The Easiest Way To Do Children’s Laundry

Today I’ve written (again) about laundry. This is no ordinary post about laundry, because I am going teach you something awesome. The secret is out: I have figured out the easiest way in the entire universe to do my children’s laundry. As in laundry is not a big deal for me to fit into any day, even the most craziest of days. One reason is it doesn’t involve a lot of time pushed together (unless I want to do it that way) – my usual way is five minutes here, five minutes there … and then I’m finished. Would you like to know how?? (Totally rhetorical, of course you want to know how.)

Let’s start with the setup. The steps show why this setup is important.

- Have a separate hamper for each child.*
- Use a plastic laundry basket for hygienic and multi-functional purposes.
- For multiple children in a household, label each basket in an obvious way so you can know at a glance who it belongs to.
- Teach children to put their dirty clothes in their hamper. Start when they are barely walking and have them walk the clothes over to the hamper. If your kids are older and not in this habit, try to work with them.
- Establish a day every week that is laundry day for a child or all children, depending on your schedule. Stick to this!!

*{The ONLY exception might be if you have twins who wear the same outfits and the same size and you fold their clothes and put the matching pairs side by side in a drawer. Before my twins could dress themselves, I bought them all matching clothes and put it in the same drawer. It was an adorable time of life.}

Now you’re all setup, I’ll tell you how it goes from here on my kids’ laundry day.

Step 1) Remove hampers from bedrooms and bring to a convenient sorting place where you will do the sorting. Find tiny pockets of time that you might be able to multi-task to do some sorting. My favorite times: while I supervise my children getting ready for school, while my children eat breakfast, before I head out the door to do an errand … you know you’re life, you know where you can find 5 minutes here and there.

Step 2) Time to sort. I do not sort in the conventional way. I pickup each item in the basket, turn it outside right and then plop it in a pile on the floor. ALL COLORS GET MIXED TOGETHER. I use a color catching laundry sheet (many different brands available at your grocery store) when I wash this load. The main type of clothing for my children is ‘normal wash’, so once I take care of the potential color fiasco, I’m good to go washing them all together. And by all together, I mean only one child’s colors all together. Wash each child’s laundry separately, so that there is no additional sorting when the clothes come out of the dryer, only folding!! This is important to help you save time!! The only exception I make is that true “Sunday dress” delicate pieces get put in a common delicate pile that my girls share. Each child usually only contributes 2 things to the delicate pile: their Sunday dress and gymnastics leotard. For example, for my 3 children, I do 4 loads of laundry. A regular load for each child and 1 delicate load all together.

Step 3) Pick up the pile that is ready for washing and put it back in the hamper, then put in the queue for the washing machine. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all hampers being washed.

Step 4) Wash the clothes. Don’t forget your color catching sheet and good laundry detergent and stain booster. {My daughter’s sensitive skin has improved drastically since I switched over to a nontoxic laundry detergent. It feels good not to worry about what chemicals absorb into my girls’ skin from their clothes. Plus, my clothes are cleaner than ever! I apply a little undiluted laundry detergent directly to a stain. The first time I tried it was on a light blue shirt that had a really bad spaghetti stain. After, I could not find the stain! Buy the awesome line of nontoxic Laundry cleaners from my shop here.}

Step 5) Go about your business, but set a timer for when your load will finish and take the minute to move everything to the dryer. I like to set my dry time for longer with a lower temp to help the clothes last longer. Immediately start the next load in queue.

Step 6) When the clothes are dry, wipe out the hamper with a germ-killing wipe. This way the clean clothes are going into a clean basket. And let me tell you, this will help cure some of that stink coming out of your kids rooms!  Vacuum, dust, and wash linens regularly and your kids rooms really should not stink. If wipes aren’t for you, another option is to also spray some Basic G onto the basket and just wipe it with a cloth. {If I use wipes, then I always use Shaklee wipes, because they are safe to use around my children and even more effective at killing harmful bacteria. Basic G is what I usually use because it is the cheapest option, equally effective and safe around my children. Buy the wipes from my shop here or the Basic G from my shop here.}

Step 7) Fold the clothes. Since you are only washing a week’s worth at a time, there aren’t that many clothes in there, which means it only takes a few minutes to fold this one laundry basket worth of clothes! No more huge mountains of clothes taking over your homes! I switch things up: sometimes I fold immediately when I pull it out of the dryer if I am just hanging with my kids while they play. If it is a busy day, I might bring a basket to the dinner table to fold while my pot boils on the stove. If there is a show on that night that I want to see, I fold while I watch. When you break it down into these tiny parts, you won’t find yourself procrastinating every step of the way.

Step 8) Take baskets to the children’s rooms. My girls (ages 4, 6 and 6) put their own clothes away into their drawers. Of course, I do occasionally just to check on the state of the drawers and closet.

Alter these directions at your own risk! If you skip any of these steps, you cannot fully realize the “easiest way in the entire universe” to do your children’s laundry.

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Happy Launder-ing!