Clothes everywhere! How do you organise everyone's washing?

[Jemster]

Here's the situation.

DS 6 has small washing bin in his room. Bought for him to use only. He doesn't put anything in it, just drops clothes in floor no matter how many times I've asked him. How do I get him to do it?!

DH's wardrobe is in DS's room so he ends up shoving his stuff in DS's washing bin, result overflowing mess.

DD 2 has a basket in her room which works fine but gets full up quickly.

Another basket in our room rammed with towels, sheets, my stuff.

There are piles of washing everywhere waiting to be done. DH and I just randomly shove them in in between being at work. Always tons of stuff drying and stacked up to be put away.

Please tell me how you organise yours as this is such a mess and can never find anything.
I know it's not rocket science but organising doesn't come naturally to me and I have a chronic condition which can mean I'm in pain and exhausted so find it hard to keep on top of things.

If the DC just throw the contents of their inside out clothes in the wash, I'll wash it but I'm not wasting time turning it the right way round

I always made everyone turn their clothes inside out before washing. Saves them from pilling, and fading when on washing line in sun.

2 adults and 2 kids here and both adults work full time.
I find doing certain loads on set days helps e.g. towels each Tuesday etc
Do one or two loads per day. Bedding done on a Sat or Sun - stripped off bed and straight to machine.
Kids have a laundry basket each and they are good at putting all clothes in every evening. Loose socks found about house chucked straight into machine to await next load.
Wash goes on overnight so ready in morning to be put on line or in tumble dryer.
Both my WM and TD have timers so I have stuff ready to take out either first thing or when home from work.
Each dry load folded, sorted and returned to owners same day. Small amounts of ironing done if required. Is relentless but would be much worse if I was not so OCD about keeping on top of it.

I thought it wasn't safe to leave tumble driers on overnight or when you leave the house because they are a fire hazard?

We only have one basket at the top of the stairs. Everything goes in there. I do a dark load every day and a light load every other day and a white load on Saturday. Usually do towels twice a week.

I put a load on in the morning before I go to work. Whoever gets in first sorts it, stuff in the tumble drier and what can't go in the drier on the airer or on the line.

If it's warmer weather I do two loads on an evening and hang out in the morning.

Washing seems never ending here. I take all the laundry upstairs and sort it on my bed. I then usually put everyone's except for h's away as the girls can help with things like underwear but too small for wardrobe and top drawers and the nous 'forget' to put it away and ironed and folded t-shirts end up back in the wash basket so I'd rather take 3-4
Minutes and put it away myself.

Cate - Aware of TD fire hazards but TD timer means it comes on before I come home but when DP is already home (works early shifts). Division of labour here involves him cooking the evening meal while I sort the laundry!

Thank you, mamijac, I can cross you and your TD off my list of things to worry about

One big basket (huge) in the bathroom and everyone's stuff goes in there.
Wash every day at least once a day sometimes twice and make yourself put it away straight away.
Putting away is the worst part....

Although if my house is going to catch fire, I'd rather not be in it at the time.......

I used to do a ton of washing at the weekend but could never muster the energy to put it all away. Now I do a small load on two weeknights (mainly DS's stuff) with two loads being done at weekend, being our workwear and whatever type of stuff is needed, like towels or DS's jeans.

It might not sound a lot but I have an 8kg load washer so whereas before I would have 5 x 8kg loads to put away at the weekend I now have 4 x 8kg loads spread over the week and I actually put it away!

We have never run out of clothes to wear doing it this way.

I put the DSs' stuff away, but not DH's. His just goes on the bed for him to put away. This has the added bonus of me being completely unable to answer the pathetic cry of "where are my clean socks?" because I don't know
In fact he never does ask that, because he's put them away. He doesn't, however, seem able to find the cupboard that contains clean towels and bedding

My DC leave their clothes on the landing for me to take downstairs of an evening or they will put t in the basket if it's not yet bedtime.

Washing is done daily, DC bedding is done on one day, my bedding is done on another and towels are done over the weekend.

Once it's dried (either on the line or on Lidl airers) it goes into the ironing pile or up to the correct room. DS1 and DH put their own clothes away and it works well. Well, DH can overlook the washing needing taken upstairs/sorted/put away. But he's getting better.

One large laundry basket.

Laundry done on a Monday and Friday. Basket gets put at the top of the stairs for dh to take downstairs.

3 washes per large basket. Dried either outside or on airer. Hung as in dds trousers, tops, nightwear rtc, so once dry, gets folded in order of item and which dc/adult it belongs to.

Too many baskets in your house op. Stick to one large one.

Discipline your ds if he refuses to place his clothes 'in' the wash basket. No x box, tv time etc.

Wash at least one load a day. In summer put a load on in the morning and hang out for the day.

Pack clothes away once dried. Do not be tempted to leave as it will only pile up.

We have one large laundry basket. It works for us!

We have one laundry basket with 3 sections darks, lights, colours in the bathroom.
Everyone gets undressed in the bathroom and puts their dirty clothes straight into the correct section of the laundry basket.
Clothes that can be worn again go in bedrooms folded on top of the owner's chest of drawers.
When a section of the laundry basket is full, it is scooped out and put in the washing machine (which is in a cupboard next door to the bathroom).

I am in charge of putting washes on. If something is not in the laundry basket, it doesn't get washed.

I change the sheets and towels once a week and they go straight from the beds into the washing machine - we have a big machine, so they can all fit in together.

Washing gets hung on the line outside, then when I fetch it in I have 2 baskets, iron or non-iron.

The DC take the non-iron basket and put everything away.

I take the iron basket and put it next to the ironing board. I do ironing on Sunday mornings.

When I finish ironing either everyone takes their pile of clothes and puts them away, or I just put them all away myself if nobody is around.

I posted about a month ago about laundry, as I was finding that it was taking too much time every week to keep on top of it.

I think I have come up with a system (I have yet to implement it, but the precision is in the planning, you understand ):

1. Dirty laundry is kept in one room only. Everyone puts their own things in there themselves.

1. Have more than one laundry bin, side by side, labelled. I think I need three - whites, darks, colours.

1. When one of the bins is full, put on the wash.

1. It will work best for me, I think, not to do washing every day, as I find that tedious and makes me feel that it is a constant cycle. I do most of the laundry at the weekend. School uniform on a Friday night, and then the other washes. I want it all washed, dried and away by the time I go to bed on Sunday night.

1. As I take the clothes out of the dryer/off the clothes horse, I put them into piles. One pile per person and then another ironing pile.

1. Towels are washed once a week, mid week. Same for bedding.

Do we actually need a separate wash for colours and darks - can't we bung them in together and put the whites in on their own?

that sounds a bit like something UKIP would say

We have one washing basket on the landing. DH knows if stuff goes in there it gets washed. So does DS1. DS2 I don't expect to use it yet.I collect bits on my way downstairs and put them in the downstairs washing basket (next to the machine) I would love it if DH would ever do this too, but he doesn't.

I wash twice a week, on my day off (midweek) and over the weekend although I may need to do two even three loads on those days. I only have two types of loads - whites/lights and darks/coloureds. We have a decent sized machine. I hang out/in or tumble depending on weather/amount to do.

I then gather it in, and separate it into little folder piles for each person. Everyone takes up their own piles (or if I want it cleared I do it for everyone) DH occasionally has a tidying frenzy and carries the piles upstairs, but then dumps them all in an untidy heap on our bed which drives me nuts as I then have to separate it again.

I put my own stuff away, and DS2s. I get DS1 to put his own stuff away. DH just dumps his on the bedroom floor so it never makes the drawers. I ignore it and the cycle starts again!

I separate my wash mostly according to temperature, but also colour. Although the only "white" wash I actually do is sheets! Towels and underwear go into one wash, light clothes another, dark blues/blacks another and if there are enough, reds/browns another. Otherwise they go in with the blues/blacks, but only after I'm sure that none of those will "leak" colour. I also do a wool wash.

I love my washing machine because it has variable temps on each wash, and will go up to 90 degrees in 10 degree increments on the cotton stain programme (nappies get done hot).

I see people on here saying that they don't bother to separate their clothes into different colour washes - and that's fine for them - but I've lost good clothes to colour leakage before and I have no intention of risking it again. I also don't like to wash much at 30 deg - I tried it once with a couple of DS1's toys, they came out the same colour they went in, so I washed them at 40 deg instead and they came out clean as a whistle.

One large laundry basket for everyone in our bedroom. Colours in one side, whites in the other. Was when either about 3/4 full. Towels washed every 4-5 days with white wash, bedding every 3-4 weeks- beds stripped, straight in machine.

There are only 3 of us (me DH DS who is nearly 6 NOT 5!) We have one wash basket and everyone's clothes go in there (or on the floordrobe if they will last another wear) at bedtime. I wash when there is enough for a full load of whatever variety. Beds and towels get done weekly so don't hang around waiting to be washed. DH puts his own away I do mine and DS (he's too wee to reach)

2 large baskets here. one light one dark.
the dc are supposed to sort their dirty things in there.
fo their clean-enough-to-wear-again the dc have a small basket by their bed.

We have a washday. Fri night after work I put the first wash in, then another Fri night, overnight and into Sat if needed. All dry by end of Sun ready for Sun night ironing.

Never, ever crack and start washing early. Somehow this quadruples the amount of washing there is to do and you never reach the end. I have no idea how this happens but it is A Fact.

Getting DS to put stuff in his basket, I'd say no bedtime tv until your floor is clear or something. DD clears her floor while waiting for bedtime stories. We say do 5 things, them another 5 etc. It's never pristine but the worst is kept at bay.

softly am in hysterics about the sneezing, spewing wardrobes!! The best description ever!!

I have 4dc -- all v sporty - so loads of swim squad/football/rugby kits etc all week for school fixtures and all weekend for their clubs.

I have had so many systems over the years -- they are all fab in theory but never suceed due to my poor record of implementation and sticking to any sort of system with any level of discipline...

When they were all v little I kept all 4 kids clothes together in one single v large wardrobe next to the utility room - which worked well as it saved the bother, time and drudge of sorting and wandering around the house posting into separate wardrobes. It worked well as I was in control about who wore what each day....I just got all their clothes in one go and dressed them in the kitchen each morning -- and then sent then scurring back to their bedrooms to return PJs.

Now they are all teenagers -- I have tried the system where I collect washing from each of their wash bins - pull out any whites and stick on a full load for each child - so this means no sorting for me after drying.

I have tried the named boxes in the utility room thing but they dont collect them so I do the deliveries - they also dont put away (everyone hates that) so I am thinking that I just do that now.

Summer holidays they all do their own washing start to finish - as no big drama if they forget and run out of knickers.

Thinking of doing this for term time -- but terrified of loosing control!!!

My fantasy house design would have every bedroom connected directly to a large central room which had:

1. showers, sinks, toilets in cubicals (like a private gym)
2. then 3 huge laundry baskets (for towels&sheets/darks/whites) sat on top of 3 separate washing machines - which ran concurrently
3. and then wall to wall dressing room type open wardobes for each person where all the clean stuff went.

So the whole nightmare process and chaos is contained and concealed in one space rather than polluting the rest of the house.......

Everyone has a spare bed set, so this gets changed on the day I wash the dirty one (aim for every week or two at most). Once cleaned and dried it returns to the cupboard in the users bedroom.

Towels get washed weekly and returned on the same day, but there is a spare towel for everyone in the house (also kept in everyone's own room, like the bedding).

Each bedroom has its own linen bin. I'm lucky my 4 year old is a tidy creature and peels his clothes off standing by the linen bin, then puts it in. The other DC is only a year old so obviously that is done for him, in his bedroom.

In my bedroom I have a linen bin with 2 compartments, 1 for whites and 1 for colours. There's a separate tiny linen bin for just work uniforms beside it.

I need to wash every day if I want to do just one wash each day. Otherwise it banks up too much on a towel or bed linen changing day, and I suddenly have to do 3 washes in a day iyswim.

Once (downstairs) a wash is done and dried, it goes into the plastic rectangle linen basket and at that point I try to pick it off the line in order of who it belongs to. That way there are 4 layers all stacked together. If in in a rush then I have to do it later.

The linen basket sits on the bottom of the stairs until the next time I am heading upstairs for any reason, then it gets left at the top of the stairs.

When I'm waiting for the bath to run for the DC I usually sort piles into each individuals clothes and put away clothes. It saves staring at water as it fills the bath and I don't seem to notice I've spent the time doing it quite so much.

I separate washes into whites, colours (both dark and light, although if it's very, very light I will allow it into the white wash), towels, uniforms and bedding. Any delicate items get out into a net protector bag and seem to manage on a mid level 40 degree wash.

The only thing I might consider doing from reading this, is trying to wash each persons clothes individually, possibly weekly, so avoid sorting clothes. Or maybe keep 4 named linen boxes downstairs so I can more easily sort it as I go once it's dried.