Laundry Management

Parentberries
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I’ve been trying to get back to Nameberry now that my littlest is bigger and realizing it’s a time issue. I’d like to make more room for Nameberry by cutting down on something I hate spending so much time on. So I figured I’d ask… how do you manage laundry in your household?

[name_f]My[/name_f] partner is really bad at doing laundry. He is great at a lot of other things and does a lot of domestic chores. I’ve tried to kind of coach him with the laundry setup over the years but it just never quites gets me where I want (with wool items not hopelessly shrunk, whites not pink, and things not coming out of the dryer completely charged with static). I never thought of myself as a stickler for laundry… MOST of our loads are no sort, just put it in and press a button… hang to dry. But I think having been socialized male his whole life, to say it has been a bit of an uphill climb is an understatement. I’ve essentially resigned to the fact that if I want it done WELL, I have to do it myself for the time being.

I FINALLY leaned into the idea of running laundry every single day now that we are a household of 5 and have been doing this for several months now. We cloth diaper so I understand that necessitates more laundry than most households with little kids would have, but I still constantly feel behind. I just finally wrote out all the loads that need doing in a week and was really shocked by the number: 18! 18-20 loads a week! No wonder I’m behind by doing 1-2 loads… I need to be doing 3 a day!

And we OFTEN wear things more than once, too… I don’t think it’s an issue of washing our clothes more often than necessary to be clean.

How do I work this down so my whole life isn’t whiled away with this domestic chore that gives me zero satisfaction?

3 loads bedding, easy to do in one day.
1 load wool, alpaca, silk, other delicates or things with stains I need to work on. Less necessary in summer, more like 1 load every 2 weeks then
1 load towels and washcloths
1 load hand towels and napkins (we don’t use paper towels, napkins)
1 load for the two woven cloth rugs at the entryways into the house
2-3 loads P’s diapers, cloth wipes and hankies (goal for her to be out of daytime diapers end of year)
2 loads A’s diapers (he is out of daytime but wears at night, goal for him to be out of nighttime by end of year, but this will likely add another load of bedding for the short-term so doesn’t exactly get me out of more laundry)
2 loads husband’s work clothing (he usually does this one himself)
4-6 loads regular daily wear clothing including outerwear as needed

I can see how to realistically cut down to 14 loads by the end of this year, but that is still 2 loads per day everyday. We can also hopefully eventually cut down to 1-2 napkins per week per household member but for little kids, the littlest just starting solids, I’m stuck wiping everyone down after meals and changing clothing frequently when it’s covered in food (but I’ll be honest that most days my kids eat breakfast naked between PJs and day clothes, and dinner naked between clothing and bathtime, lol…) What can I do to hack this that isn’t just putting the hidden cost on the environment with more waste?

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Haven’t implemented this yet, but hubby and I are considering a sorting system for CLEAN laundry because we both suck at the folding and putting away part. We are thinking of shelves that hold laundry baskets and then doing a quick sort from the dryer – his, mine, baby,towels.

We only do our bedding maybe once a week, sometimes every two weeks. Same for the crib unless we have a leaky diaper of course. Maybe you could add a basket for things your hubby can’t wash?

Curious to see what solutions others have! We just have one tiny person (9 months old now!) and it’s crazy how much laundry that adds!

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I don’t have tips for cutting down loads as my household is only 3 peeps (1 being a four month old) so there is just less to wash but one time saver I have found in this house is throwing the load into the washer at night, turning on the time delay function so it washes in the middle of the night and then hanging dry in the morning. That doesn’t solve all laundry woes but at least I can deal with it while my kiddo sleeps.

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This is exactly what we do, we hardly ever get the time to really fold and put away immediately so we have a ‘clean’ basket for everyone and after the clothes come out they are immediately sorted into everyone’s clean basket. So I at least I can find them even if I can’t get them put away immediately.

We’ve also separated the laundry chores so that it’s my husbands responsibility to do his own laundry (he needs certain clothes for work) as well as ‘extras’ like bedding/towels/dish rags/miscellaneous because they are hard to mess up, and easy to fold and put away. As well as making sure if there’s is a load in the laundry he sorts it into the correct baskets.

I think laundry is a struggle for every family that has little people!

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Your problem reminds me of when my girls were babies. it was difficult with with 3 little ones aged 4 , 2 and newborn. I was lucky I was a stay at home mother. I also used cloth nappies. disposables were not around then. I dont know if I can help much, as I don’t know your situation., However I will try.
First up, please don’t feed your kids naked., as the day will come when there will be a major accident, and that will involve a major cleanup which can be prevented.

First up do youuse bibs. These are small protective items which can be tied by strings around the neck or they can be pulled over a baby’s head. This can protect the clothing. Also dress the little ones for the day after breakfast. Their night clothes will have to be washed anyway, so change after a meal, same for each meal, but uses bibs if you can.

[name_f]Do[/name_f] you use a protective cover over the nappy (diaper) so that outer clothing/bedding does not get wet or soiled.I used to use plastic pants/ or similar to protect clothing.

Could you use a coir/rubber or wooden rug at the entrance to the house. This substitution could save a load.
Put delicates and and stained washing in napisan, disan or whatever your local substitute is in a bucket. These can then be rinsed after a few hours, then hung up to dry.

It won’t hurt your children to wear clothing a little bit longer after playing while a meal is prepared, [name_m]Just[/name_m] wash faces and hands, then bath the children after the evening meal and before bed.
Put on a load of washing at night, and one load is done by morning. I like the idea of separate baskets for clean laundry. So if you cannot fold away, use from the appropriate clean basket.

If children are old enough, try more toilet training. A pain I know, but it cuts out nappies. [name_m]Can[/name_m] the towels be hung up to dry and washed a day or two later. This can sometimes make a difference. Goood luck finding more solutions.

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Some families I know with multiple kids have started washing clothes based on one persons laundry per load so no sorting through is required afterwards. Each family member has a laundry bin/basket with their name on which their used clothes gets chucked in, along with their towel once or twice a week. Once the kiddo is 4 or 5 yrs old they get given their basket of clean clothes and towel to hang back up/put away as part of their chores. Not sure what age your kids are and if this would be practical. Could also add bedding if they only have single beds to one of their loads a week I reckon and keep that separated per person as well. Maybe let each kiddo have a spare set of sheets in their room rather than storing all the sheets in one linen closet somewhere :woman_shrugging:t2:
In terms of delicates- most of them belong to mum :joy: I seem to be the only one with 100% wool jumpers, bras, lacy clothes etc so that means I just always do my loads on delicate. Darks one week, lights the next.

With a newborn I kept a bowl of water with napisan or white vinegar and soda in it and dumped their clothes, bibs and burp rags/sick cloths in there and then did a mini load every 2-3 days. By soaking the clothes I could accumulate more without stains setting in before having to do a wash.

By my reckoning this would leave you with loads looking something like:
Baby- 2x a week
Child 1- 2x a week (once including towels, once bedding)
Child 2- 2x a week (once including towels, once bedding)
Partner- 2x a week that he sorts himself
You- 1x a week
Wash clothes & hand towels- 2x a week (which I’sd store chucked in two baskets in the laundry and not bother folding neatly to save time :joy:)
Diapers- 3x per week. Keep soaking in a bucket to add an extra day in between washes and do large loads.
Master bedroom linen- 1x week

That takes it down to thirteen. Still lots! But with the individual loads system hopefully cutting down on a lot of the sorting time you have to spend on it afterwards

An example schedule:
Monday- Baby & wash clothes/towels
Tuesday- child 1 & diapers
Wednesday- child 2 & master bedding
Thursday- baby & diapers
Friday- child 1 & wash cloths/towels
Saturday- child two & you
Sunday- diapers
Partner sorts himself

Does that feel any more manageable??

And I’d personally ditch the rugs for something I could whip a vacuum or mop over :crazy_face:

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I grew up in a cost-effective family of four with two working parents - it’s not easy to navigate!

If I remember rightly, before I was old enough to do it myself (once I was 8-9, my mum taught me how to do laundry and then I would do my own clothes a lot of the time!), we would try and keep it so we could do one load per person, one load of everyone’s jeans together (takes longer to dry) and one load each for play clothes for my sister and I, plus one of towels, washcloths, etc. Sometimes this meant rewearing things like jeans or pants a couple of days if we managed to stay clean, and occasionally keeping shirts clean! I don’t remember my mum owning anything that required a delicate wash though.

[name_f]My[/name_f] dad would often wash the play clothes, towels, washcloths, jeans and his own laundry! (Until of course, I started doing laundry and realized my dad always left change in his pocket - the rule was if it was under $5 we could keep it :sweat_smile: I must have made like $15 a month in change from doing laundry lol)

Is it possible to maybe combine a couple of loads? Maybe combine towels with napkins? Also I like the previous suggestion of replacing the rugs with something that doesn’t need constant washing, if possible! We’ve done that for our own home because at the moment, we do laundry at my parents’ house.

[name_f]My[/name_f] parents used to dedicate weekends for laundry, and often get a ton of it done at once! We’d hang dry as much as humanly possible (in the summer it was every load except for underwear) so we could get a lot of it done faster too. We had an indoor clothes line in our basement and an outdoor clothes line so we could hang 3-4 loads at once.

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Good to “see” you! I’ve wondered lately how you and your family are doing.
I have a similar family dynamic but different living circumstances. We live completely off the power grid and haul all our water, getting our electricity from solar panels and a generator (the generator barely has to run in summer, when we get loads of light, and it typically runs a couple hours morning and evening in the middle of winter, like now.) We now have a top-loading electric washing machine that I can use year-round (used to have an outdoor wringer washer), but no dryer. In summer I hang dry, in winter I make a trip to the laundromat.

Mostly because of those circumstances, I do two loads of laundry a week for the five of us. I’ve cloth diapered both my boys at certain points, during the summer when I could do all the laundry at home, but right now the 2-year-old and the baby are in disposables. (And the 4-year-old still wears pullups at night.) I’ve tried crunching the numbers and other variables, and what with hauling extra water, spending extra time and power, and spending more money and water at the laundromat, I’m not currently justifying cloth.
I wash bedding and bath towels every couple of weeks, alternating the kids’ and the master bedding so I’m not doing all the bedding at one time. Washcloths are only used once, so they’re in the wash every week. We wear clothes several times over unless they get seriously dirty the first time. I wash my two loads at home, stuff it all in the laundry basket, and dry it in town that day or the next. I sort, fold and put away the next morning. The 4-year-old is getting pretty good at folding washcloths!
Everything goes in together. Practically, we have no darks, lights or delicates in this house. [name_f]My[/name_f] mama taught me better, but that’s where I am in life right now, and it does cut down on laundry time!

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