Domestic Engineering: All Things Laundry

Some days I grumble and complain about how huge Mount Laundry has become.

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Other days I’m thankful for Mount Laundry because it represents sharing life with my family.

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Every day doing laundry is a way to love and care for my family.

Today we are doing a broad overview of managing laundry with little ones in the home.

Include Your Kids

From the age of two on I've started including our kids in tackling laundry. My tentative goal is for them to be able to do their own laundry by the age of eight. Here are three easy ways to help train your kids:

1. Have them collect and sort the dirty laundry by white, light, and dark clothing.
2. Allow them to start the washer or dryer, transfer the clothes into the dryer, and clean the lint filter.
3. Have them sort the clean clothes. Then teach them how to fold the laundry starting with the simplest items like towels and shorts.

Reality Check

Before I share four strategies for doing laundry well, we are going to do a reality check. The following picture is what “staying on top of laundry” looked like last week in our home.

Sometimes life just happens. A kiddo has an accident in bed. You have an unexpected visit to the pediatrician. Your husband is out of town so you’re extra tired. The list of reasons could go on for why you've fallen behind on laundry.

I'm confident I will never perfectly stay on top of laundry. But the following four areas have helped simplify the process for me.

Four Ways to Simplify Doing Laundry

1. Have a plan for getting the clothes cleaned.
Planning to do laundry doesn't have to be elaborate. But having a plan makes it easier to follow through. Here are three popular options I've done:

A) Have a designated laundry day.  

I did this until our third came along as the number of interruptions became too much. If you like to build upon momentum this option is ideal for you.

Also, you know your relentless kitchen timer that ensures you won't burn dinner or your house down? Turns out it’s an amazing gadget to not forget the laundry. The trick is to not turn it off until you have switched out the loads.

B) Build doing a daily load of laundry into your routine.

This is what I currently do and I love it. I start a load at breakfast, put it in the dryer at lunch, and fold it before afternoon quiet time. The beauty of this option is that it becomes a habit so you don’t need to think about it much.

• Assign types of laundry for different days. 

Being this detailed makes my head spin so I've adapted it. Currently, this looks like having Saturday as my designated day to wash our sheets and towels. 

2. Always have the necessary items ready.
While this will vary for each person, I have six "must-have" items for doing laundry.

For keeping clothes clean, stain remover and laundry detergent are necessities. White vinegar is vital to remove strong smells in the wash (especially for musty towels). Additionally, lingerie bags are required for special care items.

Once the clothes are washed, drying racks are perfect for those special care items. Otherwise, stackable laundry baskets are indispensable for transporting clean (and ideally folded) laundry.


3. Have strategies in place for getting clothes dried and put away quickly.

• Use dryer balls to reduce drying time and drop the need for fabric softener. 

• Keep your lint screen clean! A clogged screen makes the dryer work harder and can be a fire hazard. Besides wiping it off every load, test if it is clogged by running it under water. If the water pools, wash it in warm, soapy water to remove the residue buildup. 

• If you hate ironing and often fail at folding clothes promptly - like myself - my friend’s tip is for you. Toss a bunch of ice cubes in the dryer with the wrinkled clothes and dry for five minutes.

• Learn how to fold fitted sheets.

• Fold clothes straight from the dryer into baskets. This is one of my favorite strategies as it helps avoid having piles of Mount Laundry to fold later.

• Use the filing method to fold kids' clothes. All you need is shoe boxes and a limit on how many clothes you try to squeeze into any one drawer. This is the only method I’ve found where my girls’ clothes stay organized.

• If your kids are the same gender, use the dot system to make sorting their clothes easier. Using a permanent marker, add one small dot on each of the tags for the second child, two dots for the third, etc.

4. Use folding clothes time intentionally.
One of my favorite podcast episodes is “Beauty creator. Unity builder.” In it, Ruth Chou Simons talks about creating a joyful atmosphere in the home. One of the ways she seeks to do this is through intentional encouragement at dinner.

Her example reminded me of Hebrews 3:13 which says,

"But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."

After trying to do this for a few evenings, I realized you can't be encouraging about things you don't see.

Enter one of my new laundry routines: praying for and thinking of ways to encourage my family as I fold laundry. While I do this inconsistently, this practice is helping me see more and more how God is at work in their lives.

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* Photo by Sarah Dorweiler on Unsplash.