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Laundry. Never ending laundry. I deeply relate to this:
I recently starting listening to the Coffee + Crumbs podcast and they do a “How we do _____” and they did one on laundry. It got me thinking about how I do laundry, and I almost wanted to be able to respond to them while they spoke. Am I the only one that does that while listening to podcasts?
Anyway, I decided to share some of my personal “hacks” and tips for laundry. This isn’t a “perfect” method by any means, and it won’t work for everyone, but it’s what works best for me in this stage.
Going Minimal
One thing I do to help with laundry, and maintain my sanity, is limit the clothing that we have. I keep MAYBE a weeks worth of clothes for my kids. Even as babies. I would rather do laundry more often and have less clothes, than possibly put off laundry and end up with a mountain of dirty clothing.
This means that I do the boys’ laundry twice a week. Usually Monday and Thursday. Some times schedule or my mood pushes that a day out, but that’s the general rule. I only have one load on those days. I dump EVERYTHING together for the boys. *GASP* Who is currently freaking out on me now? Sorry. I do not sort my kids laundry. I hardly sort MY laundry. Mama ain’t got time for that. Plus my kids’ clothes are mainly all the same colors anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
There are times that we end up with more clothes…things that have been gifted to us or accidentally made it into our rotation that belong to grandparents. Even when this happens I have a tendency to always recharge for the same few outfits, so it just makes sense for me to have less to begin with. Every few months I go through it to pair down as well.
I also have only about a weeks worth of clothing that I wear regularly. There are also a few dresses or more formal outfits, but I have mainly a weeks worth of day to day clothing. My husband and I do our laundry on Saturdays. And if we are on our game, it even gets put away on Saturday.
Now my husband does NOT only have a weeks worth of clothing. He has about a weeks worth of regular pants, but he has more top options as such. That’s fine. That’s his choice. We still do laundry once a week for us both.
I do not separate our clothes from each other, like hers and his. We DO separate into three loads. Jeans, Colors, and Softener Free. Basically ALL of my clothes are in softener free. I don’t like softener. I don’t feel like it’s good for my skin not to be able to breathe, but my husband loves him some soft, scented clothing. To each their own. On weeks that my husband hasn’t worn a lot of jeans, I actually throw them in with the colors and make it only two loads. As the colder months come around, that’s usually less common since we are both wearing long pants for warmth.
Be Proactive
Something I have been doing for several months now that I love is hanging up my clothes IMMEDIATELY. As they come out fo the dryer I fold the few things that we fold and hang up all the hang up clothes. I thankfully have a clothes hanger bar thing (what are those called?!) in my laundry room and I can been taking full advantage. We use to lay everything out on our bed and then prep it all for the closet when we put it away, but now I can carry it upstairs already on a hanger and place it right in the closet. Boom. Done.
Because of this new plan, I usually try to bring down a chunk of hangers here or there throughout the week so that I don’t have to carry it down WITH the laundry on Saturdays and they are in the laundry room ready to use on laundry day.
Say No to Folding
I hear a lot about people complaining about not wanting to fold their laundry. I understand that for sure. That’s why I don’t do it. Again, I probably just shocked some people again. I DO often end up with clean laundry around the house in laundry bins, but they aren’t waiting to be folded, they are just waiting to be sorted and dumped into a bin somewhere.
There are a few things that my husband likes folded, like shorts and PJ pants, but I don’t fold ANY of my clothes, and I definitely don’t fold my boys clothes.
All of my clothes either go on hangers, or into a drawer. I have a three drawer dresser thing that has socks, underwear, bras, and tank tops in. I just sort, dump, and go. Easy button.
For the boys I have NEVER folded or used hangers for anything. I know, am I even normal? Clothing was always something that I just didn’t want to waste my time on. I had better things to do. I also didn’t want to buy kids hangers. When my first was super little, his clothes were in his room, in hi dresser. I just did PJs/sock in top drawer, tops in middle drawer, and bottoms in bottom drawer. Then I got frustrated because I usually put laundry away when he was sleeping, but I couldn’t get to his dresser, and I never dressed him IN his room.
When we moved I started just dumping all of his clothes into a laundry basket and that basket fit into a shelf in MY closet. When my second came along he got his own laundry basket. Super fancy, right? They each had a basket, and with a small supply of clothes it was always easy to sort through.
Now we are in a new house, again, and a new organization has emerged. We ended up with this built in bookcase RIGHT outside of the boys’ room, and I have started using it for their clothes. Each boy gets three 12x12x12 fabric bins. One each for PJs/socks/underwear, tops, and bottoms. I DO rotate long sleeve/pants and short sleeve/shorts for seasons as well to keep the bins from overflowing.
This just works for us. After I do their laundry I sort by who it belongs to, and then sort those piles into the three bins. Boom. Done.
I may or may not have a laundry basket upstairs right now waiting to be sorted. It happens.
Honestly, I don’t really mind laundry being out. As long as it’s clean, I’m pretty happy. But I know a lot of other people care, my husband included, so I TRY to stay on top of our own laundry. I’m a little more lax on the boy’s laundry, because they don’t care.
Keep Things Within Reach
Something else that I do for convince is keep the boy’s laundry hamper in the laundry room. Our laundry room is on the main level, no the bedroom level. But dirty clothes often getting taken off on that main level, so it’s nice to have the laundry hamper (a plastic trash can with a pail liner in it), right within reach. I am working on getting the boys to consistently put their dirty clothes away themselves. It’s a work in progress.
This also means that when I need to do their laundry, it’s already right there by the washer and dryer. Dump and go!
When we change or get dressed upstairs, we do the fun family activity of tossing the dirty clothes over the bannister. I know, fun, right? Right outside their bedroom is a bannister that looks over the entry to the house. I dump the clothes over the bannister and them grab them all up when I go downstairs and play them in the laundry room. The boys actually LOVE dumping the clothes over the bannister, so they help too. It’s the little things in life.
Let’s Talk Socks
I hate socks. I’m not sure why, but I do. I guess it stems from my barefoot nature. I love to be a barefoot, and I don’t like to worry about slippery socks. With babies I hate socks because they never seem to stay on. I couldn’t get socks to stay on the boys hardly ever. They either fell off or looked like they were cutting off circulation. Is that just me?
Then there’s matching socks. Who wants to do that? I mean I will fully admit to purposely putting mismatched socks on my kids. I do not have the time or patience to hunt for matching ones. Thanks.
Recently I overhauled the boy’s socks. I didn’t like the cut of the ones we had, and my oldest was outgrowing his. Time to upgrade. I bought a set of all black socks with anti-skid grips on the bottom for my oldest, and then a set in grey for my youngest. Now I always know who the socks belong to and matches are MUCH less hard to find. Win!
Let’s Talk About Stains
I feel like I’m continually admitting to failing as a person when I admit these things, but when it comes to kids clothes, I honestly don’t care that much about stains. I mean my kids get DIRTY. And I love it. I want them to get dirty and play in the mud and the rain and explore. I believe it’s SO good for them. So if their clothes come out with stains, I often throw it on them anyway. If I’m having photos taken, that’s another story.
BUT! When I do need stains taken care of, like for my clothes or my husband’s clothes, my go-to is Grandma’s Secret Stain remover. I honestly cannot remover who or what turned me on to using it, but it has done wonders for me. Even on set in stains. I mean if I find a stain it’s usually after it has not only been sitting in the hamper for days, but it’s probably also been washed AND dried before I noticed. Whoops! Spray some of this one, let it sit, and wash.
Usually one treatment does it for me. Occasionally I’ll need two. But if I’m having a really rough time I just use plain old original Blue Dawn. Pour a dab on, scrub with a brush or just by rubbing the fabric together, and let sit. Wash as normal and no more stain. I guess this one is big for me because my main stain culprit is oil. Oh cooking at home, how you do me wrong!
Things I Dream About
So this is what works for me currently. I’m sure I could improve in many ways, and it will evolve over the years. I’ll definitely teach the boys to chip in! I was doing my own laundry pretty early on as a kid. But there are still things that I KNOW would help the process and sometimes I like to imagine life with…
A Laundry Shoot
Oh. My. Goodness. I would geek out so much for a laundry shoot. Do you have one? Oh man. My bathroom is right above the laundry, so it’s probably doable. Trying to cat baskets of laundry down in the mornings while waking up two toddlers, when one of them always wakes up cranky and wants to be carried downstairs, is rough. I know, first world problems. But I like simplicity and limiting steps. So a clothing shoot would let me toss down our laundry before even approaching the boys.
Though then I start thinking that if I did have a laundry shoot, my luck would be that half my clothes would get stuck along the path. Man. Such a mean imaginary laundry shoot.
A Bedroom Level Laundry Room
I DO love the concept of a laundry right outside, or ever attached to my master. the only problem would be any laundry I wanted to do at night would drive me insane. I’m a light sleeper, and I have an unhealthy fear of just about ANYTHING waking my kids from sleep. BUT! It would be handy for carrying clothes back and forth since that’s where most of the laundry originates. Then my kitchen towels and cloth diapers would be the only thing to cary upstairs. Hmm, is that a fair trade off?
Kids Who Help
This is a work in progress. I’m sure they could probably do more than they do now, but I am still teaching them. I’m taking what I can get and enforcing a bit more here and there as needed. They actually love swapping laundry with me. They also love dumping clean laundry on the floor, so you win some you lose some.
At a recent Mom’s Together meeting someone mentioned the idea of family movie night where everyone folds laundry together while watching a movie. I LOVE that idea. Too bad I don’t fold. I could make them fold towels and sheets I guess. Ideas.
That’s How I Do Laundry
So there you have it. That’s how I do laundry. Again, not perfect, but it works for me in this stage.
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