If you’re anything like me, there is at least one part of laundry day that you absolutely dread. From the gathering and the washing to the drying and the folding, I don’t know any parent who loves this entire process. (If you do, please tell me your secrets!) While I love having clean clothes and don’t mind the first few steps, I have a hard time putting laundry away. Some parents even outsource that step, since putting laundry away is super annoying! To help me stay motivated, I’ve developed three laundry hacks that make the process of doing laundry more bearable for me.
1. Schedule a laundry day once per week.
Before we moved to our home, we lived in a small city apartment with three kids and coin laundry in the basement of the building. I can remember taking my five and two-year-old to the basement by the hand with an infant strapped to my chest. My husband was in grad school and doing all of our laundry on my own more than once per week wasn’t feasible for my sanity. So I scheduled laundry for Fridays.
Now, we run an AirB&B out of our basement (where we do our laundry), and in the summer months, it is booked most of the time. This means I can’t just go downstairs and do laundry whenever I feel like it—and I definitely can’t leave loads in for hours (or days) on end. These days, laundry day is on Mondays.
On Sunday night, I have all of our kiddos put their laundry in their baskets and place them on the landing outside of their bedrooms. I throw my first load in on Sunday night and right after breakfast, I get going with the rest. This does mean I am a bit tied down and have to plan my Mondays around laundry, but I can’t say enough about how good it feels to knock it all out in one day.
Disclaimer: If you are a separate-by-color type of parent, this may not be the hack for you. I throw each load in by who it belongs to, but that’s about as specific as I get.
2. Use one laundry basket to transport clothes.
One thing that has driven me absolutely nuts for years is bringing my laundry baskets to the basement, only to forget to bring them back and have nowhere to throw my dirty laundry. As a family of five, we create a LOT of laundry, so keeping things in their proper place is crucial. For this reason, I have developed a one-basket system to keep things moving.
Whoever’s laundry is getting done gets placed into the basket. The most important step is that the non-traveling basket (AKA the hampers), don’t move. I place the dirty laundry into the traveling hamper and take it down to wash. When I am ready for my next load, I take the traveling basket to that dirty laundry bin and fill it with the next load of dirty clothes. Once the loads are washed, they go into that same basket to be delivered back to the bedrooms. Personally, it doesn’t bother me that clean clothes briefly go into a bin that dirty clothes have sat in for a few minutes, but this is all based on preference. When I deliver the laundry back to the bedrooms, they are delivered via the travel laundry basket. If that means I make two or three trips, so be it.
3. Fold clothes by categories.
My two youngest children share a room. They also make the most unnecessary laundry. Unfortunately for me on laundry day, my four-year-old is in a dress-up phase right now and I can’t always tell what is clean or dirty. She changes her clothes multiple times per day, and despite my best efforts, I can’t reign in her habit. When folding my kids’ clothes, though, I fold them the way I put them away. This has helped me a lot with my least favorite step: putting the clean laundry back.
Practically, this means I fold in sections based on where in the bedroom things are located. Pajamas go in the closet, so pajamas get folded together (and separated by kid). That way, when I reach for them, I am making one trip to the closet instead of one trip per pajama item. The same goes for dresses and other items that have different homes. Since putting my kids’ laundry away makes me the grumpiest of the tasks, I have found that this system helps immensely. It makes unloading clean clothes much faster and easier and bonus: The kids can help.
Of course, if you have less clothes to fold, the easier laundry day is too! So sift through clothes often and offer hand-me downs to friends or neighbors. Or consign or donate clothing that is no longer working for your children.
I hope you have enjoyed reading about these three laundry hacks. Maybe one of these tips will simplify laundry day for you! Have other ideas? Feel free to share them in the comments. And if you want to hire help, go for it!
