Walk me through your laundry routine! I’ll start

[megan_iola]

@ava1453 Dirty clothes go in the clothes hamper in the bathroom (if they aren't there they don't get washed!).

I collect clothes from there, wash them. All together. When done, hang on clothes line.

Once dry, take off the line. Fold as I go. Give back everyone's clothes and they put them away, except for the 4 month old.

I wash everyday. Nappies one day and clothes the next. Towels, sheets etc as needed.

 

[reginagrg]

@ava1453 My kids are 3, 2, amd 5 months. I don't fold their laundry. I sort by type and put it in their drawers/bins.

Next I fold biggest items first, towels, jeans, pants. Put away socks and panties. Shirts are the worst. They get folded last. By then the pile is so much smaller it feels less awful.

 

[sweetcheeksgrl]

@ava1453 We have 6 people in our home 100% of the time and 50% we have an additional 3 people. So, about half of the time, we have 9 people.

I do a minimum of 1 load a day. If I wash and put laundry away every single day, it stays fairly manageable. I fold the towels as I'm pulling them out of the dryer and immediately put them away.

I usually wash everyone's clothing together. I do not fold 4 of the kids' clothing because they throw everything around when looking through the dresser. I do fold laundry for the 3 that are only here half time since they're better about keeping the clothing folded and they don't go through it as quickly. Towels are washed every day. I wash bedding as needed.

Now socks are a different story! We live on a farm and the kids' socks end up everywhere. I do my best to encourage kids to keep them picked up but I find them all over the place. I have decided life is too short to stress too much about the socks.

 

[lifeinlavender]

@ava1453 Something that helped me is the “delay wash” function. I put a load of laundry in at night and set it so that it washes right before I wake up in the morning. Then I just have to throw the clothes in the dryer.

I used to end up running the same load 3 times because I would forget to put them in the dryer and this helps!

 

[geneva0703]

@ava1453 Laundry is the one thing I have, like 80% under control, lol.

We are a family of 6 (2 adults and 4 kids). Each bedroom has its own dirty laundry basket. I don't mix loads- each person gets their laundry washed 1x per week (the 2 toddlers are 1 combined load but they also share a room). So basically, zero sorting is required. This started when my two older kids, who were basically the same size, kept complaining that I was giving them the wrong clothes. So I started separating it by person AND made them responsible for their stuff. They are now 10 and 8 and are capable of washing, drying, and folding their stuff independently.

Each load has an assigned day. Monday is toddlers, Tuesday is towels, etc. Sheets get changed every 2 weeks but I rotate it so every week there is a load of sheets getting done (the two twin beds can get washed together, king bed is a solo load, toddler beds often get thrown in with their clothes).

A stupid simple but life changing idea: I put a dirty laundry basket in the family room. So rather than ending up with piles of dirty clothes I need to carry upstairs I can toss left-behind socks and whatever else in the family room hamper and take it up once a week. When my youngest was a baby and constantly spitting up and getting changed this helped SO much.

 

[timq]

@ava1453 I have shelves installed next to my dryer. So clothes that go to my and my husband's room all go in one pile: underwear, pants, everything except clothes that get hung, which are shirts. Those immediately get hung up from the dryer. A stack for the twins' room, a stack for the youngest, a stack for linens, a stack for washcloths. Towels get put away immediately so the stack for those is the washer top. There is a flat basket where I sort socks into white, black, and not black or white. When one pile gets large enough, it's time to match socks and put them in the appropriate stack. I try to run the washer before anything else so it's doing work for me while I'm working. I do not sort clothes. I literally dump from the basket to the washer and fluff so it's not overstocked.

 

[logicdreamer]

@ava1453 I do a load or two most days but I don’t put it away immediately after I fold it. I keep a running basket of folded laundry that I kind of separate by person in the basket and wait until I have a few loads folded and then put it all away at once. It feels more efficient in my opinion, it’s probably not but I like just doing it once for a lot of clothes as opposed to running around putting them away in every single load

 

[jmkwriter]

@ava1453 My 2.5 year old has been trained since he could walk to put dirty clothes in the hamper. My husband is a work in progress, but usually will at least get it on the floor next to the hamper. I have a towel hamper and a clothes hamper. When either is full (which is just about every other day) I load it all in the washer. Clothes or towels, never both. Towels get washed hot and no softener, so they need to be done separately. Usually I run the wash first thing in the morning while kid eats breakfast, which is also when i put away clean dishes. When it's done washing i switch to dryer. As soon as it is dry I dump it all on my bed and fold it while my kid plays or watches TV or destroys another room, then I immediately put it away. Every time. It never sits once it's clean, it never takes more than five/ten minutes to fold it all. Sheets and bathroom rugs/kitchen rugs get done once a week, and are also immediately put away, usually on Mondays. We hang out towels on a hook to dry between uses and use them at least twice before they get washed.

Laundry has never overwhelmed me or been an issue because I make a point to get it all done in one go and not let it pile up. We don't even have enough clothes that I could go more than a week without washing. Once toddler is old enough he will be in charge of putting his own clean clothes away, and eventually folding his own. For now he tries but usually messes it up. I had a third hamper when he was an infant and did his laundry separately with infant soap, which I stopped at about a year old.

 

[scootydash]

@ava1453 The biggest thing is owning less honestly. Then do just a couple loads a week (I do have just one kid though, I'm sure it gets harder with each one). We have a hamper in the bathroom to wash towels once a week, a kitchen rag basket for once a week, and then myself my husband and my baby each have a hamper. My husband has way too many clothes so he does his own -currently has two hampers overflowing. Bath mats, bedding and throw blankets are done every other week.

 

[tj00110]

@ava1453 So I'm a little extra when it comes to laundry. I have 3 different load types for just the adult clothes: regular clothes, undergarments, and delicates. The kids' clothes. Sheets. Kitchen and hand towels. Bath towels. Cloth diapers. Dog towels and rugs. So in all that's 9 different types of loads. On a weekly basis I'm doing probably 6 loads of laundry (the different clothes loads, the towels loads, and the sheets) plus twice weekly diaper loads. Somehow I don't end up feeling bogged down because I just do it as needed. Here's how:

Each of the load types goes into a different hamper (we have two hampers that have two sections and then 3 other hampers throughout the house). When a hamper is full I wash it. Nothing sits in the washer, but it's ok if some things sit in the dryer (things that I don't care if they're wrinkly). I fold everything and my husband and I both put stuff away. I'm forced to put the stuff away when I need an empty laundry basket because I only have two of those. For sheets and bath towels I wash those weekly (ish) and they don't have a hamper.

Tldr: have a hamper for each load type because it cuts out any sorting. Wash that load when the hamper is full. Only have a couple laundry baskets to motivate you to put the things away.

 

[tayla]

@ava1453 I LOVE doing/sorting laundry!! But I HATE ironing/putting clean clothes in the closet lol

My System: I put 3 laundry bins (stacked on top of each other, lids open on the front) next to my washing machine. Each bin fits exactly one load of laundry. 1 dark clothes, 1 colours, 1 white. This way I know exactly when it's time to load the washer.

Mom and dad put dirty clothes in the bins directly, separated by colours. Kids (8 and 5 yo) throw their dirty clothes wherever, but they have also learned to separate. Shirts/pants can be found next to their beds, underwear in the living room, socks stuffed under the couch lol. So once a day I go around collecting their clothes and put them in each bin.

When a bin is full, I empty it all on the floor in front of the washer and have a quick look at each item before throwing them in the washer. Kids clothes usually need to be treated with stain remover, everything is turned inside-out, socks and underwear too. This way I also catch any clothes that landed in the wrong coloured bin before they get ruined.

Then wash and hang to dry. Next day, I separate the dry clothes in 2 baskets. 1 for folding, 1 for ironing. Now the worst parts: Ironing happens about once a month because ain't nobody got time for that. The folding basket also sits there, the pile of clean clothes getting bigger and bigger until my kids have no clean socks left in their closet so it's time to fold. About 2 hours of turning clothes right side-out again, folding and separating kids and adults and then I'm left with pairing about 150 black socks in 4 different sizes which takes about half an hour.

Then I place each pile of neatly folded clothes and socks in front of each closet.... But I never put them away that's the worst part for me. Just a huuuge mess of folded clothes everywhere. It makes my apartment always look so messy although everything is clean.

And before anyone says there's too many steps pre-washing, I love it and I really don't mind spending so much time on those steps. It's the last steps I really struggle with. Is it just me..?

 

[quentangle]

@ava1453 - I do laundry multiple times a week and to do sheets/towels separate from clothes.

-I don't fold toddler clothes, they go in sorted bins (shirts, pants, pajamas, socks etc)

- I have a laundry sorting cart next to the dryer (it's a rolling cart with 3 laundry baskets hanging in it). I sort into the baskets as things come out of the dryer then fold/put away in batches which feels easier to me since I'm separating by where things get put away so each basket has one destination.

 

[pallal]

@ava1453 Family of 4 here. I do 1-2 loads of laundry per day and I do them based on which room/zone I'm cleaning in the house. For example: Mondays, I clean the master bedroom, so I do mine and my husband's laundry, Tuesdays, I clean the kids room so I do the toddler/baby laundry, etc. Obviously things can go out of order a little and I dedicate the weekend to catch up. But I really try to not push it off otherwise I'd just be doing all the laundry on the weekend. Condensing clothes helps too, so my husband and I only have the amount of clothes to get us through the week plus a couple extra.

 

[sj123]

@ava1453 I’m a nanny, but I do everyone in the house’s laundry. Parent’s on Tuesdays, kids’ on wednesdays, baby & random household laundry on thursdays, mine whenever the hell I get to it. I wash and dry the laundry on the same day and then I fold it the next day. I always fold it while the baby is playing in the bath. It helps me to have that distinct time

 

[imgoingfwrd]

@ava1453 I added shelves to my laundry room that hold a total of 6 laundry baskets. Everyone throws dirty clothes into the laundry room throughout the day. No dirty clothes are “allowed” to lay about the house. At the end of the day we make a sweep of the house for dirty towels or anything the kids missed. They are 1 and 3 so it does happen. After the kids are asleep I separate the laundry and the fullest basket goes in the wash. I do the rest of my cleaning up and TV or whatever. Before I head to sleep the load goes in the dryer. In the morning I fold that load while the kids eat breakfast and then put it away while we get dressed and ready for the day.

Some nights there isn’t enough laundry to worry about doing a load. But mostly we do a load 4-5 nights a week and it is easier to manage one load a day. Plus it saves money since our utilities are free/cheaper at night.

 

[soluxis]

@ava1453 we don't have our own washer and dryer so every Saturday or Sunday morning we put all the dirty clothes and dirty towels and whatnot in garbage bags and take them to the laundromat, wash everything, bring it home, and most the time I don't put it away