How to wash smarter?

[slalomsuki]

I seem to be doing a full load of washing everyday during the week due to swimming kits, PE kits, dance kits, and school clothes and yet I then have 4-6 loads to do at the weekend.

There are 5 of us so 20 shirts/blouses per week, my tops but I tend to try to wear mine twice, football/rugby PE kits that need turned round for the next day, swimming kits that are needed 4 times a week, white games kits, dance kits twice per week and general household bedding, towels etc.

I do an alternate white wash one day and a dark wash the next if I can during the week if I can and mostly the machine is full or almost full. I never seem to have an empty washing basket

Any tips to get on top of this would be gratefully received.

My one tip for a happy relationship with laundry is not to worry about whether the basket is empty. When we're on top of ours (sadly not this week as the machine gave up the ghost and new one only just delivered) the basket is never empty, but we do a load a day and everyone always has some of everything they need clean. And the house never looks over run with washing.

What exactly are you washing when you wash swimming kits? Towels? If towels, buy some more so you can save on washing them all the time.

I have 5 DCs and did one wash a day just for their sports stuff and underwear when they were aged 10 and up, and I threw in my own usual uniform of jeans and t-shirt and undies every day on top of that. When they were younger and not doing as much sport/sweating I didn't do as much washing -- maybe every second day. Right now I do one load of clothes a day, with a big towel, sheets and white wash on the weekend.

Children under age 9 can wear the same shirt or top more than once as long as there isn't food spilled on it.

I have a dryer and that saves my life. I find there is really no way to avoid daily laundry and if I don't manage the whole cycle from gathering the dirty clothes to putting it all away folded it takes over.

I also try to reduce the number of times I handle each piece of laundry-things that need hanging get dried on hangers, things that are going in drawers but not in the drier i hang on airers kind of in order of where they get stored, everything else gets folded from the drier into a basket for that person's room. Otherwise I feel I sort everything three or four times. I rarely dry stuff outside.

I would second the idea of not worrying about the empty basket, but jist keep going.

I don't have a tumbler so everything is line-dried, or more often on airers in the house. What has definitely really helped was buying coloured plastic flexitubs. I fold and fill one for each person as I am sorting.