My Laundry Philosophy

I've never been one who likes to do laundry every day. Doing a load or two a day would kill me. It wouldn't be from the washing part, or even folding for that matter. I feel like I would always have baskets or piles of clothes lying around that need to be put away. That would drive me mad. Because of this, I have days planned out for each set of laundry. This way I am not doing laundry every day of the week. Now mind you, as my family has grown, so have the number of days it takes to get the laundry done.

I guess you could say that my laundry schedule starts on Sunday night after the kids are in bed. I grab the towels, as well as the garbage, since Monday morning is garbage day, out of the kids bathroom. I bring them down and throw them in the washer. They take a couple of hours since I wash them on sanitary wash with extremely hot water. Monday then leaves me to the rest of the towels in the house and sometimes a set or two of sheets.

On Monday night, I sort all the kids clothes. This ranges from 4 to 6 loads depending on the season. In the winter it is more, I have a whole load and sometimes two of just jeans. I love the summer loads...shorts, dresses...a lot less clothes to wash, fold and put away. After the kids clothes are sorted, I bring them down and throw in the first load. This is usually jeans, because I know they are easy and quick to fold first thing in the morning when so much is going on. On Monday night, I sometimes have time to switch loads too. This really helps to stay on top of it all on Tuesday.

These photos are of my laundry room on Tuesday, toward the end of the day. I just have the girls load left to fold.

Tuesday I continue to work on the kids clothes. The order of the laundry goes from jeans, to dark, to medium, to whites and then finally on to the girls clothes. I leave theirs for last so I have all the boys done and put into baskets by that point. This way I have room to fold theirs. After the clothes are in the baskets are done, they placed at the bottom of the stairs for Steve to carry up for me. The older three boys all put their own laundry away on Wednesday. I am working on the girls putting their own away. I put the younger one's away on Wednesday morning.

A side-note on the laundry, when each load is done, I stand and fold it right then and there. I don't save it until later, having 6 loads to fold in the evening would stress me out. I used to do it that way, but that has changed as our family and our laundry has grown.

Wednesday and Thursday are my off days, unless it is sheet week. I hope you are not too surprised or grossed out, but I only wash sheets every two weeks. I do ours a bit more often than the kids. I just don't have the time to keep up on it more regularly. Getting two cribs, three twins and one double and one queen made again in the evening takes a good bit of time.

On Friday morning, I sort Steve and my clothes. We usually have two loads, one dark and one medium. I wash our whites with the kids whites on Tuesday. We put our clothes away sometime over the weekend.

And once again, I take the weekends off from laundry unless something like towels, rags or rugs needs to be washed.

You may be wondering about ironing. Well, I iron about once a month or so. I just hang whatever needs to be ironed in the laundry room closet and wait until there is enough in there to make it worth the effort. I buy wrinkle free shirts and pants/trousers for Steve and pull them right out of the dryer when they are done. It is very rare that they need to be ironed.

Well, I think that is my laundry schedule in a nutshell. I hope this is helpful to someone out there.