5 Terrific Tips to Staying on Top of Your Laundry

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Ever walked into the laundry room to find a pile of clothes taller than Mt. Everest? I certainly have! It’s hard to stay on top of laundry while homeschooling, which is why I’m sharing these tips.

5 easy tips to stay on top of the laundry.

In general, there are two approaches to laundry. One approach has you doing a load of laundry every day of the week while the other assigns one or two days to the chores.

One Load Every Day

The single load every day of the week definitely keeps you on top of the laundry. You don’t need as many clothes because the clothing you have is quickly cleaned and returned to you. Stains don’t have as long of an opportunity to sink into the fibers.

However, you’re constantly doing laundry. There’s never a break. It also, in my opinion, makes it harder to iron and mend clothing since you don’t have a specific day to deal with it.

The secret to this approach is to make it part of your daily routine. Start the washing machine just before you begin to prepare breakfast. Move laundry just before you begin the homeschool. Fold and put away laundry as part of your afternoon routine.

Consistency is the key!

Laundry Day

The second approach has you picking a day to do laundry. You simply stay home and do laundry all day. If all goes well, by the end of the day the clothing is washed, folded, and put away. You’ve also had a chance to deal with the ironing and mending.

This system can work very well for a smaller family. Instead of worrying about laundry every single day, just push it through during your homeschool breaks. Fold and put away the laundry in the afternoon after the schoolwork is done.

Personally, I homeschool a large family. It’s hard to spend an entire day running laundry through the washing machine and stay on top of our normal homeschool routine. Having 5 kids at home creates quite a pile of laundry. It takes forever to wash all the clothing, towels, and sheets a large family produces.

To be perfectly honest, there’s no right solution. Pick one which works best for your family. If it doesn’t work, switch!

Size of the Washing Machine

I thought we had a supersized washing machine, but in August it gave up the ghost. My husband and I carefully went out and picked out a new large washing machine. It’s not the largest machine on the market, but it fits my family’s budget and needs the best.

Unfortunately, the dealer couldn’t deliver it for another 5 days. I sighed because I knew we were going to have a huge pile of laundry. It would take me 2 days to get caught up. Seriously 2 days to run the 10 or so loads through. Nothing I could do though.

The washing machine arrived. I started tossing clothing into it. I tossed a load in. The machine was only half-full. I tossed more clothing into the machine. My husband came by and looked in. It didn’t look full yet. Instead of the 9-10 loads, I was expecting, it only took 4 loads to catch up on the laundry.

The size of the washing machine can make or break you. A large washing machine can handle more clothing and make it easier to stay caught up with the laundry. That’s not to say I think you should run out and buy a new machine, no. Instead, if you’re in the market for a new machine, look for a nice big one.

Determine When You’ll Do Mending & Ironing

You’ll need time to do mending and ironing. I don’t know about you, but periodically a shirt falls into the mending hamper because it needs a button, which only takes 5 minutes to sew back on.

Make an appointment with yourself to do the mending and ironing. Otherwise, you’ll forget in the chaos of daily life.

Kids Can Fold Laundry

I find it difficult to teach my youngest children to actually run the machine. The machine is in the basement on a pedestal. It’s over their heads! However, there’s no reason preschoolers and elementary kids can’t help with folding and putting away.

Little ones can fold socks, dish towels, and washcloths. Elementary kids can fold shirts, towels, and pants. Both age groups can take a pile of laundry to run to a bedroom and be taught to put their own clothes away properly.

Remember to double-check your kids and ensure the laundry has been put away and put away properly. Kids are notorious for dropping clean clothes on the floor and then tossing it into the hamper when you tell them to clean up their room.

Nothing is worse than constantly washing clean clothing because it was never put away properly.

These tips will help you stay on top of your laundry while homeschooling and prevent Mt. Everest from growing in your laundry room!

Read more in the 31 Days to a Well-Run Homeschool series!

staying on top of the laundry

4 Comments

  1. I have a family of 10 and rarely do laundry myself. We have a large machine and run 1-2 loads through it each day. My 8 and 11 year olds share the responsibility of sorting the laundry and running it through the machines. When the clothes are dry, they sort them into baskets. They fold the towels, baby clothes, Mom’s clothes and Dad’s clothes. The rest are sorted into 6 other baskets that are in the laundry room. Everyone age 5 and older have a basket with their name on it. They are all responsible for folding their own laundry and putting it away. My husband puts away our clothes, baby clothes, and towels after work.
    My part is usually reminding the kids to get started in the morning and check it later in the day. I also teach them how to fold and put away their laundry. Every once in awhile I help each kid fold and put away, so that we can take out the clothes that they don’t wear anymore and get ready for the next season. I help when we have items that need extra work, like when someone is sick or a diaper doesn’t do it’s job.
    My 8 year old is capable of sorting and starting the machine. I had written instructions taped onto the machines while they were learning.

    1. Kristi, thank you for sharing your system for getting laundry done. Laundry is so much easier when everyone in the family chips in and has a job to do. 🙂

  2. When doing one load of laundry per day, do you sort your laundry? I currently have 2 laundry days a week. I’d like to try a system of 1 or 2 loads a day, but if I still sort, it seems less efficient to have to look through all the dirty laundry one day to find the whites, then look through it all again the next day to find the colors, etc.

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