What is your Laundry System?

[milkmommy]

hampers (or baskets) on each room plus one in main bathroom

During our family chore time If a basket/hamper if full I'll dump it in the laundry and run a load. I don't seperate clothes except towels/sheets from regular clothes. Once that load is out everyone helps put it away.. I rarely if ever run more than one load during the week.. We rotate which basket gets washed based on both how much and which ones were already done.. (sometimes we might combine baskets in order to create a full load)

DH tends to take over laundry on the weekends so any catch up laundry gets done then. He'll put the kids clean folded clothes on their beds and they hang or put them in drawers them selfs.

Its extremely rare for us NOT to have unwashed laundry somewhere.. But its rare for us to get so behind it piles up either.
Clothes get washed in cool or warm depending
towels and sheets/bedding and diapers when used get washed in hot

[JoEllen]

Laundry is one of my least favorite jobs that I have to do, so I keep it as simple as humanly possible: there's one hamper in the master bathroom. Every Saturday, separate colors from whites and toss them in the machine. When everything is clean, everyone puts away their own stuff (with supervision if necessary).

[Prism]

my system is don't do it until people start begging for socks, or start to stink... I need to change.

[AngelaVA]

Towels I bring to the laundry room each day and usually do a load every other day or so. Generally I ask one of the kids to fold them and put them away - the trade off here is my towel closet is not as tidy as I like but they've got to learn some way.

Clothes everyone has their own hanging laundry bag and when it's full I help them do their laundry. It means different things for different people though. Dd1 I help her put the washer and dryer on the right settings and stuff and make sure she doesn't forget to put it in the dryer. DD2 I mostly do it but have her tag along and participate minimally. DH usually starts his but I end up finishing it for him when he's at work. And I do mine. I sometimes just do someone's laundry for them but then it's like something nice I am doing to help them out because they are busy or tired or whatever.

I do bedding as part of house cleaning. I usually don't ask for help with that although DH sometimes will do it of his own accord.

[RealLifeMama]

Since someone mentioned towels, I wanted to mention that color coding the children has helped tremendously in reducing the amount of towel laundry we have. I used to have to wash towels nearly daily, but now it is just once a week for bath towels.

Prism, that was how I did things when I had three kids. I mean, I just washed what we needed when we needed it. It worked fine back then.

[jenny_islander]

We have hampers in the girls' room, our room, and at the top of the stairs. Two of them are actually laundry baskets, to save space, and we have lots more baskets as well, along with some laundry bags left over from when DH's brothers used to come over to do their laundry. (This is their parents' home.)

If there is enough of anything to make a load, I try to keep the dryer humming whenever the girls and I are home (see below), unless my husband is doing his own laundry. (He got used to doing his own laundry when taking care of his chronically ill mother, so he just kept on doing it. I do everything else, except that now and then DH will grab a load of sheets or towels when I'm not home. He is terrified of handling other people's clothes ever since he ruined my expensive silk sweater!)

Every day, I tell Sophia to grab an empty basket or bag and sort into it whatever she and Eva have the most of. I top off her basket from other hampers and start a load. If at all possible, the load I bring up from the dryer is immediately sorted, typically while I read online because I find it boring as heck. The girls take their own piles and sort them into drawers; I put away Matthew's, my own, and the kitchen and bathroom towels and so on. Then I drag a hamper plus 2 empty baskets/bags over to the computer or into the bedroom where I can spread out a magazine and sort the hamper into [load I want to wash next] and [everything else]. When the hamper is empty, I grab another one as needed until I have sorted out a full load of whatever I want to wash next. As soon as the dryer buzzes, I do everything all over again.

If I do this over and over and over, I can be pretty sure that when I get sick, or have to be out of the house all afternoon, or whatever, everybody will still have enough clothes.

Oh, and if I am washing the sheets and/or blankets, I do it during morning school time, because something WILL ALWAYS HAPPEN and I will end up making the beds hours and hours after I start the wash.

[Aerynne]

Hampers in each bedroom and one in the garage (which is next to the kitchen- kitchen laundry goes here).

On Tuesdays we gather it all. We all sort it in the upstairs hallway into darks, lights, and whites. I take it downstairs and wash it. I usually have four loads each week. This is not when I wash towels or sheets.

I take it upstairs when it's done and sort it into piles by person. Each person has to fold and put away their own laundry. I inspect drawers sometimes, depending on if I have time and if I've noticed messy drawers lately. I basically get them to do it by saying "when your laundry is all folded and put away, you can [insert fun activity or snack here]". Some kids take longer than others to learn to do it. With some who have had trouble I would sort it further and have them fold and put away their t-shirts, then when that was done they'd do their shorts, etc.

Each child is limited to 12 tops and 12 bottoms, meaning that is all the clothes they have in their drawers. It helps tremendously to do that! (that sounds like a lot until you consider they also have pj's and church clothes).

[mamahammer]

Everyone has a hamper in their room and there is one in each bathroom. Every kid has a laundry day and they wash, dry, and put away their own clothes and linens. I do mine and DH's laundry, along with the kitchen linens on a different day.

[AngelaVA]

Originally Posted by RealLifeMama

Since someone mentioned towels, I wanted to mention that color coding the children has helped tremendously in reducing the amount of towel laundry we have. I used to have to wash towels nearly daily, but now it is just once a week for bath towels.

So each person has their own color bath towels? Nice...how many towels per person do you need for that system?

[HomeWithMyBabies]

When we moved I suddenly found myself caught up on laundry, it took me a minute to realize the laundry room is no longer in the basement and that makes all the difference for me. It's now in the middle of the ground floor, next to the kitchen and I pass by it constantly. Otherwise my system hasn't changed, there are hampers in the bedrooms which I collect and one large basket in the laundry room. I can dump kitchen towels there, or anything that doesn't fit in a load, and that helps me visualize how much I have to do. I wash everything together. I take the clean stuff upstairs to the bedrooms and sort and fold it all spread out over my bed. Putting it on my bed makes me stay on top of it, and get it done before bedtime, and at the very least get it folded and stored in a basket until I can get it into the dresser drawers.

[RealLifeMama]

Originally Posted by AngelaVA

So each person has their own color bath towels? Nice...how many towels per person do you need for that system?

Each person has two towels. I was not sure that would be enough, but it is.
Before, the children could not remember which towel they had used, so they got a fresh one every time. Even trying to hang them on a hook designated to them did not help because they still did not take ownership of their towels.

[ValiantJoy07]

My problem is the meltdowns I get when the kids "can't find anything to wear". We have some frustrating extenuating ...drama...in that department. I am going to revamp things over Christmas break. right now I have the one small basket in the hall way outside the bathroom (6ft from the washing machine) and I dump it into the washer when it gets full. The washing stuff isn't the problem...It is the getting it out away....and baskets crowding the hall way as I sort and catch up and it is right outside my Mom's room, I don't want to clutter up her walk way.

So I think after Christmas I am going to find each person a small slim basket and assign them a day of the week. The kids will be involved with washing their stuff on their day of the week and putting their stuff away. They're still young enough where helping with laundry is fun, so I think I should capitalize on it and start training them. Dh will have his day and his basket and I can help him with it, but it will guarantee his stuff is always in one place and either he knows it is clean or it is dirty.

This will also truly free up the weekends for my Mom to do her laundry as there are 5 of us and 5 weekdays, I can totally throw linens in Tuesday and Thursday after whoever's days stuff is done.

Now to find baskets.

[Beth1231]

My system: budget lots of money for the consignment shop and buy a ton of kids clothes. I rarely run out. Less drama,more peace

As for mine and my husband's clothes,I fold clothes into stacks for each person and hand each person their stack,except the baby. I don't care if it's in the right drawer or perfectly folded,just as long as it's clean and in the dresser or closet.
And my baby's clothes are kept right by my bed,so I literally turn around and drop them in.
I lower my expectations,iow
It's a lot of work for one person and something has to go.

[squiddles]

If I make it complicated I won't do it. No sorting, no schedule, no folding One hamper for everyone and everything. It's in the hallway closet, when its full I take it to the basement, wash, dry and bring it up to my bed where I dump it and sort it.
The boys take their pile to their room and put away and I put the rest away.
I dont let more than two loads of dirty laundry pile up because there is no room in the closet for it. Washer is in our tiny garage so also no room for laundry to pile up there.


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[Contented in FL]

Originally Posted by ValiantJoy07

My problem is the meltdowns I get when the kids "can't find anything to wear". We have some frustrating extenuating ...drama...in that department. I am going to revamp things over Christmas break. right now I have the one small basket in the hall way outside the bathroom (6ft from the washing machine) and I dump it into the washer when it gets full. The washing stuff isn't the problem...It is the getting it out away....and baskets crowding the hall way as I sort and catch up and it is right outside my Mom's room, I don't want to clutter up her walk way.

So I think after Christmas I am going to find each person a small slim basket and assign them a day of the week. The kids will be involved with washing their stuff on their day of the week and putting their stuff away. They're still young enough where helping with laundry is fun, so I think I should capitalize on it and start training them. Dh will have his day and his basket and I can help him with it, but it will guarantee his stuff is always in one place and either he knows it is clean or it is dirty.

This will also truly free up the weekends for my Mom to do her laundry as there are 5 of us and 5 weekdays, I can totally throw linens in Tuesday and Thursday after whoever's days stuff is done.

Now to find baskets.

This system worked great for us when we were houseparents to a bunch of jr. high boys Enjoy the schedule; it really can make life smooth! :

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