A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

A large family, homeschooling, adoption, special needs, whatever strikes my fancy, sort of blog.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Large Family Living, part 2, Laundry


I'm loving all the questions, both here and on Facebook!

First, let's talk about laundry.  If you've been thinking of laundry as a one day a week chore, it may be time to change your thinking.  Here's how it works in our house.

Clothes come off the body.  They go on the floor somewhere.  Paul and I toss ours on the bathroom floor by the tub.  I wash little people in our tub, and for baths, their clothes go in that pile, as well.  The upstairs kids (everybody except Josiah and Samuel) all toss theirs into a pile outside the girls' bedroom door.  You know, reading that, I really ought to think about getting a couple hampers...  But I'm not sure Hannah could reach to the bottom of a hamper, and honestly, this is working, so why spend the money, right?

Every morning after breakfast, Hannah brings the upstairs laundry (from those two locations, and she also checks the 2 upstairs kid bathrooms for any stray clothing) down to the laundry room.

After I get home from morning car pool, I throw a load of laundry in, and then we get started on schoolwork.


At lunchtime, I throw another load in.  If I need to, I can throw a third load in after nap time.

As each load comes out of the dryer, I take it to what we affectionately refer to as The Secret Passageway.  No joke.  It was something my step mom said that stuck.  It's actually the butler's pantry that runs between the kitchen and Paul's office (which is supposed to be a dining room, but is too small for our family).

I sort the laundry in The Secret Passageway by bedroom.  Big boys, little boys, girls, babies, mom & dad.  When I have a few loads sorted, I holler at passing urchins to take their baskets (which are mostly milk crates, way more durable than cheap laundry baskets) to their rooms.  Everyone from Hannah up is responsible for putting away their own laundry.

Did you hear that?  My "handicapped" (eyeroll) 6 year old puts her own laundry away.  If you're doing it for your kids, stop!  They can do it themselves!  It may not be perfect, just like you would do it.  You know what?  It doesn't matter!

Hannah's set up is pretty simple.  She puts all her shirts and dresses on hangars (which I hang for her, since she can't reach).  She puts all her socks in the sock bucket, shoes in the shoe bucket, jackets in the jacket bucket (although they may also be downstairs, more on that later).  Top drawer is panties, stump socks, camisoles, swim suits.  Second drawer is shorts and skirts.  Third drawer is pants, bottom drawer is pajamas.  She does a great job.

This is the system that I've taught all the kids when they were little, but the boys don't hang their shirts.  They usually "stuff" them, honestly.  Every once in a while, I throw a fit over Jack's drawers and dump everything out and make him put them back in a similar order, but most of the time, he opens a drawer, throws the clothes in, and if I'm lucky, he closes it again.  I can live with that.

I put away my laundry, Katie and Luke's laundry, and the cloth diaper load.  Although, I don't put them away as promptly as I should, perhaps.  I haven't seen the top of my hope chest in a while.

I usually fold towels while I am cooking, since they're just a few steps away from the kitchen.  Sometimes I'll ask one of the kids to fold them or take them to where they go.  Oh, and true confession?  I don't fold fitted twin sheets.  We sort of roll them in a ball and call it close enough.  I got that from another mom, and I felt like I'd been given permission to do something scandalous.


My laundry room is nothing special, but I'm very grateful it's 1) in the house, and 2) not a hallway setup like our last house.  One of the first things I did when we moved here was to stick adhesive backed hooks on the inside of the upper cupboard door, so I can hang up things that don't go in the drier.  (Mostly bras and bibs, in our house.)

The important thing isn't making your system like my system.  The important thing is to HAVE a system that works for you.  I share mine, not to imply that I've got it all together (I'm sunk if I take 2 days off or we get hit with the flu!), but in the hopes that something I've said might inspire you to think about laundry differently, and possibly come up with a new idea that you can use.

Like last time, if you have any questions about being in charge of a big family, feel free to ask!  I have a couple of other posts in the works for this series.


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12 comments:

  1. Great tip about the adhesive hooks on the inside of your cabinet doors! I wish I'd thought of that in my last house when I actually had cabinets in my laundry room. I WILL remember that for the next house though!!! :D

    I meant to ask this on your last post about homeschooling but do you have any tips for keeping the littles busy while schooling with the bigger kids? It's just chaos over here!!

    Love this series, thank you!

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    1. Tips for littles! I'll add it to my list, thanks! :) (And, yeah, chaos pretty much sums it up. ;) )

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  2. I have laundry baskets in a few locations around the house for those "piles on the floor." FWIW. :-) Jean

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    1. That's true. Our empties migrate to the places where we collect laundry, so sometimes there's a basket there. Which makes it easier for Hannah to take it downstairs.

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  3. Jeni, I am not Shecki, and our family is a bit smaller, but I recommend googling for "busy bags" and maybe checking pinterest for such also. Good luck!

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    1. Eh, Erin is close enough! :D Same serger, same van, a kid with the same name as one of mine... Great idea, too. We've done a couple of busy bag swaps, and they're fun.

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  4. You have a good system. I don't like doing laundry. Luckily, my older kids do laundry for themselves and their younger siblings on the weekends. I do mine when I get home from work and my dh does his own (sometimes he does mine also, lol!). The youngest one does the running around to take the laundry completed to the bedrooms of the owners.

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    1. That sounds like a system that works for you! My dh hasn't done laundry since Jack was born, lol! :D

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  5. I have struggle with laundry too. I have five kids ages 7yr-6mo . I am in desperate need of a system or a maid or both. I'm trying to get it worked out and teach the kids to help. We call it Tyler Teamwork and our moto is 'Many hands make quick work'. Please pray for me to find the right solution so our laundry isn't so chaotic.

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    1. Your kids are still little! It is just a lot of work then. It gets easier as they get older and can help more. Hang in there, mama. Praying for you right now.

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  6. A samsung 5.6cu washer and 9.5cu dryer saved my life. I have several special needs kids. They wet their beds as fast as I can wash the bedding. Companies might even make larger models now. I bought mine a few years ago. I still wash every hour of the day. I even added a top loader set. Some day, I'll leave the laundry room.

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    1. Wet beds do derail things. So does a trip to the pool! Omigosh, it seems like we take 8 towels there and bring 40 into the laundry room. LOL

      I tell myself someday they'll all be grown and I'll be nostalgic for these busy years.

      Happy Thanksgiving!

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