Doing Less Laundry As A Parent

Some weeks, it feels like the laundry will never end. It just continues to pile up, and someone has to take care of it.

I don’t mind doing laundry most of the time. Sure, it’s not my favorite thing to do, but it’s also not the end of the world. I wasn’t always like that though - I used to do so much laundry in our house, and it was definitely no fun. I’ve since wisened up, and my wife has taught me a few good things about laundry.

These days, we usually end up with 2 loads of laundry a week - one dark and one whites. A lot of times, we’ll only have a single load for the week (just colors). That’s right, in a home of four, one load of laundry. It’s quite glorious.

It’s actually quite simple to accomplish, you just have to get in the right mindset. Below are a few tips for making your laundry more manageable.

Only wash dirty laundry

This is the real key to doing less laundry as a parent. Yes, your kids get their clothes dirty really fast. But there are times and days where they don’t get their clothes dirty - I know, it’s a miracle when it happens. And when it does, make sure to put those clothes back in the closet or left out to wear again. In particular, we do this with pants more commonly than shirts just because they’re often less likely to get dirty.

Beyond your kids clothes, you should do the same with your own clothes as well. You’ll have far less to wash than for your kids. I don’t have to wash my pants every time I wear them. Often, I can wear pants more than 5 times before they need to be washed (be sure to smell them when you take them off to make sure they don't smell).

I realize that for some people, this may be disgusting or not something you’d like to do. That’s fine, but there’s not really any other options to do less laundry.

Keep clothes turned right side out

I easily cut my time in half when I have my kids clothes the right way before I wash them. I don’t control my oldest son's clothes when he takes them off, but I’ve taught him to make sure he takes his pants and shirts off in a way to not turn them inside out - all so that I can spend less time folding laundry.

For my youngest son, I take his clothes off in a way that they’re also the right way. I started this a few months back as I found myself frustrated by how much time I was wasting in turning shirts and pants back to the right way while folding laundry. By spending a few extra seconds while undressing your child, you will save \several minutes later.

Have the kids help

I wrote about this previously - have your kids help with laundry. My son was doing a really good job with this for a while, but once we got stuck at home due to Coronavirus, he kind of fell off of that train. 

At a certain point, your kids should really do their own laundry - the sooner the better. It will give you less laundry to do, and it will teach them to be responsible for their own clothes, and know how to make sure their clothes are clean.

Conclusion

Do less laundry, wash less non-dirty clothes, and speed up folding your laundry. All the little things add up to make a huge difference.