Mom, are you currently spending a significant amount of time sorting, washing, and folding laundry?
Here are some quick easy tips to help get you from the laundry room!
1) Sort Less
Except for whites that need to be bleached, brand new dark or red items that bleed or delicates, you may not need to sort laundry as much as you believe.
Most high quality clothing doesn’t bleed. And there’s no crime in washing towels along with other laundry unless it will get linty (like microfiber cleaning cloths).
You might like to sort laundry by what room it’ll end up in. I throw my boy’s laundry all in together and despite what home economics gurus might tell you, I haven’t noticed any bad effects! This process simplifies things because each load would go to the same place. Rather than travelling the house delivering laundry to each room, you save energy and time.
2) Instead of folding…
Hang kid’s shirts within their closet and just lay small items flat in their drawers.
I use those cheap shoebox size plastic organizers within the boy’s closet and throw unsorted clean socks in one, undies in another, pjs in another. Each child has his own containers so there’s no confusion.
It’s much simpler than spending some time folding underwear and matching socks. Possible their very own sock mates!
3) Make use of your Tools
Put one laundry basket in each room where dirty laundry is discarded (usually one per bathroom or bedroom). Buy some of those zippered mesh bags at the dollar store and throw one in each.
4) Teach your kids and husband
Ask your husband and kids to put laundry in the hamper rather than dropping it on the floor, and also to bring their hamper to the laundry area as you prepare to wash. Don’t scold or nag, use natural consequences. When someone needs that favorite set of Buzz Lightyear pjs or boxers, they will quickly learn that if it does not reach the hamper, it doesn’t get washed!
Train them as well to place their dirty socks in the mesh bag. Even when they’re too young to do so, invest dirty socks in the bag and toss the entire part of the washer. They are available out clean and the washer doesn’t eat the baby’s socks.
Enlist your kid’s help with regards to folding laundry.
A couple years old can put dirty laundry within the hamper and throw clean clothes in the dryer whenever you hand it to them, a 3 year old can fold washcloths, as well as an older child can deliver clean folded laundry to their room as well as hang items.
5) Forget Perfection
When I was a kid we had “play clothes” and “school clothes”. The nicer things were what you wore to school and out of the house, and you turned into your play clothes (usually items which had a defect or weren’t as nice as going-out clothes) as soon as you got home.
Using this method means that the nicer items don’t wear out as quickly, plus they may not need to be washed after every wearing. An item that is worn once (unless it’s socks or undies) doesn’t necessarily have to be washed.
And you may decide that it’s not worth spending time removing stains on play clothes, thus helping you save more time and cash.
Also, use Oxi-Clean or another non-toxic whitener instead of bleach on your whites. Because it may also be used on colors, it will not be the finish around the globe if a stray colored item gets inside your bleach load.
I really hope these pointers help rescue you against laundry room shackles!