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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

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Original poster

Laundry wars - gloves off!

33 replies

BuzzLightbulb · 21/02/2014 09:51

Right, had enough of the battlefield bedroom. Haven't had a single school shirt in the wash this week and am not going looking for them.

If the two girls want to live like mingers they can. I'm emptying their laundry baskets today, ignoring the pile of wet towels on top and washing everything.

From now on they wash whatever they want cleaned. And they can learn how to remove several days of ground in foundation from their blouses themselves.

16 yr old has had it too easy too long, and 14 is easily time to start doing stuff for herself.

What odds do you give me??

OP posts:

LastingLight · 21/02/2014 09:54

Don't know about odds, but good luck!

DramaAlpaca · 21/02/2014 09:58

You are going to have to hang tough, but the best of luck to you!

MN will be here to support you through the inevitable tears & tantrums while you get them trained

Original poster

BuzzLightbulb · 21/02/2014 10:40

My timing might be lucky.

Both have hockey on Saturday, both will be looking for clean kit so it'll be a case of...

THIS, is a washing machine. You put dirty clothes in, you get clean clothes out. Knock yourselves out ladies!

OP posts:

monikar · 21/02/2014 11:03

Buzz Just a thought - I had to point out to my DD that you ideally fill the machine up fairly full. To begin with, she was washing one or two items at a time, just what she needed immediately .

WeeClype · 21/02/2014 11:16

Here's what I do.....I have 2 baskets outside of the DC's room, one for towels one for clothes. There is a rota above the baskets saying what wash goes on (whites/darks/towels etc) when, if the stuff isn't in the basket it doesn't get washed. I'm at home with a 3 month old and 2 year old so I don't go in the older DC's bedroom.

Original poster

BuzzLightbulb · 21/02/2014 11:30

Ah, they each have a laundry basket but thats just to put the wet towels on so they don't get the clothes on the floor wet!

One of them uses her bathroom as a laundry basket, just opens the door and throws stuff in cos it's apparently easier than opening her bedroom door and putting them in the laundry basket there.

If I insist they tidy, I just get loads of washing because it all goes I the laundry rather than put away. Fed up of week after week washing and ironing only for it never to be put away or even worn.

I had toyed with no dinner until rooms are tidy but then we'd all be eating at midnight.

Might go the whole hog and try for tidy rooms all weekend. Ten minutes a day should do it.

Can I stand the 'its my room, stay out of it' whining???

Maybe if I get my two friends Chardonnay and Shiraz round this evening.....

OP posts:

LynetteScavo · 21/02/2014 11:32

There will be tantrums and tears. Wishing you luck and streangth!

really1234 · 21/02/2014 11:40

It will work because they are at the age where they will be more embarrassed than you by not having the right clothes to wear.

I did it recently, only as a one off to be fair, with 13yo DS who had piles of stuff on his floor and none in the basket. I said that I wouldn't do any of it and that he was responsible. He ended up doing three loads of washing and managed to get it all through the machine, the dryer and put away in the day. I was wildly impressed!

He is better at putting it in the basket now though!!

I did try this tactic once a couple of years ago but it didn't work as it was still the stage where it would have been me who was more embarrassed to send him out mucky.

ToffeeOwnsTheSausage · 21/02/2014 11:46

I am sick of washing clean clothes. Clean as in only worn once and clean as in not worn at all but easier to throw in the laundry basket than put in different drawers. Last night I took out DS1's worn once jeans and jumper and put it back in his room

I wash the clean clothes because I think they will smell if sat with dirty stuff all night. I know I could smell them but in the absence of a working nose would they really be too smelly to wear again?

Squirrelsmum · 21/02/2014 11:53

I don't like the kids touching my washing machine, it's my precious lol. No seriously they get powder everywhere and over load the machine and I figure they can spend five minutes reading the instruction manual of their own when they move out. They hang it up and pull it in.
Here if it doesn't make it to the laundry basket it doesn't get washed, DSS16 figured that out at 7:30 one morning late for the bus looking for a clean shirt and socks, I don't go in their room but do occasionally tell them to clean the shit tip up. Good luck.

Original poster

BuzzLightbulb · 21/02/2014 11:59

Toffee, I have three different scenarios to cope with.

Oldest - found a used tampon wrapped in her knickers in the laundry. Eventually mentioned it to embarrass her into action, she just laughed. Will put clean clothes and worn once in the laundry rather than in the drawer next to the laundry basket but will wear her favourite school shirt all week!

Middle - will wear dirty clothes til they stand up by themselves. Chews sleeves ad hoodie cords til they stink. Last night went out to hockey training smelling of freshly sprayed perfume to overpower stale training kit!

Youngest and a boy. Can get through several changes of clothes in a day. Will start off in one set, a friend coming round so gets changed, they go into town so changes again. Each time the old lot goes in the wash. And usually I take it straight back out!!

OP posts:

Nocomet · 21/02/2014 12:01

DDs doing their own washing would make no sense at all. No one in the house has enough light clothes to make a sensible load on their own.

Everyone DH included putting pairs of socks to wash rather than scattering them over the entire house would be a start. Putting only dirty stuff to wash not using laundry basket as an instant way to tidy would also be great.

Chopstheduck · 21/02/2014 12:06

'DDs doing their own washing would make no sense at all. No one in the house has enough light clothes to make a sensible load on their own.'

I agree - my dd didn't put her uniform in the wash last week, so she had to do a load for the whole on Tuesday. AND I got her up at 8am to do it

'I had toyed with no dinner until rooms are tidy but then we'd all be eating at midnight.'

Personally we start eating and their dinner can go cold on the table. It soon makes them shift!

Chopstheduck · 21/02/2014 12:06

*whole family

ToffeeOwnsTheSausage · 21/02/2014 12:09

DD never seems to have any washing and DS1 always has the most clothes to put away.

Clean everything in the morning.
Clean boxers and PJs at bed time, every night.

I have told him over and over if he is wearing underpants under his pyjamas he can wear his PJs at least twice. If he wants new PJs each night then no need for pants underneath. And wear your jeans and jumpers more than once!!

FiveOwls · 21/02/2014 12:35

Best of luck salutes - I'm about to start a similar battle with my dds (12 and 15). I work at home so it makes more sense for me to do the actual washing/drying, but a while back I introduced the rule that if it ain't in the basket it ain't getting washed. I then (stupidly) took to asking/reminding/nagging them to gather up their dirty clothes for the wash, especially if I saw uniform lying around when I was about to put the wash on. Now, after a few too many eye-rolls and heavy sighs from dd2 , I've now added the new rule - NO REMINDERS. School went back yesterday, so this coming weekend is the first uniform "wash" under the new regime. I predict that the 15 yr old's uniform will be nice and clean on Monday morning, and the 12 yr old's will still be festering in a ball under her desk.

FiveOwls · 21/02/2014 12:36

Sorry that should have been

FiveOwls · 21/02/2014 12:38

The other important element is that I've told them how long it takes to get things dried - not ONE SINGLE SODDING ITEM of their school uniform or sports kit, apart from the shirts, can be tumble dried. So if anyone should stuff their entire uniform in the wash last thing on Sunday night, that person is all out of luck.

ToffeeOwnsTheSausage · 21/02/2014 14:50

My system is when they get up in the morning if they are putting on their last shirt/blouse/pair of trousers they need to tell me as I still have time to get more washed, dried and ironed but not at 7am. Mostly they don't tell me but as I have 3 in uniform and they don't have five of everything it works by default that they always have some. The 8 year old needs reminding more though as he only has 2 jumpers and 2 pairs of trousers.

mrssmooth · 21/02/2014 15:02

I'm so glad it's not just me who takes worn once/clean clothes out of the laundry basket and puts them back in dd2s room! When asked to tidy her room (in other words, put all your clothes away - your room isn't supposed to be a floordrobe as you like to call it!) she scoops everything up and dumps it in the laundry basket. Despite some of the stuff having been freshly washed and ironed the night before and she just cannot be bothered putting the clothes in her drawers so chucks them on the floor instead! [And breathe ...]

chocoluvva · 21/02/2014 20:07

Yup.

To almost everything on this thread.

FiveOwls · 22/02/2014 09:50

Day 2: Dd1's clothes are in the laundry basket. Dd2's are on her bedroom floor BUT she apparently told her Dad last night that she "wasn't lifting them up just yet because it's Friday but would put them in the basket tomorrow."

But because of stupid non-tumble uniform which is also thick and hard to dry, it takes 2 days in winter to get clean, dry uniform. I'd have already had the load washed and hung out by now, but I haven't done it because dd2 technically HAS remembered and MAY remember when she gets out of her pit. So despite all efforts, I'm still responsible for working it all out, and it's now going to be harder to get it washed and dried than it would have been if I'd just picked it up last night. Gaagh!

RandomMess · 22/02/2014 09:56

I think you can make it work but you have to be absolutely bloody minded and accept that they are going to go out looking horrid and smelly until they cave.

Buy some colour catchers so they can do mixed colour loads.

Write very detailed instructions on how to do laundry "properly" - I have this done for dh & dc. It is then up to them if they follow it or not.

survivingthechildren · 22/02/2014 13:46

Good work OP. Last year my oldest DS (now 16) started doing his own laundry after wising off to me in a dreadful way. I decided I had had it up to my eyeballs with his ungrateful, selfish behaviour, and stopped doing his laundry for him. Thought it would make him appreciate his mother a bit more.

Well, I never took that chore back up! There are 7 people in our house, and it was high time he started pulling his weight.

It took him a bit to get in the swing of things, and he did have to go to rugby training in a damp kit in the middle of winter, after he ran out of time to dry it all . Following that, his memory seemed to improve!

Teenage girls, I would have thought would be far more conscious of smell issues and therefore will be quicker on the uptake! They're at an age where their peers notice, and their comments tend to be far more effective than ours!

ThreeBeeOneGee · 22/02/2014 15:20

I have printed out a guide to how often things need to be washed (e.g. which things need washing every day, which things only need washing after several wears) and stuck it inside the baskets they use to carry their clean laundry upstairs in.

It doesn't mean they read it, but the fact that it's there means that they no longer claim ignorance as an excuse if I catch them putting an entire outfit in the dirty laundry basket after wearing it for one afternoon.

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