Making laundry easier, can it actually happen? Laundry is one of the banes of my existence. There has to be a way to make it easier right? I am forever in a battle with laundry and it always seems to be winning.
I have tried ignoring it for as long as possible, until the kids (or the hubby and I) are low on underwear and socks and then we do all the loads. That usually ends up with us having a laundry mountain. It gets washed and dried, but folding and putting away does not happen right away due to the sheer massiveness of the piles. (That is NOT making laundry easier.)
Often it stays there for longer than I like to admit. I’ve also been know to get my kids dressed from the piles of unfolded laundry in the living room! (Um…as well as getting myself dressed from that pile of unfolded laundry too.) So obviously waiting is not the solution.
Sometimes I end up buying new clothes but in the end that just bites us in the butt because it adds to how much laundry we have to do and it costs way too much money.
And then of course there are all those stains that seem to just happen to the kid’s clothes. There is everything from juice and blueberries to grass and even some unknown stains. And the stains don’t seem to stop even as the kids get older!
But let’s face it, there is always going to be laundry to do. So, over time, to reduce the madness that is laundry, we’ve come up some tips for making laundry easier, and they really work!
Tips for Making Laundry Easier
1. Family Laundry Weekend
Instead of doing laundry sporadically or a little bit each day, we have a laundry weekend. Starting on Saturday, together with the hubby and the kids, we do six loads of laundry; two kids load, dark load, white load, coloured load and towels. Within two days, they are all washed, dried, folded and put away.
WHY THE LAUNDRY WEEKEND WORKS:
-Since it’s the weekend, everyone is around to help and more people working together makes it happen faster.
-When you do laundry every week, the loads are smaller which in turn means less clothing has to be folded and put away.
2. Pre-Treat You Laundry
Instead of waiting until laundry day to try and get rid of all the stains in your family’s clothing, use a pre-treater like OxiClean™ Max Force too get out even the worst possible stains. If your child comes home from school with yet another stain, just use OxiClean Max Force spray and then leave it in the laundry room for up to 7 days. When you’re ready to do laundry, you don’t even have to worry about stain removal. Just throw in all the pre-treated clothes and wash as usual.
Combine that with the OxiClean Versatile Stain Remover an in-wash stain fighter and you’ll end up with some seriously clean, stain-free and new looking clothes.
3. Get Everyone to Help Out
Laundry should not be a one-woman job. Get everyone to help out, even the kids. If you have teenagers, they can definitely take over their own laundry. If your kids are younger like mine, they can still help; they can sort their laundry, carry their laundry basket to the washing machine (as long as it’s kid sized,) and put their clothes in the washer.
And of course everyone can help with the folding.
4. Make it fun
Even though laundry seems tedious, there are ways to make it fun for the kids.
– Do it all together so you can talk and help each other out. Listen to music or even watch a show. Set a deadline and say the laundry had to be done by the time this show is over. The time will go by a lot faster.
– For young kids, play the sock matching game. They won’t even realize it’s a chore!
– For the kids folding all their own shirts and pants, make them this laundry folding device or buy one, and it makes it so much fun for them to fold clothes, really!! I actually needed to step in because my kids would argue over who got to fold their clothes first.
Good luck and have fun doing laundry!
Disclosure: I have partnered with YMC and OxiClean and have received compensation for this post. All opinions in the post are my own.
I need to do laundry more often, I wait and end up with massive loads.
How long do you usually wait?
Laundry is also the bane of my life. It’s my second least favourite house chore.
What’s your first least favourite?
Laundry is totally not fun… but we do the same, we do all our loads on Saturday and then spend Sunday folding and putting away… it’s a lot easier to manage with the smaller loads… I can’t wait til my little one can help. Good idea with the folding device or the socks!
Totally agree, get it done in two days and hopefully forget about it for the rest of the week!
I love that you do it all together!! Chores felt like such a punishment when I was growing up, each person off on his own, working alone. I like to do things together in my family, it’s a great bonding time. We all feel like we’re helping each other and working together for the good of all of us. It’s something I recommend often to other moms as it’s not very common for people to think about. You rock mama! I also sit with my kids to help them focus when cleaning their rooms. They get overwhelmed if left to do it alone, so it’s another fun bonding time together. We talk while they clean & I can help make organization suggestions. I did it even when I had my foster teen in the house and she loved that time!
I didn’t like doing chores growing up either!I like the idea of doing it as a family so no-one is alone and it’s more fun! It’s the same for us grown ups too i think!
I make sure we don’t own too many clothes so that I have to keep on top of the laundry. I don’t do it every day but every other day most of the time. Because that’s what works for me 🙂
Dishes on the other hand, dishes I cannot for the life of me keep up with…maybe it’s time for a dishwasher…
Dishes is another never ending one!
We do one load everyday…Towels, sheets, whites, darks, jeans/pants…Which leaves us with 2 days of bliss!
We do the sock matching game over here, too! 🙂
It makes it more fun!
We call it having a “laundry party”. I think my kids are catching on though. 😉
I always get the kids to help out with some aspect of doing the laundry. They really enjoy folding clean clothes, especially towels, then putting them away. I am not going to tell them this is a chore. I might ruin the magic for them.
Don’t tell them! 😉
My kids are all grown, but I had them help – and by the time they could reach the bottom of the washer tub – they knew how to do their own. It was like a rite of passage for them.
My family helps by sorting out their own clothes and putting all the whites with the whites and the colors together.I find that’s a big help.They also help me to fold and put the laundry back in their drawers. We enjoy working together and usually pick two nights a week to do these things and always try to make it a fun chore.
This is such a cool post. You always have such practical tips to tackle everyday tasks.
Aditi
http://www.sosaree.in
Thanks so much ADiti!