Am I a Laundry Fanatic????? JFF

OMG my fiance calls me the 'laundry nazi'... claims that before a dirty article of clothing hits the floor, it's washed, dried, folded, and back in a drawer ;)

I hate laundry, I hate my creepy basement where my washer and dryer is, but I hate staring at mountains of dirty laundry more than anything!!

Could be worse! I do several loads a day, EVERY DAY. I have 3 kids, 1 has bed-wetting issues so we wash bedding at least 2x a week and sometimes more, also a toddler who is potty training and has accidents frequently. Add in everyones pj's, my and hubby's gym clothes, all the dishrags and cleaning rags we go through.. if I don't do about 3 loads a day, I get really behind on it and then ya can't even get into the laundry room!
I think there is light at the end of the tunnel. My oldest is able to put all his clean clothes away, the potty issues are slowly getting better.

I say if YOU are doing the laundry, then YOU do what works for YOU. If he has a better system in mind, tell him to go ahead and try it.

I do one or two loads a day during the week. I make it a point to TRY to get the one or two loads 'put away'. And believe me 'put away' is used lightly! :p

We have three young kids-7,3, 1. My husband used to get mad that I would do laundry once a day. Then I pointed out that if I waited out the 5 day school/work week, there would be 25+ shirts, 25+ pairs of pants, 20+ pairs of undies and 50+ socks! He still only saw the small picture when he only had to 'put away' one of his shirts. So, I washed on Sat and waited until the next Saturday and had HIM do the laundry! It took him, literally, ALL DAY! He's not complained since!

I do laundry, every single day. The hampers never even fill up.

We are a family of 3. I run at least 2 loads a day, mainly towels.

We are doing laundry all the time. You're right, the small kids in the house just compounds the problem. One nice thing about laundry, though, is that you can "set it and forget it." It's not like we're beating clothes on a rock in the river--you can do other things while the laundry is running. I don't know if devoting a whole day to it will help--maybe it will just make you hate that day more than any other. Can your kids help at all? My five year old gets the laundry from the bedrooms, puts it in the washer, and (with help) puts in the soap and gets it started. Then he can put the laundry from the washer to dryer and (with help) start the dryer. Then get the laundry out of the dryer. Laundry is his big "chore" and he stays on top of it. Can you fold the laundry in your bedroom instead of the kitchen? And maybe deliver (or have the kids deliver) their clean clothes to their own rooms.

How old are your children? can you teach them how to wash, fold & put away? I remember having great fun matching socks with grandma when I was pre-school aged.

As for us, we do laundry 1x a week. My husband does 3-4 double loads on thursday or friday evening when the laundry room is not busy. We then dump all the laundry on the living room floor and put it away the following morning. A half hour each for the wash and dry, and a half hour for the folding.

things to make your job easier- 1. buy only one type of sock/ underpant per person. Hubby has 1doz pairs of black gold toe socks. I have 1 doz pairs of knee high argyles. No need to fuss over matching.
2. have 4 sets of clothes per kid. one for school, one for indoor play, one for outdoor play and pajamas. the school, indoor play and pajamas can go for more than one wear, unless they are stained. they are kids afterall. no one is going to fret if they wear the same khakis two or three days in a row.

here's an idea. give each kid a "cubby" it could be a box or a hanging coatrack in the foyer, or mudroom. They strip down and wash as soon as they are in from play. They change into their indoor clothes. You can swap out clothes if you think they are too dirty for wear.

3. why are you organizing dirty laundry? buy a color safe bleach and put it all through a cold wash.

4. laundry is a fact in everyone's life, but yours seems to have gotten out of control. Consider what you could be doing if you got the laundry in check. Give yourself a treat as an incentive.

5. get it out of the kitchen. you are making it harder for yourself by having to shift it around a bunch.

I hate hate hate doing laundry, but since my oldest is in school uniform and my 3 year old has potty accidents all the time, I am constantly having to do it every day. I don't want peed in clothes just sitting around getting stinky.

I live in an apartment and can only get out to the laundromat one day a week. It really stinks to have to wash everything in one day. Sometimes during the week, I will handwash clothes in the bathtub because I dont wont it sitting around and stinking up the house until laundry day. We also dont have a laundry room, either. The dirty clothes stay in bags in my bedroom until its laundry day.

Can't speak for you about being a laundry fanatic but when I was raising 6 children in the house and the oldest was 8 and the youngest an infant, laundry got done two times a day everyday. In the morning before taking my shower a load would be washing the load I started the night before would be thrown into the dryer. After showering, that load would be washed and go into the dryer. Laundry would only be done during the week but not on the weekends.

If there were soiled things like wet clothing from accidents, they would get washed immediately but I would try to wrap a full load around it so I'm not just wasting my precious time or just wash it out by hand and hang it up in the bathroom.

I never let the children get muddy dirty with abandon because that would only mean more work for me. If they did happen to be playing in the mud. they would get rinsed down outside (hands, shoes, etc.) Muddy things removed at the doorway and put into a special laundry bag for immediate washing later.

They really didn't change clothes more than perhaps twice a day if they were in camp or something like that. Children get dirty, it comes with the territory. The oldest girl is a fashionista so she would change her clothes 4 or more times a day just so she could wear all of her pretty things especially in the summer. Thank God she is grown and on her own now. She doesn't change as often, hates the extra laundry.

I would probably relax or at least get the laundry more systematic.

i run one load of clothes sun-thur nights, and fold/put them away mon-fri mornings. then on mwf, i do one load with all the dog blankets(we have four indoor dogs - i bleach out their crates as well on mwf). on tues, i run a big load of towels. on thur, i do bed linens. so, i do two loads of laundry 5 days a week, but i don't take up my weekends doing laundry :) but i am somewhat OCD, i don't like things to pile up.

I wish I had a better answer for you but yes, I do laundry constantly too! I swear this stuff multiplies if I turn my back for a second! Doing a little each day is a smart way if you don't have a laundry room where you can shut the door. Dumping it in laundry baskets for later folding is one way but I think it could bite you in the butt because behind a dark door, in the quiet of the room it will multiply!

I've tried various things, but the best thing recently is just not even sorting, but throwing everything in together (unless it's new and red) and washing on cold. Saves a step.

Another thing I read on a blog of a mom w/a house of disabled foster kids was not to fold things like underwear and pj's. She actually didn't even put pj's away- stuffed them in a cabinet and the kids got into them IN the laundry room (you could do this by the hamper if no laundry room) and then the dirty clothes were ready to go RIGHT into the washer each night.

My husband has all one kind of socks now, so I don't have to worry about matching his socks- all the white ones are the same for "everyday" wear and then all the black ones match for work- he just reaches in and grabs 2 from a bin and they automatically match. I'm working on this for the whole household.

We each have our own color-coded bath towels and we hang them up and re-use them AT LEAST once, sometimes twice. After that, I find they start to sour and need washed.

It's not the laundry schedule but the need to move everything for meals that I perceive as the hangup. Maybe one day you can have a dedicated laundry room (or room section) somewhere in your house!

If doing laundry frequently helps you keep up with things, that's fine. I don't blame you for wanting your children to change their play clothes. Tracking dirt or sand all over the house after playing makes a lot more work than many people would think. You know that the consequence is more laundry for you, but if you think you're still ahead that way, that's OK.

There were six of us here when my children were little, and I always did at least one load of laundry every day. I found it so much better than letting everything accumulate until you can't see the top of the pile.

What gets me, even now when there are just the two of us, is when the washing machine breaks down and I have to take everything to the laundromat. When I launder at home I can at least be doing something else while the machine runs - multitasking, so to speak. But to go to the laundromat - what can I do while I'm waiting? I don't want to read the magazines or watch the TV. I can take a book (and usually do), but the "at home" time is gone.

This is what I do and it seems to work pretty well, but like someone else mentioned whatever works for you is up to you.

I have 2 laundry sorters (purchased from Walmart for about $13 each) and every morning I sort the dirty laundry by colors. This way the dirty laundry is organized and I know exactly where I'm with the laundry. I end up doing at least 2 loads a day - some days more & some days less. After they are in the wash machine I place them in the dryer for about 15 minutes on delicate dry or air dry. I then hang shirts on clothesline to dry, clothes pin pants to the line and then dry jammies, undies, socks, etc... (I have clothes lines running in my basement to dry everything) It takes about a day to dry the clothes and then I don't feel so overwhelmed by folding.

Good Luck - I know you said you do not have much room, but hopefully all the suggestions from everyone will help a little :-)

I used to do a load almost daily when my kids were younger. I put in a load as soon as I woke up or the night before. Dry 5 minutes and I hang as much as I can on the shower or a door (buy one of those things that hangs over the door) and put them away when they dry.

For the basket of dried things like underwear....... I just sit it on the couch or in bedroom and fold when time........sometimes that means a couple of items here and there... my husband has learned how to fold too! My latest is to jog through out the house and jog in place to fold! Sometimes that basket will sit there a few days, but it's all clean so I can let it go.

I would suggest trying to let go of needing everything perfectly clean because when your kids begin doing their own laundry (say about junior high or high school) they will have no problem wearing the same pair of jeans for a week! Seriously, the jeans can stand up on their own by the end of the week. Then you will kick yourself for worrying so much because for the most part the kids look just fine in their "not so perfectly clean" clothing.

I do laundry on Thursday nights...I cant go to bed unless laundry is done. I start a load at 7am before going to work. I put that load after I come home from work at 530pm...and then my evening begins. I always do the white clothes first because they seem to take the fastest to dry. (BTW Dinner is leftovers served at 545) my whites are dried and put away by 7 and now the darks are in the dryer. Then its the towels and sheets in the washer around 715..by 9 the darks are dry.. I fold and bring them upstairs. i put me and hubbys clothes away (not the baby since she is sleeping). Towels and sheets are usually done around 10 or 1030..I fold those and put them away.
The next morning when the baby wakes up I put her clothes away while she is meddling around her room or going potty and brushing her teeth
Works good for me but I have grown to turn my cheek to laundry. i dont mind doing it for a night but I refuse to do a whole day..something has to give...for me its cleaning and dinner...neither of those get done when I have to do laundry.

I do mine once a week. I don't mind taking the day to do it. I hate laundry. I hate sorting, folding, and putting away. If I had to do that every day, I'd probably go nuts! Doing the dishes every day is bad enough (no dishwasher).

If my washer and dryer were in the kitchen, I'd be sorting and storing dirty laundry in the bedroom! LOL! I suppose having it in the kitchen might encourage me to do the laundry more than once a week.

On second thought....It might just encourage me to not go in the kitchen ;)

Mine is progressive. I do not have a "laundry day." I do it as it is needed, but I am blessed with a laundry room to hide it. The only thing on schedule is to make sure that everything is folded and put away by the end of the weekend. I want to make sure my husband has clean work clothes for the week.

Sweetie, everyone is constantly doing laundry. This is something nobody appreciates until there are no clean socks. If it bothers you in the kitchen, organize elsewhere -- on your bed, on the kids' beds, on the family room couch or floor -- then fold atop the dryer and shuffle into the proper room. Laundry is relentless and you must be too, in teaching the little ones as well as keeping up. They can put away their own stuff quite young, and my boys learned to do their laundry at 11 or so.
Good luck -- but in truth, it only improves when they move out! ;-)
Mama S.

Updated

Sweetie, everyone is constantly doing laundry. This is something nobody appreciates until there are no clean socks. If it bothers you in the kitchen, organize elsewhere -- on your bed, on the kids' beds, on the family room couch or floor -- then fold atop the dryer and shuffle into the proper room. Laundry is relentless and you must be too, in teaching the little ones as well as keeping up. They can put away their own stuff quite young, and my boys learned to do their laundry at 11 or so.
Good luck -- but in truth, it only improves when they move out! ;-)
Mama S.

We recently started doing the family fold. I was all the clothes on one day and then in the evening we sit around the huge pile of clean clothes in the living room and throw it at the person it belongs to. Something about throwing clean undies at mom makes it fun. Plus everything gets folded in about 15 min.
I also do about a load a day from odds and end things that need to be washed (towels, sheets, etc)