Laundry for 7

One thing that was very difficult for me to adjust to as our family grew was the laundry, OH the piles!  I knew I had to get control of this or I was going to drown quickly. 

I came up with a few options.  At the top of the list was a maid who would come in and do our laundry.  For some reason Mark was entirely against that idea.  Next was disposable clothes.   Which seems like such a lovely idea.  Besides the fact that I would have to buy all new clothes often.  Not practical.  No money and no time to shop for all those clothes to dispose of!

It did cross my mind that we could simply throw the children WITH the clothes in the washer and get double chores done. Makes sense?  I AM KIDDING! Of course I would not do that.  But spicy girl did attempt to play in there.  She has been warned that this is a no no.

Since those ideas did not work out, I scoured the internet, tweaked a few ideas and found a plan that is working really well for our family.   In a perfect week, I start laundry on Sunday night.  I throw a load in and set the timer so it is washed when I get up, then it gets switched to the dryer.  All laundry is done by Tuesday night, and I do not do it again till Sunday night.  I LOVE having a timer on the washer, it is wonderful.

Each person in our family has a basket of their own.  You can see above the white basket is Makenna's, the zebra is divided into separate baskets.   Towels/sheets go in one.  Dedicates in one. And then like I said, each person has their own, all clothes go into it.  Besides the socks and underwear. Each person has a small mesh bag that they put those things into.  On Mondays, each child brings their basket to the laundry room, dumps the ENTIRE basket into the machine and I get it started on cold wash.  The sock bag gets thrown into a load with towels.  It is zipped up, so everything stays inside while being washed and dried. Once the load is done,  child is responsible for loading it into basket, and putting it away.  Makenna helps the little girls, who love to fold laundry.  No dividing up A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G!  Socks are not mismatched because they are in their bag.  No guessing what sock belongs to who, because each one has their own bag!   On average I do about 8 loads of laundry each week.  I do combine my clothes with Mark, and I wash Sage & Mavery together.   So there you have it, how I have mastered the laundry in my house. Now, if I could just master the menu planning.  And the cleaning.  And the list goes on!