Laundry and outgrown clothes ?

[KatieDD]

I used to have a fab system with a box for winter and a box for summer with the age written on the front. BUT I now have a tiddler who isn't growing as fast and is in some 3-4, some 4-5 and some 4 clothes and it's all gone to pot.
Anybody have a fab system I could steal please ?
And how do you stay on top of the laundry ????

I can safely say that clothes are a complete nightmare for us. No advice here, apart from being as minimalist as possible.

We have 4 children and clothes are my biggest nightmare. It doesn't matter how many washes I do, there are still piles of clothes in every room and on the stairs. It drives me mad! I would love to hear the solution too!

I have five 'clean' laundry baskets lined up in my upstairs landing as sit here, with several items draped over the rail.

Chinese laundry?

See if I had clean baskets of clothe the bloody cats would it on them, life was less fun but less hairy pre cats.

I often call myself widow twanky

Be minimalist with clothes. Is your tiddler your last? If so, could get rid of some stuff?

I'm getting rid of everything she's outgrown because whilst she isn't going to be the last there will be a 5 year age gap at least and i'm realistic enough these days to know I like to buy clothes that suit them as individuals so quite a lot gets given away, it's never looked after well enough to ebay lol
I think you're right though i've stopped buying as much simply because they don't wear trousers at all and I think I wash at least once a day so 14 pairs of knickers each is more than enough

i only survive the wash pile because i have 2 washing machines. plus im the only girl! so EVERYTHING is black, blue, or white - excluding my stuff, but im a complete slob and dont get thru much.

forgot to mention theres 5boys and 1 hubby.

I too have the baskets on the landing thing. The baskets contain everything that doesn't need ironing and the children put those items away themselves.

Then downstairs i have a large basket for the ironing.

We too have two washers making life so much easier.

Biggest problem we have is what to do with used towels. I have always allowed everyone to have a fresh towel (or two) everyday, but since having a stern telling off from fellow mumsnetters, I have told the family that they have to used their towels twice before throwing them in the basket. So where do you put them to dry?

Unforunately I put them in the drier, I don't like the feel of towels when they've been on the line or hanging over the radiator. I try to at least part dry them somewhere else though to keep the bills down.

Have you got an airing cupboard ? We've put hooks in ours and it can easily take ^ towels hanging to dry ?

im always washing, feel like thats all i ever do! i have been trying to limit it to 2 loads per day..although today as its windy ive done that and 2 of the kids beds aswell.each of the kids have a laundry basket of their own in their room. try to iron as little as possible;things like t shirts,pj's etc don't get ironed unless they are really crumpled. also, i dont have an ironing basket,everything that needs doing gets done on the night its been washed,that way theres never a really big pile to do!

i go through the kids wardrobes when the seasons are about to change and go through their clothes to see what they need and what they have grown out of. ive got bags of stuff in the loft and in those plastic storage tubs under the bed,waiting for them to grow into! anything grown out of promptly gets passed on to cousins/friends. must admit it is a bit of a chore with 4 kids but needs to be done now and then..still their wardrobes are chaos!

Laundry - the older children have a laundry bag in their rooms. When they have enough to wash they give them to me.

The younger children put their stuff for washing in the main basket in the bathroom. I hunt around for other stuff.

When the washing is done and dried, it's put into piles and given to someone to put away.

Outgrown clothes - I now hand the younger children a black binbag and tell them to go through their wardrobes and put anything into it that they don't like, have grown out of, can't be used for a younger sibling. I check the binbag before taking it off to the charity shop.

I keep things like school uniform, swimming costumes, plain t-shirts. But not too many of them.

I think this is another problem bubblepop the seasons don't really change I've just had to get DD2 loads of jumpers and jackets out that I thought I wouldn't see for another 4 months grrrrr

Very true, Katiedd. I gave up with that long ago. I just have all their clothes in the wardrobe now.

have a charity shop bag on the go all the time and be ruthless. I find that since you need to wash every day less clothes for each person is possible
my solution to the laundry - i have an enormous wooden blanket box on the landing that all clean washing gets put in to then I have a giant sort out once a week Keeping it all out of sight means i dont get stressed about it and everyone knows where missing items will be.
1 dh and 5dcs here

I have a laundry basket that has 3 compartments so I put whites in one, pale colours such as pink (3 daughters!) in another and darks in the last one. I also put a small basket beside this for the wool/delicates. Makes putting the load on much easier.
I hang up as much as possible on clothes horses dotted around house but refuse to hang up socks and pants so these go in the tumble dryer with pjs and towels (hate crunchy towels!). I have to fess up that we have just started paying someone for 2 hours ironing a week to do dp's ironing as he works away for most of week and I refuse to do his on top of everyone elses! It's bliss!!

I've taken a few tips from flylady when it comes to laundry. In theory it goes like this...

We have two washing machines (one is big capacity too) which both run overnight (on economy 7) every night. In the morning I fold the previous day's laundry that should be dry on the airers and radiators in the kitchen and from the drier (also run overnight on economy 7) if I used it. Clean wet washing then gets hung out to dry. Clean dry washing then gets put away (that's the hardest part!). Hopefully that way there aren't huge piles of clean laundry waiting to get cat hairy!

We have one dirty laundry pile - in a plastic basket on the top landing at top of top stairs (3 storey townhouse) between all the bedrooms. That basket gets taken downstairs to the kitchen each morning and will be replaced with empty basket during the day (once the clean stuff from the previous day has been put away). Not having a basket on the landing means everyone hides piles of laundry in their own rooms - especially DH! most of the time the kids can chuck their dirty stuff in there without too much nagging. Used socks tradionally live on the floor in the lounge though. Don't know why!

Sounds great in theory doesn't it!

Clothes that are the wrong size are stored in the loft, in boxes (all bought when we moved house so same sizes and stack well!), sorted and labelled by age. We also have a couple of boxes that are for summer (all shorts and vest tops) or winter (big woolies, scarves, hats, gloves etc).

There's me DH and 4 children, two wet the bed (one occasionally, one more regularly), one is in cloth nappies. Three of them swin at least once a week too, so lots of towels

should have said...

one dirty laundry pile upstairs. There's also the small mountain in the utility area off the kitchen!

everyday i seem to do laundry. i put a load on at night, so that gets hung out in the morning or in the dryer/on the airer depending on weather, than another put in. there is only 5 of us though. i spend about 20mins in the evening folding, putting away in respective rooms and trying to keep on top of it, but there is always more to be done. its been hard the last week, as have been sorting through baby stuff as well.

i bought some vac packs from lkeland, and the stuff for dd2+3 for next winter are ready to go in the loft, and stuff for dd4 next summer/winter also done, plus my pre-maternity stuff as well. has cleared half our wardrobes at least doing all that.

but now i have to tackle the coat rack [sighs]

we just have one main basket in the bathroom. bedrooms arent large enough for individual baskets.

I have two large baskets on landing floor, one small one in daughters room and one in ours.
two boys with bedrooms outside throw dirty clothes in to the large baskets.
Son in bedroom downstairs simply chucks out a pile near the washing machine.

towels are a nightmare..........with two teen boys who are suddenly washing, and really useing soap properly.

As for the clean stuff, each of us has a small red plastic basket, and I fold the clean stuff in the baskets as I go along.

I have given up pairing socks, all the males in the house have the same black socks, so I have a big basket they stay in.
everyone simply dips in a hand and pulls out a couple of socks.
my daughter is the only one that wears white socks, so she can easily see her ones!

during term time, I can wash four loads a day.

its a nightmare really, if I am out the house for a day or so, the dirty washing creeps down the stairs......................al those dirty hormone charged socks coming to life!!!

Can I ask, is it cheaper to run washing machines/tumble dryers at night??!! Someone told me this and I can't work out how on earth it could be but thought I should ask incase I've missed something vital in life (is electricity cheaper at a certain time of day?!)

Clothes are the biggest nightmare of my life!

I have three under 5 and 1 messy husband.

I do about 2 loads per day and just keep on putting it through constantly like some feckin' robot.

i honestly don't know where it all comes from. I don't have one laundry basket- I have about or 5 white baskets and organise it into lights, darks and whites as I go.

Economy 7 used to be the way of using electricity at night for a cheaper price but I've been told it's very hard to get now and the energy companies are phasing it out ( to keep up their profits no doubt!). My mother in law still gets it but I don't know of many that do and you have to have a special key or card to register.

I just can never keep up with my clothes pile and can't offer any system, except that I have none-there is too much of it so I just keep putting it though, drying, folding and putting it away as soon as possible so that it doesn't build up into a mountain.

I simply do not understand why I lose socks, I do wash them in pairs and still they just disappear off to another land,never to be seen again. I never actually find them,ever, which is really really strange!

Once I had a whole pile of odd kiddies socks- about 10 of them. I despair of socks[ grin]

I doubt thiat my advice will be overly helpful because we live in a large Swiss house. My laundry room is in the basement and is bigger than my bedroom.

That said, some of the things I do could still be done with less space.

I wash two loads every week day. One in the early morning and one in the late evening because electricity is cheaper and because it fits into my schedule. Weekends are for catch-up and bedding.

Everyone has their own hanging line and their own clean laundry basket. (I also recently started 6 oddsock baskets.) This means that I never have to look for anyone's things.