10 Laundry Tips for Big Families

Doing laundry for one person can be daunting enough, but when you’re doing laundry for 4 (or more) people, life can get crazy! Instead of getting overwhelmed with the amount of laundry headed your way, check out these 10 laundry tips for big families.

1o Laundry Tips for Big Families

#1. Put together a schedule- Face it- that laundry isn’t getting done if you don’t create a schedule for it to get completed.  Stick with it. It may take a couple of weeks to cement the routine.

#2. Give each person their own laundry basket– Color code the laundry baskets for each room. It’s so much easier that way!

#3. Don’t overload the washer– Just because you’re trying to get a lot of laundry done, doesn’t mean you need to overload the washer. You’ll just create more work for yourself.

#4. Give everyone a reminder via sticky note– If it’s “that” person’s laundry day, make sure to give them a reminder on their bedroom door via a sticky note. One thing I like to do is set reminders on the kids’ iPad. They definitely can’t say they didn’t see it then!

#5. Everyone helps out– When it comes to laundry for big families, have everyone help out. Kids are capable of putting their own laundry in the dryer and folding their own clothes.

Mine use this awesome kids shirt folding board. 

#6. Get those stains cleaned right away– The thing is that with a lot of kids, you have a lot of stains to deal with. To avoid the headache later, pretreat those laundry stains right away!

Ultra yucky clothes can be washed using this tried and true method that I use for stinky gym clothes.

#7. Use a laundry bag for socks– No one wants to deal with socks in a large family! Use a netted laundry bag to help keep those socks under control while in the wash.

Another thing I do is get rid of lonely socks every few weeks. I buy plain white little boy socks for my son which helps with the lost sock situation.

#8. Reuse what you can to cut down on laundry– If you were to wash every towel after every use, you’d be doing laundry all of the time. Make sure you ask your family to keep it to one towel every few days to help eliminate the laundry!

#9. Skip the folding– If you have multiple little ones at home, skip the folding. They will go through their drawers and create a mess anyways. A great tip is to hang up the shirts and put the pants away in the drawers. Save your sanity this early on by following this tip! I did this up until my kids could fold clothes themselves.  Hanging items on hangers is much easier for little ones to do than folding.

#10. Take a day off– Large families tend to have laundry every single day of the week. Take at least one day off a week from doing laundry. If you follow your schedule, you should never fall behind on your laundry.

What laundry tips do you have for big families? I’d love to hear your suggestions.