All clean laundry gets carted to our bedroom, where my husband will host a folding party with a number of the kids when the clean piles get too big to dig through for underwear or whatever. Then everyone helps put stuff away. I only iron if I absolutely have to.

MONDAY:
First I turn on the load that’s been soaking in there overnight.
Sheets get changed and washed,
Any odd things like carseat pads, highchair pads, jumperoo or swing seat covers, mittens and hats, shoes, backpacks, etc. also get washed this day. I don’t wash those things often, just when they get poo or spit-up or food or mud on them.

TUESDAY:
Darks that can absolutely under no circumstances be friendly with anything linty- I usually have 2 loads worth.

WEDNESDAY:
Blankets
Towels

THURSDAY:
Delicates
Whites
(Usually if all my delicates are white I wash them all together, but if not all the delicates are white I make 2 seprate loads of it. I inspect the whites as they come out of the washer to make sure they’re white, if they are stained or dingy I drape them over the edge of the hamper to wait for Sunday.)

FRIDAY:
Darks that are linty or are lint-friendly.
Reds/Pinks/Purples and sometimes if there are not enough red/pink/purples I throw in some browns too. If there are too many I put the purples in the darks load and save the browns for Saturday.

SATURDAY:
Green/yellow and any leftover browns get tossed in together in the morning and then whenever I have time later in the day I switch them or sometimes just before bed.

SUNDAY:
I run a rinse cycle on any cloth diapers or stinky dishcloths/washcloths and then add those dingy or stained whites leftover from Thursday with detergent and Oxiclean in HOT water and soak them overnight.

With this system I am able to overcome my obsessive compulsive need to do it ALL. PERFECT. RIGHT NOW. (and then I wouldn’t get anything else done). If I get to any day and don’t have enough to make a load I get a surprise break which is nice. It just waits until the following week. Like if I get to Wed. and there are no blankets and only 1 towel. Or if there was nothing stained or stinky to soak on Sunday or not enough greens for Saturday. Love those days.

2. Laundry is one of our household chores, rotated among the children old enough to handle it. The current laundry girl washes, hangs, and sorts the laundry, then calls the owners to come get their pile.

3. Although I’ve never counted, we seem to average about 15 loads/week, plus 3 of diapers.

A couple of questions:

1. Do you have any laundry in bedrooms? Master bedroom? Anywhere besides the laundry room? How do you handle everyone getting their laundry to the laundry room?

2. How do you handle folding responsibilities?

3. Outside of diapers, how many loads are you doing per day?

Thanks!

I think the biggest advantage to this system is that it makes it very easy to keep up. Even when we feel like we’re way behind on laundry, we really only have 4 or 5 loads to catch up on.

I have 5 baskets and they are numbered according to what types of clothes go in them (1-whites, 2-darks, 3-lights, 4-dark towels/sheets, 5-light towels/sheets) , so at the end of the day when the children take off their clothes, I inspect them to see if they need to be washed, and tell them in which numbered basket to put their clothing (or have them return the items to their closets). This keeps me from having to manually sort the clothes as they do it themselves as soon as they take them off, and teaches/reinforces number recognition. Now that my oldest can read the actual color words on the labels, he knows what the numbers mean and why we sort them the way we do (I’ve had these baskets since my husband and I married 10 years ago…I labeled them when I got them so HE could sort the laundry correctly, too. LOL!)

I also have a 3 (sometimes 4) day system for laundry:

Day 1-wash and dry day…everything except sheets and towels gets washed and dried. My two year old helps me move the clothes from the washer to the dryer–I hand her the wet clothes from our top-loading washer and she puts them in the dryer, which is the perfect height for her. My 5 year old empties the dryer by just pulling the clothes out and straight into the basket on the floor in front of the dryer. Both of these helpers save my back! Everything stays in the basket until the next day, and most items do not get wrinkled. I only pull out the iron on the days I need to wear something that is wrinkled. Most wrinkles fall out when you hang the clothes anyway.

Day 2-folding day…everything is folded, and my 7 and 5 year olds are responsible for folding their own clothes and their younger siblings’ of the same gender. They actually don’t have much to fold (only underwear, socks, and pjs) as all of their play and dress clothes are hung up. We just lay those clothes out flat, one on top of the other, which helps press out any wrinkles that might have formed in the basket. Also, as we fold, we sort the stacks by room (boys with boys, girls with girls, etc), so that when we are finished and the baskets are empty, we load the folded clothes into a basket with the hanging stuff flat on top and set it by the door for the next day’s task (boys have a basket and girls have a basket).

Day 3-put away day…we take the basket and begin putting away the clothes. The hang up clothes are picked up one by one and put on a hanger. Everything else goes in the appropriate basket in their drawers or on their closet shelves (I have found that little baskets keep socks and underwear nice and neatly separated, and easily found by little ones in the morning).

My goal is to have this done the day before the cleaning lady comes. Doesn’t always happen to completion, but it helps keep me on top of the laundry beast.

Day 4-sheets and towels day…occurs every-other week on the morning my cleaning lady comes. We strip our sheets as soon as we get up and wash them all in hot water (usually takes 3 loads). Then, with them still wet, we put the fitted sheet back on the bed as normal, lay the flat sheet on top without tucking in the ends, smooth it out all over, and lay the pillow cases out on top of that. Then we turn on the fans, and go about our day (washing/drying/folding/putting away the towels, too). By the end of the day (and usually by naptime) the sheets are dry and feel as crisp as if they had been ironed. And we saved the energy of drying 3 loads of laundry!

I had tried the one-load-a-day method, as well as the one-day method. With the first, I would get behind and end up washing multiple loads a day w/o time to fold them, and with the second be completely overwhelmed, not able to finish that either. This 3 day method is just what I fell into in my efforts to have a one-day laundry method, so I gave up the goal of having it all done in one day, and took up smaller more manageable goals (wash and dry in one day, etc). It really works well for us and, because I know I want it done before my lady comes, it keeps me on track.

In His Grace,
sara

I remember the day of your engagement with such warm feelings. I wish we could see the whole family. It has been too long since we have been to the East Coast.

Lots of love, Aunt Alyce

The children bring me the laundry on their day and they know that they will be folding and putting all their laundry away that afternoon.

Jama, I agree precisely with your comments about the 3 basket and the room by room systems. I haven’t had problems with reds, but I often pull things out that I am worried about. I wash those questionable items with our napkins or towels because they are dark.

The only thing I still do separately is reds. We seem to wear a lot of red, so I wash all of it in one load. Have you had any problems with reds bleeding onto other things with the room by room system?

I try to do two loads a day. Cloth diapers I have in a bucket and they are completely separate from other laundry.

From your description, I like the idea of Room by Room. I also like the idea of folding while listening to a story. I really need to crack down and teach my kids better how to fold. I don’t personally like the overwhelming-ness of having a laundry day. When I do it that way, everything else seems to fall behind- like dishes and school, vacuuming etc.

We have 3 girls in a downstairs room … 12 year old Hosanna washes the clothes for herself and for her two sisters (ages 7 & 10). The younger girls fold and put away all of their own clothes.

We have 3 boys in a downstairs room. Josh (18) and Ben (15) are both responsible for their own clothing, and they are to wash the clothes of Jacob (13, but only home from Ghana 1 year, so not as well trained yet as Hosanna). Jacob folds and puts away his own clothes.

We have 2 little guys (7 & 8), who happen to be across the hall from Mama and Papa’s room. I sort my clothes and then they sort their clothes into my piles. They, then, fold and put away all of their clothes after they are washed.

Papa washes his own clothes.

Papa and Mama share the wash load of sheets, blankets, towels, etc…