Fewer clothes, to get the laundry under control!
The change of seasons is a good time to address this issue
If where you live has seasons, now is a good time to cut down on the number of clothes in your system! You’re taking things out of the laundry stream anyway, because you want to put or give them away clean. Get the unseasonal or otherwise unwearable things into a basket and out of the way for now while you replace them with seasonal or fitting items. When the switch is finally done, then you can turn to sorting and storing.
If you don’t have a real change in seasons, you can still address the over-supply of clothing as you do the laundry. Set aside things you know you and/or your kids are just not wearing, don’t fit, are old and worn out, or what have you.
Now is the time to assess exactly how many tops and bottoms and jumpers and dresses your children really need. Church clothes, play clothes, and a few things for dirty play/work. I think the sports clothes are a fixture — they come in the quantity they are needed.
Keep all those things to a minimum — you will have to figure out what that minimum is, number-wise. People always ask me for numbers and I can’t really say! Lots of variables! Just use your good judgement once you understand the principle of not having a lot of basically unused items cluttering things up.
What each person in your family (including you) needs to have is a generous amount of underwear. You all need enough socks, undies, t-shirts/camis, and tights to get through a week. You will certainly do laundry more than once a week if you have more than 2.0 children, but you need to have wiggle room and a buffer if you are away or sick or otherwise unable to stay on top of the laundry flow. People can wear slightly soiled shirts but they need clean underwear!
You can read more about this strategy for finally getting your laundry under control here, on my blog!
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I am not sure this will be helpful for anyone else, but just in case, I’m going to share it!
I used to try to do fewer loads by packing them full and combining categories (different kids together/towels and napkins together/etc). The huge piles would quickly become overwhelming with all the sorting and people not claiming all their socks or underwear or whatever when it was time to put away.
SO, I bought divided hampers (I have 4 hampers and each has 3 sections). Each kid gets their own section, my husband and I each have a section, delicates/wool has a section, then kitchen, towels, and sheets each have a section. The kicker is, I do not combine loads! So the loads are smaller (I just run the load when the section is full) and very quick to put away. Big kids are in charge of their own laundry.
It seems counterintuitive but narrower categories and smaller loads has made laundry so much more manageable for me!
Hi Auntie Leila! Thank you for the much-needed prodding! In the vein of clothing issues, as I'm going through my daughter's closet I'm thinking about underwear. Do you have any advice about modest, appropriate undergarments for a developing girl who is still much too young for the implications that come with a bra? She's wearing undershirts but I'm not sure it's enough anymore.