!

The three of us do about five loads a week not including any special technical sports stuff or wool.
I guess that’s equivalent to 8 or 9 for you which sounds like what you do.
have you got big beds and bath towels. I remember my mum refusing to let us have really big bath towels as they wouldn’t all fit in one load. And there’s a big difference between single and double beds and king size which didn’t used to be so common but are now.

I have the same issue, house of 4 males and me.
I sniff test (not anything teenage or underwear!) and if it is not stinky it gets folded nicely and put in the pile of clean stuff.
Been doing this for years and nobody has noticed
My DH likes to put stuff in the wash even if only work for a short time. I refuse to wash so much stuff!

How big is your washing machine? Based on what you describe that sounds like way more loads than is necessary, so I wonder if your machine is quite small?

I went through a phase of rationalising my washing to understand how much I did e.g. In an average week per person I think it should be 7 lots of pants and socks, 4 tops, 2 trousers/skirts, 1 pyjamas, 1 sports kit etc

And then there is bedding and towels.

Work out how many machine loads you expect that to be.

I don’t know if it’s normal but it’s exactly the same in my family of 5, so I feel your pain.

Family of 5 here as well. I'd say equivalent of one load day plus towels and bedding.

Wouldn't manage without the tumble dryer.

When you write about your own outfits. I wear the same jumper, hoodie and sometimes jeans for a week and just change my undies and have a clean top every couple of days. So for my 5 items you are doing double. I shower every day and don’t work down a coal mine so it’s fine.

We do have more than one sports kit per week per child though as they do multiple sports, plus another active hobby which requires uniform to be washed weekly. Plus mine and DH’s exercise clothes. I work out of the home so wouldn’t be able to wear the same outfit for 5 days as per a PP, I need a fresh blouse/top every day for work. DH goes into an office 2-3 times a week so another 3 work shirts. So I guess it all adds up.

This is a bit old school, but hear me out. Go to the launderette once or twice a month when it’s not busy.
My washing machine broke down once and I had to use a launderette until I could get a new one.
The machines are so big and it wasn’t very busy so I could use multiple machines simultaneously, and I plowed through everything the household owns. Everything- even the things that permanently stay in the bottom of the basket because you have nothing to wash them with. All within a couple of hours.
Even with my machine at home I will now use the launderette once or twice a month for all the household big items (bedsheets, towels, hoodies that take up loads of space), then my machine at home is basically for everyday items, delicates, things that can’t be tumbled etc. I also do this if the household has been out of action with bugs or after holidays to get back on top of it quickly.

I do about the same amount for three of us, but DH is a mechanic, so his work uniform gets filthy and ideally needs to wear clean ones every day. DS 6 is also incredibly mucky, so his school clothes are filthy, and he needs clean ones every day. I'm the only one who rewears. Hoodie and trousers for about four days and t-shirt for two days.

Then there's bedding, towels, blankets, etc. And we have cats, so bedding and blankets get hairy quickly.

Then there's PJs, dressing gowns and oodies. Our oodies and dressing gowns are very thick, so take up a lot of room in the machine.

I hate washing!

I have posted elsewhere but we noticed a couple of months ago that a lot of the washing was actually clean. We have cut this down and now re-wear ( nothing that is actually dirty or smelly) and we have more than halved the volume of washing - Its actually a relief. `good luck

Are you washing bath towels after every use? That would make loads of washing compared to hanging them on a towel rail.
Depending on how often you shower IMO they don't need washing more than weekly.
(I have a heated towel rail so they don't sit around wet, I imagine if they take ages to dry they will smell funky)

Are you filling the machine to capacity? Do you need to washing daily so they can to re wear the clothes or is it just because there are some in the basket?

Do you do any sport? That adds a lot to it. I do two loads a day and am still behind but all 5 of us have dirty sports kit twice a week as well.

I agree it's a hideous state of affairs.

Also- I do a lot more washing in winter (just me) as I wear more and thicker clothes. So light trouser and a t-shirt is an outfit compared to leggings, jeans, long sleeves shirts and thick hoodie.
And the fatter I get the bigger my clothes are and the more space they take up.
So as your kids get bigger so will their clothes.
How are you drying it? Ad chucking clothes in the machine is pretty easy. Hanging it indoors to dry and dealing with the folding snd putting away is much worse.
Also- how old are your kids? Might be time to subcontract some of it. I did all my own washing from around 12. Makes

We are a family of 4

I find some days are horrific. So for example DD could get her lunch down her uniform, dinner on her Rainbows uniform and then a clean pair of Pjs as she had worn the current pair for 3 nights. You've got three outfits being put in on one day from one person. Then if you throw in DS who is 3 and decides to get creative with the paint in pre school so they put him in another change of clothes during the day. Suddenly that's half a load before even accounting for mine and DH's stuff. I find it worse at this time of year anyway as DH wears huge thick hoodies and jeans which always take up so much space whereas I dress with thin layers. Plus the kids like to drown themselves in mud at the park so coats and waterproofs constantly get thrown in also.

Bring on summer and the kids live in their swimmers and I just quickly hand wash them when they look gross 🤣

At the moment fucking shed loads. Kids are horsey everything needs to be washed after a day, in th summer it can be stretched out more. H wears a uniform for work, again needs to be changed every day this time of year, and the is more of it in summer it's just shorts and t shirt now it is tech leggings, tech top, fleece, massive bloody socks.

Then add in teens whose idea of clearing their rooms is to dump clean clothes in the washing basket...

Unless you're smelly, or your clothes are smelly / dirty, most clothes don't need washing even after a couple of wears, especially if they are not a base layer.