Who would have thought that by adding one little human to our family that the laundry would double??? It definitely seems like it has! Between Tolar's work clothes and regular clothes, my clothes plus workout gear, Baby K's huge pile of laundry and all of our sheets and towels - there definitely isn't a shortage of laundry around here!
I used to struggle to keep up with the laundry and would find myself spending all weekend long taking care of loads and loads of laundry. Now I have a better handle on things and have found some tips that work for our family.
When I was pregnant with Baby K, I started using all free clear laundry detergent because I knew that babies have sensitive skin and I didn't want my little sweetie to have any sort of reaction. Well, all free clear has become THE laundry detergent in my family. Besides being the #1 recommended detergent brand by Dermatologists, Allergists and Pediatricians for sensitive skin, all free clear is tough on stains and gentle enough for our whole family. If K has some sort of reaction or rash show up on her body, I don't even have to question what type of detergent I used that might have caused it; I know her skin is safe with all free clear.
I wash all of our clothes, not just Baby K's, in all free clear laundry detergent. Because we are in a smaller house than before, we don't have a ton of space to keep several different kinds. With all free clear, all of our laundry is taken care of - and looks great too!
Since I have so much laundry to tackle in my house (and I'm sure you do too!), here are my tips for keeping the laundry under control:
-Don't wait and let your laundry pile up. Do a load every day or every 2 days.
I used to think that doing a load of laundry every day sounded time consuming, but I have since learned it is easier for me to get it all done and not feel like I'm wasting my life away folding and putting away laundry. Instead of spending all weekend inside, if I do a little bit each day it takes me less time to fold it and put it away and I don't feel like the task is as daunting since I only have a little bit to do at a time. Plus I don't have piles of laundry sitting around my house getting wrinkled, causing me to have to spend even more time on the laundry.
I used to think that doing a load of laundry every day sounded time consuming, but I have since learned it is easier for me to get it all done and not feel like I'm wasting my life away folding and putting away laundry. Instead of spending all weekend inside, if I do a little bit each day it takes me less time to fold it and put it away and I don't feel like the task is as daunting since I only have a little bit to do at a time. Plus I don't have piles of laundry sitting around my house getting wrinkled, causing me to have to spend even more time on the laundry.
-Separate your laundry out by person.
I used to wash mine and Tolar's clothes together, but by keeping everything separate I can easily put things away and know where they go. Tolar and I both have a side in our closet and specific drawers; by washing one person's clothes at a time I don't have to walk all over the place putting things away. And it makes it easy to get help with the laundry too!
-Wash your sheets and towels on the same day every week.
I always wash my sheets and towels on Saturday. By doing this I make sure that the sheets get changed every week and that I have plenty of time to fold them. I used to wash my sheets and towels whenever I needed new ones and would sometimes not have enough time to fold them. Which meant that I would leave everything in the dryer, forgetting about them, and would end up turning the drying on to fluff them several times before I got around to folding them. Now that I do them on the same day every week, I always know how to plan to make sure they get done.
I used to wash mine and Tolar's clothes together, but by keeping everything separate I can easily put things away and know where they go. Tolar and I both have a side in our closet and specific drawers; by washing one person's clothes at a time I don't have to walk all over the place putting things away. And it makes it easy to get help with the laundry too!
-Wash your sheets and towels on the same day every week.
I always wash my sheets and towels on Saturday. By doing this I make sure that the sheets get changed every week and that I have plenty of time to fold them. I used to wash my sheets and towels whenever I needed new ones and would sometimes not have enough time to fold them. Which meant that I would leave everything in the dryer, forgetting about them, and would end up turning the drying on to fluff them several times before I got around to folding them. Now that I do them on the same day every week, I always know how to plan to make sure they get done.
-Use a lingerie bag to keep little items from getting lost.
Baby K's socks are tiny and there are so many of them! So I bought a lingerie bag to keep everything together. To this day, I have never lost one of K's socks because they are safely zipped away in the lingerie bag. That saves me a ton of time, I don't have to look all over the place for a missing sock. I also use the lingerie bag to wash her stuffed animals and keep them looking like new.
-Fluff clothes so you don't have to iron them later.
Tolar likes a lot of his clothes to be air dried instead of in the dryer for an entire heat cycle. But sometimes they are really wrinkled and I know that if I just hang them up I will have a lot of ironing to do later. So I throw the shirts that are really wrinkled in with everything else, but only for about 5 minutes. This fluffs up the clothes and gets those wrinkles out and still allows them to be air dried the rest of the way; saving me tons of time.
-If you can't put the clothes away, at least lay them flat.
A lot of the time, I end up doing laundry after Baby K has gone to bed which means that I cannot put her clothes away until the next morning. Well I don't want to just leave her clothes in a big pile that could get wrinkled, so I always go through her clean laundry and lay everything out flat. Then in the morning, because everything is already laid out I can easily hang it all up in a short amount of time.
I do a lot of these things myself. I wash clothes 4 days a week and its only my husband and me.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amysfashionblog.com/blog-home