How do you have a life and do laundry?

[ShiftyLookingBadger]

Apologies in advance if this has been done to death but...

Am I missing a trick here?? I have a DH, DD(3) AND DS(1). We have anywhere between 5 and 8 loads of laundry to do (this includes separated colours, towel loads, bedding loads etc) DH and I both work full time so when I do all this at the weekend I don't leave the house and neither do my kids!! Bearing in mind dishwasher loads, nappy changes, breastfeeding, trying to clean bathrooms (although I confess this can get dropped to once a fortnight... Don't judge me ). DH contributes in other ways - walking dogs, poo picking the back garden, sharing nappy duties, cooking the majority of weekend meals...

How do you all get your laundry done and still make sure your family has a life?

Just put it on first thing or last thing or both. Let it do its job whilst you are at work.

Bed linen every 3 weeks? Towels every 2? Is this them being changed and then washed it do you save them up to do every 3 weeks? How often do you change them?

I don't understand how you can generate so much laundry with just 4 people! Two are small kids as well. We are 3 including teen DD who is adult size and has sports kit and school uniform. We do 3 loads a week, maybe 4 if washing the bed sheets. We have a cleaner who does most of the hanging up, putting away and ironing though as I'd go mad having to do that on top of working, even just 3-4 loads.

These sort of threads are always candidates for the other threads about MN v RL.

As far as I can gather from conversations with real people they simply collect up washing, put it in the machine when needed, waiting until the weekend is crazy, and then get on with their lives.

To the poster who thinks clothes getting dirty is a myth - what does that mean? You can't genuinely think that dirt and stains on clothes don't exist. Ignoring that would save on washing but the dirt won't go away of its own accord.

Coincidentally I watched this the other night

m.youtube.com/watch?v=T0aBC13eTtY

Now im obsessed with American moms and their incredibly planned laundry routines.

I do love the idea of each kid having individual baskets and just dumping the baskets at their bedroom doors.

You need to wash every day so you don’t end up doing it at the weekend. I put the washing machine on before I leave in the morning, it goes in the tumble dryer when I get back - and dh and I fold into a basket before we sit down for the evening. We never have piles of laundry and it means we have more free time

Laundry is the only housework I actually enjoy. I usually deal with it first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I find it quite calming.

To the poster who thinks clothes getting dirty is a myth - what does that mean? You can't genuinely think that dirt and stains on clothes don't exist.

The OP didn't mention dirt and stains, just wearing a hoodie a couple of times does not make it dirty. Unless the person themselves are smelly of course. Jeans are workwear, and can be worn many times before needing a wash.

I wfh so easy to bung a load on. Just put loads on in dead time - one as soon as you’re up, one before you leave the house, one when you get in, one before bed for example.
Things dry fine in our house but if your house is damp or poorly ventilated then a dryer and or a heated airer or a pulley ?

I have one load that goes on hot a week (towels, dish cloths, baby wiping cloths, the cotton scrubby things we replaced the plastic sponges with.)
Two loads of bedsheets/linen
One woollens (cold climate, essential and we wear a lot of wool)
And then the rest - separated by lights and darks. One toddler at a nursery where they get filthy daily, so plenty of laundry.

There’s always a divide on here between people who nuke everything in a boil wash after even looking at it and those who consider more than one load of laundry a millennium some kind of environmental crime. A bit like the how often do you shower threads... ;)

I think most of us are probably in the middle somewhere...

Do the people who wash overnight live in detached houses?

I’m not detached but my washer is in the cellar, otherwise it would wake me up

Bed linen every 3 weeks? Towels every 2? Is this them being changed and then washed it do you save them up to do every 3 weeks? How often do you change them?

New towel each once a week plus one for my hair so need to wait a fortnight to have enough to do a wash and dry.

Bedding gets changed 3 weekly unless something is spilled/someone is sick. We all shower regularly and wear PJs so it doesn’t get dirty. We have a super king and loads of pillows so I do tend to switch to a clean one weekly.

DD is 7 and has been sick around 5 times in her life. DH and I are never sick (and it’s rare we get colds). I don’t think the correlation between less frequent washing of these things and our lack of tummy bugs is coincidental. We don’t need to be using so many cleaning products - it’s not good for us or the environment.

Do the people who wash overnight live in detached houses?

Yes.

Im not detached but the washing machine is in the kitchen extension.

Have a basket that holds light/dark/colours separately. Whichever one is full goes in the washing machine when you get home.

I would 100% do this except its hard enough to get DH to put things in the laundry basket as it is

Thanks all, I think I'm going to try and do a midweek wash somewhere, the only thing that's holding me back is mixing my darks and lights I didn't realise how OCD I was until now!

Is your washer actually full and are the clothes/bedding/towels actually dirty? Ds is terrible for trying to get out of putting clothes away by just chucking clothes in the laundry basket. Dd needs a clean sweatshirt most days but their other uniform usually is fine 2-3 days. A towel can get chucked in with other things.

Back when I had babies, the nappies and baby gear all got chucked in together so it was about 2 loads a week, including grobags and all.

Everything is 1 hour and 1400 spin, except some jumpers, and I did do nappies at 60 sometimes.

It does seem like a treadmill now but that's because we have 3 adults, 3 children, regular house guests for long enough to need laundry, and DP gets mucky from work.

Do less laundry
re-wear things, unless obviously stained/smelly
Quick wash is fine for most things
towels can be re-used.
Kids do not need clean pjs after one's night's wear
separate obvious darks and whites, the rest can go in together
etc..etc...

I would 100% do this except its hard enough to get DH to put things in the laundry basket as it is

Why is he not participating in this? So many women just run around picking up after those people with penises, correcting their errors.

We are me, DH and DC who is 5. I think we do quite a lot of washing but I don’t find it very time consuming or stressful. Usually put a load on in the evening as DC goes to bed, then take it out and put in dryer or hang up later that evening. Only ever really use quick cycles on washing machine. Rarely iron. Have v low standards

The only thing which can be a pain is the putting away which we do get behind on sometimes.

I would 100% do this except its hard enough to get DH to put things in the laundry basket as it is

If it’s not in the laundry basket it doesn’t get washed, surely?

I put a wash on when I get home and we have an airing cupboard which can dry a whole load.

I never, ever put appliances on overnight. FIL sees a tremendous amount of house fires in his line of work and very often caused by appliances which are on overnight which is when you are all most vulnerable. We don't even put them on in the day if we're going out (we have dogs).

www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/15/faulty-appliances-cause-60-uk-house-fires-a-week-which-says

I reassess our laundry needs every now and again to see if there is a more effective way of getting through it.
Now I do 1 white, 1 dark and 1 coloured wash as necessary (not quite once a week), towels and bedding every couple of weeks.
There are 4 of us (me, dh, 11yo ds1 and 3yo ds2), plus 1 dog.
Tumble dry most stuff or leave it hanging in the laundry room. Never ever have basket full of clean and dry stuff waiting to be put away for more than 1 day - it gets done immediately if possible.
Wash all clothes on the 40° fast wash (1 hour), except towels and bedding which go on a longer, hotter wash.
I used to have a system where the kids clothes were washed seperately, which worked well when they were babies but was just stupid now, hence reassessing.
I tried the MN thing of putting in everything together and not separating but found that the lighter items picked up a darker hue due to "fluff" rather than colours leaking, and I didn't like that.
I would almost say that I actively enjoy doing the laundry now!

I don't think only running appliances when at home is very practical SweetLike but maybe having everything checked regularly to make sure it's not faulty would help reduce fires.

I do one load a day Mon - Fri as soon as we come in. The DC uniforms always get covered in mud grime so are 1 wear only and they do sports activities every day after school so they get washed every use. I normally do extra loads at weekend with bedding and towels. Everything gets hung on the airers overnight and is normally dry the next day.

I do the ironing after dinner and the kids put their stuff away just before bed. Sports kits are put in the correct bag and hung the peg ready to go.

I don't think only running appliances when at home is very practical

Depends how long your appliance takes, surely?

If I put the washing machine or tumble drier on when we get home in the afternoon / evening on standard programs, they’re usually done by the time we finish dinner.
Our washing machine also has a 15 minute quick wash option I sometimes use if something needs washing in the morning before we go out for the day.

Put the dishwasher on as soon as the dishes from dinner are loaded in, that’s done by the time we go to bed.

So it’s perfectly practical for us to only run appliances when at home and awake.