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Kids and Laundry {Episode 11}
128 Plays6 years ago
In this episode, Audrey & Bonnie share all their best tips to help with the laundry! From pre-laundry decisions to getting the kids involved, by the time you're finished with this episode, you'll be motivated to attack that laundry pile again!
Show notes:
Bonnie recommends:
Oxyclean
Costco brand laundry soap
Audrey recommends:
Grandma's Secret Stain Remover
Affresh washing machine cleaner
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Outnumbered Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're moms to a combined total of 16 kids with two more on the way. Yes, we know that sounds insane, and it usually is. But we're here to share the tips that help us keep our sanity and to share inspiring thoughts that help us get through each crazy day. Uninterrupted conversation is foreign to us, but we'll try. And we invite you to join us on our journey as we find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Managing Large Family Laundry
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. We're on episode 11. And I'd like to start today by introducing you to a superwoman, a lady who does the laundry for 10 people every single day. This is my co-host, Bonnie.
00:01:03
Speaker
That's a good one. Hey, it takes a superwoman to know one. I will give you credit for that as well. Yeah, it's funny. A lot of people, that's one of the first things a lot of people bring up when they hear about our big family is, Laundry, you do laundry for that many people.
00:01:20
Speaker
And it totally, it can, it can totally seem like an overwhelming job, especially if we get behind, we go on vacation. I come back and I'm like, well, I'm just going to drive on this laundry and you'll find my Sunday. Laundry is always the big or Monday. Laundry is always the biggest because Sunday I don't do laundry. So Monday laundry is like twice as big.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, because you took a day off. Way to go. So today we've got a whole laundry list. We're going to cover everything related to laundry and things we've done. Things we've done to reduce the time we spend in the laundry room. How to unhook yourself from that ball and chain, known as the washing machine and dryer.
Unexpected Parenting Moments
00:02:00
Speaker
That's right. We're going to start with this week's humor segment. OK, so today is actually mildly laundry related. Are you ready for it?
00:02:08
Speaker
Okay, this Insane Mom Moment comes from Reena on Instagram. And she said, yesterday, my kids did something I did not expect. And I have five boys need I say more? Well, they took turns peeing in the super sober water gun and shooting each other with it.
00:02:30
Speaker
He says, seriously, how do they think of these things? It was so gross. I always try and look for the positive, so I was just happy they did it outside. That is a good attitude. Oh boy, I think that would have taken me quite a while to find the positive in that situation.
00:02:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Good times. So she's got some laundry on her hands now, apparently. Yeah. All right. Are you ready to air our dirty laundry?
Strategies to Simplify Laundry
00:03:02
Speaker
Let's do it. Before you ever get started with laundry, there's some pre-laundry decisions you can make to make laundry easier before you ever get to the laundry room. Yeah, that's right. And it took me a long time to figure this out. I just thought, well, we bought clothes and we wore them and then we washed them. But as the family grew, I realized some things have to change or I'm going to be washing forever.
00:03:25
Speaker
One of my tips for these pre-laundry decisions is that I'm pretty, a pretty big stickler about what goes into the laundry basket. So I'm kind of this little talk that goes into people's bedrooms sometimes. I found a clean pair of pants in the laundry. What are these doing in here, you know? My favorite is finding a folded shirt in the laundry.
00:03:47
Speaker
The worst, the worst. My mom said one time she went in to check on my brother's room and he was notoriously messy. And there was a big pile of clothes and as she starts cleaning them up off the floor, she finds an entire folded stack on the floor from the week before. And she's like, oh, you are dead, Giles.
00:04:06
Speaker
So, and we've come up with a couple of rules for this. So all my kids know we wear pants more than once, unless you rolled in mud in them or had an accident, then we wear pants more than once, but we don't wear underwear more than once. Underwear or a one-time gig. It's a surprise sometimes these children, right? But these are, you know, basic principles that we adults live our lives by. They need to be explained to children. And it's surprising how old of a child sometimes you have to explain that change your underwear every day rule too.
00:04:33
Speaker
Yes, yes. One time I told my oldest, oh gosh, he was probably eight, old enough to know better. And he said something like, my feet itch. And I'm like, uh, have you been changing your socks every day? And he said, every day. I said, yes, son, you have to change socks and underwear every day. Well,
00:04:54
Speaker
Oh, I don't think you told me that. And I said, well, if you don't, you can get, you know, like germs and bugs living in your, you know, I'm trying to explain this to a child and he's like, well, I didn't know the, I didn't know the consequences of that rule. I'm like, yeah, they're grown. And then there's kids where they go through the stage. I've had kids go through both these stages where, um, the kids, they hit the stage where they changed their clothes. This is a little girl thing for us.
00:05:21
Speaker
eight times a day. Oh, you know, and you'll ask, why did you change to this other shirt? The other one, you know, you had on wasn't dirty. Oh, well, you know, I got a spot of water on it. Or I just like this one better. Or, you know, with some dumb excuse and they really just want to, I don't know, practice getting dressed and undressed. Yes. My three-year-old is like that right now. And if she can't stand any water on her at all, if she gets a speck of water on her, I have changed my shirt. I said, it'll dry. No, no, no, no, no. I have had to like that.
00:05:49
Speaker
Absolutely. Will not tolerate one drop of water on their clothes. So then I just hang it back up. You could wear it tomorrow. I'm not washing that. And I don't know if any of your kids have gone through this stage, but my two little boys right now are in a stage where I don't even know why they have more than one shirt and one pair of pants in their drawer because they wear the same camo shirt and camo pants every single day. Day in. Do you pretend you can't see them all the time? That would be my favorite joke.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah. And that makes it a little difficult to wash, especially if they're stinky boys. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing you can do is one thing we have done that's helped is because I do laundry every day, we kind of do capsule wardrobes, especially for the youngest kids who sometimes have trouble matching like colors or they wear, you know,
00:06:39
Speaker
stripes and dots at the same time
Capsule Wardrobes for Kids
00:06:41
Speaker
or whatever. So if you get them just a little capsule wardrobe where everything matches and then they have less clothes to be laundered, but they also have, they don't look like a clown everywhere they go.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yes. Yes. I like that idea. And actually, for those younger kids, it's usually pretty easy to find a store-bought collection that works like that. You can go to Target or Walmart or something. They have a colorway that they're using that season just by all their clothes like that. I used to be pretty picky about each kid having their own specific set of clothes. But as we got more clothes and kids, as they get older, they don't grow quite as much in between each size. I much prefer to let my kids who are close in ages share clothes as much as possible.
00:07:26
Speaker
until they stop liking that, which is about seven or eight for the girls and maybe a little bit over the boys. Just because it's a lot easier, like my twins I've noticed, I do a lot less laundry and just because they can mix and match more things, even though they have more than just one actual person, obviously. And then I've learned also over the years that sometimes I make myself kind of crazy because I don't want a lot of clothes around, but then I find myself having to launder each kid's stuff
00:07:56
Speaker
twice a week or something. And I really dislike that. I'd rather do a big load less often. So that for me personally, I've actually defaulted to the side of buying more underwear and socks and like the shirts that they're changing every single day, just so that I don't have to do laundry quite as often, even though it means a bigger load at the end. Right. Right. Everybody has to figure out what works best for their, their family and their situation.
00:08:20
Speaker
Right. Right. And it depends on what your kids are doing every day too. So like our kids are homeschooled. So guess what? They can look homeless most days. They can wear their pajamas if they want to. Yeah. But if your kids go to school or if they have a uniform, you know, obviously your laundry system has to look a little bit different too.
00:08:35
Speaker
Right. We have specific clothes for specific activities. So in the morning, my kids put on their chore clothes and they go outside and they do the animal chores and they come in, you know, with chicken poop on their pants or whatever, and they go change. And then those clothes get washed pretty often, but then the clothes that they choose to wear the rest of the day, you know, those could be hung up and worn again.
00:08:57
Speaker
if they didn't get them dirty or spill on them or have an accident or something. And then we do the same thing for good clothes too, for church. Those clothes, they're specific. They can't wear those to go outside and play and wrestle and get grass stains on. Those are specifically for, so that those clothes stay nice longer and that helps with the laundry.
00:09:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's funny. You bring that up because when in my house growing up, my mom wouldn't let us change out of our church clothes on Sunday because she claimed that it made us stay a little bit more reverent and Sunday like if we were going to dress all day, you know, that we would be less likely to go outside and play football. But then she had to wash the clothes every time. So I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I let my kids change as soon as they're home. And then it's like, good, you can wear that dress next week. Yeah, hang that up. I don't have to iron it again next week. Exactly. Exactly.
00:09:47
Speaker
Okay, another tip for these pre laundry decisions is to buy clothes and colors that need less care or fewer laundering sessions or less ironing. I have become an ironing hater. I used to iron a ton when
00:10:02
Speaker
We were first married and I just hate it. If I'm not sewing, I'm not ironing. So I usually, you know, so my husband's church shirts are the, you know, we spend a little bit more to get the kind that just don't wrinkle and I pull them out of the dryer and hang them right up because I just, you know, cause those are things that are just not worth my time. You know, and, and sturdier clothes like, so your kid,
00:10:24
Speaker
If your kid gets a really frilly little tutu that she loves to wear over and over, chances are good it's not gonna hold up to a lot of laundering, and especially if it's something she likes to wear all the time. So I like corduroy, I like jeans, I like these things that are gonna hold up and probably keep from staining a little bit better than the things that are frilly. Right, if you're gonna buy your kid white clothes, also buy bleach, right? My solution on ironing is I teach my girls how to iron
00:10:54
Speaker
their brother's clothes there and their brother's clothes. And then I teach my boys how to iron their clothes too. Or at least short of ironing. Like, um, you know, if you're putting on a button up shirt for, um, church and we're in a hurry, then you say, okay, see this bucket, button placket right here in the middle. You don't have to iron the whole shirt. Just iron that button placket right down the middle and it'll be, it'll look good.
00:11:16
Speaker
And you know, since I've quit most of my ironing, my favorite tip is just to spray a bottle of water. And this doesn't always work like it works really well for us because we live in Phoenix and it's really dry all the time and hot. So things dry really, really fast. But if I pull something out and it's been left in the laundry basket or they need to get dressed in the next half hour and it's really, really wrinkled, I just spritz it down really good.
00:11:38
Speaker
and stick it on a hanger outside and it dries quick and they throw it on. I mean, that is like my solution every time. Or, you know, stuff just languishes in the laundry basket sometimes. I'll pull it out, spritz it down and stick it in their closet. And by the time it's time to wear it, it's, it's all
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And then there's also frequency at which you want to wash, say, bedding or towels. Like here, we always use our towels twice, you know, at least twice because you're drying off a clean body, right? So you don't have to throw it in the laundry right away. And then just like you were saying, so we wear a good clothes twice, but kind of to keep track of if you've worn it once already or not, instead of hanging it. Like backwards, right?
00:12:19
Speaker
So that you know which ones have been worn already once and which haven't. Or you can instead of hanging it over the shoulders of the hanger, you can just hang it over the bar part of the hanger. Just a little bit different. So you know if it's been worn once or twice.
00:12:34
Speaker
Well, my kids like to wear the same thing over and over to church and I like them to have a little bit of variety just because I'm picky like that. So oftentimes when they're done and if once it's been washed or if it's still clean, I'll hang it up and then I'll make sure they stick it in to the far right or far left of their closet. And then I say you pull your clothes from the far, you know, whatever the opposite is and wanted to hang it up. So I'm guaranteed at least three or four Sundays before they wear the same thing again until they wise up and then they just pick the same thing.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, I have one kid who likes to wear the same thing every single week. And I'm like, don't you think people are going to start remembering that you've worn that same outfit for two months? I don't care. I'll just get picked out of a crowd. They'll always know it's him in that shirt. OK, so moving on from the pre-laundry decisions, we can talk about age-appropriate kid responsibilities.
Teaching Kids Laundry Responsibility
00:13:21
Speaker
Because if you've got kids, they should be helping with laundry, right? Absolutely. This has been something that's been difficult for me because I am a little bit
00:13:29
Speaker
That's a nice way of saying it. I'm a little type A and laundry is one of those things, especially if there's handmade things in there or if there's things that I've spent money on. Cause I just, clothes are one of my passions. I just love cute clothes and I love making them. And so putting nice clothes in my kids' hands, I'm like, oh, don't ruin this. Oh, don't dry that.
00:13:49
Speaker
So I do try to keep our clothes as low maintenance as possible. But we do want to talk specifically about the ages that are appropriate for each of these tasks so that you can get kids helping out by the time they're teens. Because sadly, if you wait till they're 11 or 12 and capable to ask them to help, chances are they're not going to help. They're not going to be used to it, and they're not going to help.
00:14:08
Speaker
Exactly. So starting off with the youngest of ages, so about ages one to five, those are all capable of putting away laundry. So obviously your one and your two year old are going to make a bit of a mess if you give them a folded shirt. But if you, you know, write their hands and say, here, this is how we put the shirt in, they get so excited.
00:14:26
Speaker
And they love to do it. Um, and your five-year-old is definitely capable of taking those clothes in nicely. That reminds me of one of my favorite Calvin Hobbs comics. We'll have to put a picture of it in the show notes. It's where he's, um, holding up a shirt and criticizing his mom. Why didn't you, why didn't you iron this shirt? And why is my underwolf folded this way and not that way? And then the last, you know, he's criticizing his mom. And then the last frame, he's just taking an entire pile and just stuffing it into a drawer.
00:14:57
Speaker
Good for his mom. Oh, you think you can do it before my son? Here you go. So from ages six to about 10, they can gather the laundry and get it all to the laundry room so it can be washed. And then they can fold all the laundry. Like I mentioned in our episode three, it was when we talked about chores and kids, my kids fold all the laundry and it's not pretty. And sometimes I could do it faster myself, but they like to listen to audio books and fold laundry.
00:15:24
Speaker
And then as well as, you know, they put their laundry away and maybe help their younger siblings get their laundry in. The drawer is a little nicer.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea. Yeah. And you know, the interesting thing about gathering the laundry and getting it to the laundry room, one thing that I found is there's a really, one of the most important lessons we teach our kids is cause and effect, right? The consequences of our actions. And I've noticed is how hard it is for kids to understand that when the clothes are dirty, they must
00:15:54
Speaker
come out of your room, get washed and then be returned in order to be clean, right? So like my one of my seven-year-olds has a real hard time with this. She comes in and she's like, I need more underwear. And I'm like, okay, well, what does your laundry basket look like? It's cool. Okay.
00:16:09
Speaker
Oh, we can logically conclude that. You know, but her solution is let's just find more. And so I think giving her the responsibility of gathering it and getting it to the laundry room helps her make that connection. You know, and it seems silly to an adult, but she needs to make the connection. Then I put it dirty in this basket. It needs to be washed. So let's get it to where it needs to go. Yes. You know, then hopefully another couple of years she can take care of herself. Oh, yes. And then there's the kid who throws their things across the room at the laundry basket and doesn't get it in. So if I,
00:16:38
Speaker
If I'm the one gathering the laundry, especially, especially, you know, like when I'm pregnant, I'm like, I can't crawl around on the floor and pick up all your laundry that you missed. I'm only going to wash what's in the laundry basket.
00:16:54
Speaker
Well, oh, you don't have any underwear? Oh, look, there's seven pairs on the floor of the bathroom. I can't tell if it's clean or if it's dirty on the floor. Well, sniff it, kid. I'm not doing that for you. On the underwear, we're going to default to dirty. Okay, so moving on to ages 11 to about 15.
00:17:12
Speaker
And this is where they really get helpful and they can totally start their own laundry and switch loads. This is a very simple task. And especially if you're out running errands, you can say, guess what, you are on laundry duty. And it can be as simple as just moving one load from the washer to the dryer and throwing in the new load. A few tips for this when you start getting kids to wash their own is to make sure they know what
00:17:36
Speaker
Clothes should look like when they go in the washer so that they shouldn't look like a pair of pants bunched in a ball with underwear stuffed in there. And there are certain things that are a little bit better to wash inside out versus right side out. And that also then translates into how they treat their clothes in their room. So the kids that load the washer know to not pull their pants and their underwear off in one big heat because they're going to just have to pull it back. Exactly.
00:18:01
Speaker
That tattoo drives me crazy. Me too and the legs are inside out so you can't even like shake the underwear out. I remember sitting down with my oldest three when they were in the 11 to 15 year old age and we had gotten a new washing machine and their excuse was that they didn't know how to run it so they couldn't start the laundry mom.
00:18:25
Speaker
That's an easy solution. So I drew this big diagram. We have this great big chalkboard in our homeschool room. And I drew this big diagram. I said, all right, listen up. There's three variables on a washing machine. The water temperature, the length of the cycle, and the amount of dirtiness. So basically, any washing machine you can run from this point out, because you just pick those three things, water temperature. And then they are like, OK, now go.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah. Good for you. Yeah. Because there are things that, you know, you just do, um, kind of mindlessly because you're, you know, for example, I haven't, I haven't run a washing machine load on anything less than extra large and probably five years, but that's something that, you know, they need to know that, Oh, when we wash the whites that I always turn it to hot, don't forget to turn it back to cold or warm or whatever. So that's a good tip. You have to teach them too. And I've seen lots of nice, helpful principles on the internet that you can hang like in your laundry room where
00:19:22
Speaker
You teach them about sorting or what kind of clothes get washed together. You know, you don't wash your white Sunday shirt with your blue jeans or, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah.
00:19:31
Speaker
Yeah. In fact, on that note, just a quick question for you. How picky do you guys get on your sorting? Are you pretty good at sorting colors or do you get kind of, you know, I usually do, okay. So I do like three to four loads a day. And one is whites, which includes things that need to be washed on hot. So underwear and towels.
00:19:52
Speaker
And then colors. Um, and so that's like, unless it's a really huge load, like Monday, I might have two loads of colors, a light color and a dark color. And that those are washed on cold. And then, uh, the last load is jeans. Cause we wash those, you know, they bleed their entire life. So you don't wash those with anything else. Yeah. And then some days I might have an extra load of towels or bedding or something.
00:20:12
Speaker
Yeah. One of the, and I should have included this in the pre laundry decisions, but one of the things that I've changed in past years is I just don't buy light things for my little kids anymore. Like if it's not a dark color, I'm like, yeah, pass. It's an adorable shirt, but it's going to get cleaned in five seconds or bleed on something because I've gotten a lot less picky about how we sort as well. So I do try to keep jeans kind of on their own and always whites, but other than that, I just kind of, you know, and their kids clothes that I usually buy for cheap. So if it's not handmade or something that I really love.
00:20:40
Speaker
That's picky. And I've also found that, and we'll talk about our favorite tools later on, but I've also found that OxiClean gets out dye run. So if you have dye transfer, you can open an OxiClean and it very often gets it out. So I have, I have solved my problems that way. We both have a bunch of recommendations for the end. So stick around till then.
Daily Laundry Routines
00:21:04
Speaker
And then age 16 plus, they can do their own laundry and you can give them a responsibility for all the laundry. So they can do everybody's laundry too. At our house, I actually don't have my teenagers do their own laundry because it's just too complicated. I have too many teenagers and somebody's stuff is sitting in the washing machine for four hours and nobody else can...
00:21:26
Speaker
get their stuff in. So we do it together, but they can take the week where they're like the manager or the supervisor of laundry for that week or whatever. But if you have a better setup than we do or less teenagers or something, they can do their own laundry. Yeah. Or if you have two sets of washers and dryers, which I really wish we did, but we don't.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah. So that, that leads us into possible laundry scenarios. So there are, you know, as many different laundry setups as there are in the world. But we're going to share a couple of our favorites and possible ones, especially for larger families or, um,
00:22:03
Speaker
just frustrating laundry rooms that could maybe lend some success to your situation. So a friend of mine who also has eight kids, she in her last house had a family laundry room. So that meant all the clothes were stored in this big gigantic room. It was like a spare bedroom was really big. So she had her washer and dryer in there. The kids came in, changed there, left their dirty clothes there and then got dressed in there.
00:22:30
Speaker
So the boys would have a turn, the girls would have a turn. And then there were never any clothes in the rooms. And they never had to take them anywhere to put them away. And I thought that was pretty. You're building a house or you have all the space in the world. Do that. That sounds amazing.
00:22:45
Speaker
What we've started using in this current house because we have a little extra space in our laundry room is by no means large but we've started so I keep empty baskets for each kid on a rack and they actually it's a it's a half a basket per kid. So when they bring in their dirty laundry basket ideally every kid who shares a room
00:23:10
Speaker
would keep their clothes together in one basket. But that's not always realistic because I have a baby who poops her pants and we throw that in with something or somebody jumped in the mud and we throw that in with it. You know, so things are always getting mixed up. When they do get mixed up, I pull it out of the dryer and immediately sort of into each of these baskets.
00:23:26
Speaker
So then if the kids are desperate and saying, why don't I'm the underwear in my room? I say, well, look at your clean basket. Is it full? Oh yeah, it is. Okay, time to go put it away. So the downside to that is that it doesn't get folded immediately, but it has become so much easier for me at this stage of life to not immediately fold a load. I just sort it and then my job is done. And then if they want their clothes folded and put away, then they know where to get them.
00:23:51
Speaker
Okay, so one way that we've done it in the past in one of our past houses was we actually only had top and bottom stacking washer and dryer. And my husband had worked for a company in the past that actually, he knew the dark dirty side and those were actually a fire hazard. So he's like, we are not using these at all. Yeah.
00:24:15
Speaker
So what I would do in that situation, this was back when we just had one kids, but one day of the week would be laundry day and we'd go take everything to the laundry mat and get it all, you know, they have like six, eight washing machines. So you can get everything done in an hour, an hour and a half. And you don't spend, I mean, I spend way more than an hour, an hour and a half. So it's kind of an attractive thing to think about. Like, um, you know, maybe you have a laundry mat nearby and that's the best solution. Yeah. I wonder if we can get access to those massive machines, industrial machines. Definitely.
00:24:45
Speaker
Yeah, do I have to just create an LLC and say I'm a laundromat? We have customers.
00:24:51
Speaker
So what we do right now is we do several loads every single day. So that works best for us. And we can keep fewer amounts of clothes for our kids, like the capsule wardrobes, because we do laundry every day. The way my mom did it was she had laundry in her house, but she did laundry on Saturday. Saturday was her laundry day. So she spent like, you know, most of the day Saturday doing laundry, but she didn't do laundry any other day of the week, no matter what.
00:25:17
Speaker
Right. Now that's interesting. See, I've tried that in the past, but I think we passed that about three kids ago. I'd say the most people I know with four kids or fewer can usually get most of it done in a day. But once you hit probably about that five kid mark, I think it's all over. That's exactly right. My mom had four kids, so that was her.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, their kids take up more space. Yeah. So as far as our system goes, we're pretty similar to you, two or three loads. And then sometimes I like to keep things moving in there, you know, just kind of a constant little bit of effort here and there because it doesn't take that much effort if you have a washer and dryer. But I've also noticed that then I get burned out and I'll take like two days off and not even realize it.
00:25:58
Speaker
Until all of a sudden I'm thinking, Oh shoot, we gotta, you know, so that's kind of how I roll. I'm not quite as consistent, but I do have, you know, my, my high days and my low days. Oh, I have to walk right past my laundry room to get to my bedroom in the morning. Like it's yeah. So it's like, I can't just ignore it because I have to walk past it every day.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah. I've also wondered what the best schedule is for getting things washed in a timely manner without everybody running out of underwear or towels and that sort of thing. And so I've come up with a couple of different schedules. At first I had a different type of laundry that we were doing each day. So, you know, Monday was
00:26:37
Speaker
all the dark clothes from the master bedroom. And then Tuesday was the light clothes on the white, that sort of thing. And then Wednesday was all the girls clothes. But then I started realizing that we didn't quite need laundry done exactly every seven days. It was more like every 10 days. So instead my schedule now looks like I just wrote it on a piece of paper and slapped it up on the wall in there. It looks like instead of a day of the week, it's just an order.
00:27:02
Speaker
So, you know, let's say I did my jeans and dark things yesterday, then today means I'm on whites and tomorrow means it'll be towels. So I have this order that nothing gets missed. Like one of my notoriously bad things to remember is washing sheets.
00:27:20
Speaker
I remember to wash my own because I sleep in them, but the kids, if they don't have an accident, I'm like, oh my God, we got to make them strip their beds. And then it's always a fight to get them to put them back on, but it's on the schedule. Today's the day. We got to do it guys. Sorry. So that's just kind of what's working for us lately. Okay. Let's go on to our favorite laundry tips to help make laundry, not such a chore.
Efficient Laundry Management Tips
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah. So I think I mentioned already, we have a lot of little kids still that mess their clothes up very often. They have a potty accident or they spill something on themselves. So if something is stained or stinky, which most pajamas are, if they've wet the diaper all night long, I just strip it off and put it right on top of the washing machine. Because I find if I put it in the basket, then it'll go be another week and stink up the room or whatever.
00:28:05
Speaker
And then the stain stuff can get pretreated right then and go into whatever the next load is that we're putting in. And then I mentioned the clean sorting baskets that we use. And I usually have some hangers in the laundry room to air dry, some delicates or church clothes that I don't necessarily want to throw in the dryer.
00:28:25
Speaker
And always have something going. Always have something on. I think I heard you say one time that if your house was on fire, you would say, oh, wait a minute. I got to switch one last load of laundry. And that's how we feel any time we're going somewhere or doing something and everybody's standing around waiting for dinner to be served. And I'm like, hang on. I'm switching laundry. I'll be right down.
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah. One of my tips that helped me a lot when I was kind of getting this laundry monster thing figured out was if I take the clothes right out of the dryer and put them on top of the washing machine, you don't ever get more than one load behind. Like you see people
00:29:08
Speaker
Yeah. You see people post pictures with this mountain of laundry on their bed or on their couch and they're like, well, I'm going to watch television for two hours and fold laundry. Well, I get overwhelmed if I'm ever more than one load behind. So if you just take it out, put it on top of your washing machine, then you can't take the clothes out of the washing machine and get anything else dry until that's folded.
00:29:31
Speaker
Another thing that's been helpful is to have a laundry catch-up day. So I don't do it on specific things, specific days like you do. So I do feel like I get behind on say sheets and blankets and things. So once a week or once a month, we'll have a laundry catch-up day where we just focus on everything laundry that day.
00:29:51
Speaker
And then one mom I read, she like clipped a timer to her. So when she would start a load, she would set the timer to go off when that load was done. So that no matter where she was, you know, it wouldn't be like two hours later and oh, it's supposed to be loaded. Yeah. Yeah. Smart. Yeah. Another thing to help pass the time is my kids fold or I like to listen to podcasts while folding laundry if it happens to be my turn in the laundry room.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, maybe some of you are folding laundry right now. Good for you. Woo hoo, solidarity sisters. One big tip, and I don't know if I can stress this enough, is take care of your equipment.
00:30:34
Speaker
So I say I do four loads of laundry a day, and I know families that do four loads of laundry a week. So my machine is getting, what, seven times more use than other machines. So take good care of your machines. And that starts by cleaning out the pockets really good so that we ruined one washing machine because a Swiss Army knife went through it.
00:30:59
Speaker
I just watched a Swiss Army knife the other day. Thankfully, everything was okay. It was my husband's too. And I was like, what is that? This one didn't come through. Okay. I broke part into all the million little pieces and went down in the motor. And yeah, it was a very expensive Swiss Army knife. Because it was the price of a new washing machine. Yeah. So just kind of off topic real quick, what kind of washing machine and dryer do you have? I'm just curious.
00:31:30
Speaker
Do you know what brand it is? Are they front loading or top? We just got new ones because this Swiss Army incident wasn't too long ago. I think they're Maytag.
00:31:39
Speaker
I got a top loading washing machine this time and my husband thought we should try with the agitator in the middle. They're starting to make them again with the agitator in the middle because he feels like with these high efficiency machines, they put less water in and so the clothes kind of don't get as clean. So with the agitator in the middle again, so we're trying it. I haven't noticed the difference, but I think maybe he does or he has. I'm actually on that. Yeah. Well, we right when the right when the front loading craze came out, I don't know.
00:32:09
Speaker
eight years ago, something like that. Um, we didn't have money to replace ours. And so I just was kind of like, all right, I won't have the fancies kind or whatever. And then, and then all my friends started saying, you know, these washing machines kind of stink. And I don't know if they've solved that yet, but so I never, so I never did go that way. Um, when we replaced our last washing machine, we got a, um, speed queen. I only remember that because my dad told me, I don't know how my dad knows this since he just does.
00:32:33
Speaker
He told me that that was like the brand that a lot of laundromats use. So we ended up replacing our dryer like that too. And the thing has been a workhorse is pretty great. They say with a family as big as ours, that it's not uncommon to go through a washing machine in like five years, but the last 20 so fingers crossed because it's doing its job. That's for sure.
00:32:51
Speaker
Okay. That's another tip I have is we rarely buy the extended warranty on things except the washing machine and dryer because ours is not going to last five years. We just use it way too much. Right. That's really smart. Yeah. Yeah. I also buy the protection plan on my phone because my children touch it, but other than that, I don't buy warranties either. Somebody's going to drop it and break it.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah. Another thought is my husband, for years we've been wanting to buy an industrial washing machine and dryer, like even a used one because like they're made to do so much more laundry. So we've been keeping our eye out and hopefully someday we're going to get an industrial washing machine and dryer. Yeah, we might have to do the same. Okay. So we're going to move on to each of our own dream laundry setups. So I know all of you have thought of this. If you've been on Pinterest for five seconds, you've thought of what your dream laundry room looks like. You guys ready for mine?
00:33:41
Speaker
You know, let's hear it Bonnie.
00:33:42
Speaker
It's gigantic, of course. And there's two sets of washers and dryers. Of course. And the laundry, there are laundry shoots from every room. And when they come down, they deposit the laundry in specific baskets. So I know, you know, this is, oh, this is Juliet's and this is Toby's or whatever. And then, and the clothes never get mixed up because they always just throw them down there. You know, so clearly this is dreamland. My kids are supposed to be doing what they're doing. They never get mixed up and they fold themselves while we're dreaming.
00:34:12
Speaker
Perfect. But on that note, I did want to share that laundry is one of those things that I've definitely had to lower my expectations on. Like I said, I'm type A when it comes to those things. And early on, if everything was not washed impeccably and folded and put away perfectly, then it stressed me out. And now I'm like, it's not that important. It's really not. If my kids are wearing clean, relatively socially appropriate clothes, I'm going to call it a win. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right, so what's yours, Audrey?
00:34:40
Speaker
My dream laundry setup is a lot like you were describing your friends, um, where all the clothes are in the same place. We were calling it the family closet. Yeah. So all the clothes, basically if they're not on your body, they're in the laundry room. So they don't have to be, yeah, they don't have to be gathered or sorted. And then you only have like kitchen towels and bathroom towels to go track down and get into the laundry. I love it. So smart.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, of course, mine has two sets of washing machines and dryers, of course. And I like in the summer to line dry my clothes, some of my clothes. So it has a nice big walkout, French doors where you walk out and there's a nice sturdy patio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right outside. And then there's a maid to do the laundry too, because, you know, your dream looks a lot like mine.
00:35:35
Speaker
Maybe someday we won't be doing, we won't be chained to the washing machine all day. Maybe. Maybe. We'll see. Okay, so we're going to wrap up with our favorite laundry product recommendations.
Favorite Laundry Products
00:35:46
Speaker
So like I mentioned before, the OxiClean powder is fantastic. I know they sell it at Costco in lots of places. We get the big giant box at Costco. And the reason I like it is I always throw it in with the whites. It just brightens everything without damaging fabrics like straight bleach does. And like I said, it is amazing for
00:36:02
Speaker
um, soaking stains and also, uh, dye transfer. So I've thrown in, especially like since we sew, I, you know, throw in new fabric and sometimes make the mistake of doing more than one colorful print at a time or something. And if you soak it in a tub of Oxy Clean, it will take out quite a few different kinds of dye transfers. So that's pretty awesome. My favorite laundry soap is nothing fancy. It's just Costco's, um, dye free. I think it's their environmentally friendly version because it's cheap and it, uh,
00:36:33
Speaker
It works. That's all I gotta say about that. And then the other thing is, you know, anytime you are confronted with a laundry dilemma, just Google a hack. I have found so many great tips. For example, we had quite the saga of dry erase markers. So if you think a Sharpie is impossible to get out of a shirt, try dry erase markers. They are the worst. They are so bad. We had a dry erase board for a while and I was like, enough.
00:36:57
Speaker
I can't handle it anymore because somebody would get it. You found a way to get an amount though? I did. I did. I can't remember exactly what it is, but I believe it has something to do with rubbing alcohol, but it is a stinker to get out. It took like three days and three different treatments. So don't mind your, I'm a race marker. Just save yourself a hassle.
00:37:14
Speaker
OxiClean is also one of my top favorite laundry products because yeah, it just works without breaking down your clothes. I've used different ones before that kind of make your clothes like the seams start coming apart. I really are breaking down your clothes. So yeah, OxiClean is awesome. And we use all free and clear for our detergent. It's free of dyes and clear of scents. I'm pretty sensitive to smells, so I don't like laundry that smells
00:37:44
Speaker
like clean laundry. We like to use grandma's secret stain remover. We'll link all this stuff in the show notes. And on an especially tricky spot, it's pretty good at getting stuff out. And then the last recommendation I have goes back to taking care of your machine. And so you can buy those afresh washing machine cleaners. And every once in a while, you run one of these through and it helps actually clean some of
00:38:12
Speaker
All the stuff your washing machine has been cleaning off of your clothes. It helps kind of clean your washing machine. So we run one of those through every once in a while. You can run it through on its own, just an empty load. Yeah. Yeah. I think you can actually do it with clothes in there, but I always just run it empty because I figured there's a lot of junk in there. Yeah, smart.
00:38:29
Speaker
Okay, that's it for today's episode on laundry.
Episode Conclusion and Listener Invitation
00:38:33
Speaker
Head to the show notes at outnumberedthepodcast.castos.com to get direct links to all those things that we recommend and that Calvin Hobbs comic. That's right. Thanks so much for listening, guys. Talk to you later. Bye.
00:38:49
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening to Outnumbered the Podcast. You can contact us at outnumberedthepodcastatgmail.com and find us on Instagram at outnumberedthepodcast. We're so grateful for our listeners and would love it if you take the time to leave us an honest review on iTunes, Stitcher, or any other podcast platform. And don't forget to share the podcast with your mom friends. Can't wait to talk next time. Bye.
00:39:19
Speaker
Cool. All right. Well, we're going to move on to the last little bit of laundry. Oh, shoot. That doesn't make any sense. Hold on.