What Our Laundry Routine Looks Like #TideVividWhite
Do you kids help with the laundry routine at your house? This really has been a very helpful chore we have implemented in our home.
Let’s face it. All of the laundry responsibilities can be very overwhelming for one person to manage. Not to mention all of the other household tasks piled on top of that.
Slowly we have implemented the kids helping out. One of my good friends, who is a mom of six, reminded me it was time.
I must also say here that laundry is my enemy. It is THE household chore I have always struggled with– even when I had no children. Personally, I think loveseats and couches make the perfect laundry holders. Like permanent laundry holders. I call this the loveseat routine. But, obviously that is not practical if you want a place to sit in the living room.
All kids are responsible for getting their dirty clothes into the laundry room. This generally all takes place after showers at night.
Towels and whites go in one basket, everything else goes into another bin. Simple enough that everyone, even the four year old, can do it.
At least one load of laundry must be done at our house every day. Minimum. Preferably 2 loads a day.
I do all the washing and the drying. We are not at a place where I want the kids loading the washer unsupervised since our front load washer is so finicky. I do have the twins (age 7) help me put the clothes into the washer and dryer and sometimes I will let them push the buttons while I direct. Sometimes Anthony (age 12) will move clothes from the washer to the dryer unsupervised.
Once clothes are done drying they are brought to the kitchen table. The laundry must be tended to in order to utilize the kitchen table for eating and homeschool, so this is finally what worked for me. It puts the laundry in my face and forces it to be folded and hung up. (I have set up a work station area in our laundry room with a laundry folding table and a place to hang clothes as we go. It has only allowed us to pile up clean clothes and keep them out of site and out of mind. And that just makes for wrinkled piles of clothes just like the loveseat routine.)
I sort all of the clothes. I fold what needs to be folded as I go (jammies, towels, play clothes).
All of the hanging clothes are neatly put into a pile. Anthony is the hanging up clothes man. This is one of his big chores that is done on a daily (or almost daily) basis. It is THE number one chore he does that helps me tremendously.
Generally after homeschool work is done, Anthony takes the clothes from the kitchen into our living room and places them neatly in piles on the couch as he hangs them.
His clothes in one pile, Daddy’s clothes in one pile, etc.
He then takes each pile and hangs them in the appropriate closet.
When I am done folding, each child is responsible for putting their folded clothes into the appropriate drawers.
The little kids have stickers on their drawers that label and identify what goes in each drawer. (Underwear, jammies, play shirts and play shorts.) I will share these cool stickers with you soon in another post.
If you have been reading my site for long, you also know we had an epic sock basket issue that almost grew to the point of Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out. Our sock basket is now a small basket that is becoming the responsibility of the twins. They are certainly old enough to pair and mate socks. Their steady work should eliminate the sock basket all together.
And this laundry routine has saved my sanity and makes for a happy family.
I do love this Tide Vivid White that I was sent to try. Bold moms are making bold choices with this new vivid white formula. It has a bleach alternative that allows you to skip the bleach with your whites and is safe for brights as well. Awesome mommy solution!
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