Laundry

With children comes laundry. It’s inevitable and unavoidable. The exponential growth of laundry can feel stressful and smothering, but it does’t have to. Here are our survival tips for happier laundry.

Ample Hampers for Dirty Clothes

If the amount of dirty laundry increases, it only makes sense that the amount of hampers (and amount of hamper locations) should increase too. This prevents dirty laundry from overflowing into visible mountains, which can set off feelings of overwhelm.

A Clean Laundry System that Supports Chaos

With busy days, it’s not always possible to put clean laundry away in the moment. We love this tip from one of our Simple Mommies! “Having an acceptable holding ground for clean laundry that’s out of the way, like a spare guest bedroom, keeps it from being an eye sore or a stress inducer. Whenever someone in the family has a little time or energy, they do some folding.  Sometimes it’s peaceful and meditative solo folding. Sometimes it’s where my husband and I catch up on the days events while he folds shirts and I fold pants. Sometimes it’s a rowdy family folding party with a designated DJ. And even sometimes, our five year old goes in to surprise us with folded piles for each family member.”

Play Laundry Games

A surefire way to make laundry more fun is to play games with your kids while you do it. Play Go Fish with socks to make matches. Have your kids cheer you on like a sporting event (got pom poms?) while you race to deliver clean clothes to closets before a sand time runs out or before a song finishes. Set up a store and have each child come “buy” some clothes, then bring each purchase back to their “house,” ahem closet. 

Happy laundering!