Never Ending Laundry

Laundry is a never ending chore at our house as I am sure it is at a lot of houses with multiple kids. I am in the habit of doing all of the laundry because I am home more often. All three of my kids have been in charge of putting away their clean laundry for a long time. However, only occasionally do they actually help me fold it and it’s been even rarer that they helped me get their clothes into the laundry.

How We Separate Clothes

Everyone seems to do laundry very differently. I do not mix the kids’ clothes at all. Each of them has a laundry basket in their room and I normally do their laundry once a week. That way I don’t spend more time trying to separate clothes during the folding and putting away process. With the girls being the same size for a long time now, it’s just faster for me to keep it separate. Otherwise I would accidentally put the wrong jeggings in the wrong closet and it would wreak havoc for entirely too long.  I also do not separate whites/darks for them. All of Stella’s clothes go into the washer at once. My kids don’t own many “whites” that aren’t really loaded with images and colors.

The Girls’ New Process

This school year I decided enough is enough. Both girls are in elementary school (4th and 6th Grade) and some of their friends are doing laundry…so why aren’t mine? I sat them each down and had them pick their laundry day. I said it had to be a school day and a day when they didn’t have another evening activity. So Charlotte picked Mondays and Stella picked Thursdays. Then the lessons began again. I have shown them numerous times how the washer and dryer work, but all of the options are confusing when it’s not done very often. This time I changed things up and wrote on the machines. Yes, I did. My machines are old school and I plan to keep them until they die. So I grabbed a Sharpie and circled all the settings the girls needed to check. And wrote them some extra directions.

Success

So far? It’s working. The girls come home from school and have plenty of time to get their laundry finished before dinnertime. They have way less questions now that the machines have written directions. I told Henry he has one more year of me doing his laundry before he goes to elementary school. So for now, he’s off the hook and only has to put away the clean clothes that magically appear on his bed once a week.

At what age did your kids start doing their own laundry?

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