Laundry can feel like its own full-time job when you have a house full of kids. There are many ways to tackle Mount Washmore, and I have tried many different methods. This simple laundry routine for large families is an easy system that actually works and keeps us for the most part on top of the laundry. And we do have a lot of laundry! We have ten in our family and the kids are home all day playing in the dirt as often as they can. 🙂

My laundry routine has evolved over the years, but this routine is what has been working for us for quite a few years. I think a lot can change the dynamics of how you simplify your laundry. Even another family with 8 kids might do theirs completely different because of many factors.

So what I think affects our laundry is that we live in a small house with the main bathroom being located fairly centrally and close to all the bedrooms. Also, we do not have a laundry room in the house. Yes, how very inconvenient and 1950’s lol. Our washing machine and dryer are in an outside storage room. One magical day in the future, we plan to add on and build an actual laundry room.

The routine I created is simple and streamlined and it works for our large family of ten in a small one-story house. I homeschool our kids and that is a factor too. It’s not fancy, but it’s manageable. And best of all — my kids can help with most of it.

Here’s exactly what we do:

Simple Laundry Routine for Large Families Step by Step:

💛One central laundry basket in the bathroom and one “dirty bucket”:

We keep one central laundry basket in our bathroom. It’s a large plastic style with handles. This is where all the dirty clothes in the house goes. We do not have individual baskets in each rooms. This is mainly because it simplifies it for me. All of it goes in one basket so we do not have to gather it from elsewhere, and I also can see what actually needs to be washed easily. Because each of our bedrooms are small and shared by 2-3 children, there really isn’t room in most of the rooms for a laundry hamper. The kids take their dirty clothes to the hamper.

The “dirty bucket”, as we call it is a trash can without a lid where the kitchen towels, wet rags, mop towels and extra-dirty clothes go. This keeps the clothes basket from getting weird stains on them, which we had issues with. It keeps the smell down to a minimum as well. This is as far as sorting goes in our house lol.

💛The Laundry Helper:

This child’s main chore throughout the day is to help with the laundry. Their responsibilities include:

-Starting a load of laundry first thing during chore time every morning.

-Change loads of laundry from washer to dryer.

-The main helper with folding in the afternoons (with another helper because it’s a lot!)

*Helpful tip: Write out instructions for each kind of laundry and how you like it done, and post it by the washer and dryer.

💛The Afternoon Folding:

Every afternoon we do a big cleanup. As I mentioned before, we are a homeschooling family, so we are home all day and making a big mess. It’s necessary to do several pickups during the day, and then we do a bigger one in the afternoon. During the clean up time (I will try to write another post about this soon), one of the things we do is fold the laundry and put it away. All the laundry gets brought in, dumped on the couch and folded. For us this tends to be 3-4 loads per day. The laundry helper brings the laundry in and begins folding it, usually with a partner, then other children pitch in when they finish their responsibilities. Depending on what kind of laundry it is, it can be done quickly (like towels) or take longer (like clothes). They fold and put away the laundry.

💛Assign towels and sheets to be washed on certain days:

Towels are once a week unless dirty sooner, and sheets usually every other week, also unless dirty sooner. In an ideal world I would change all beds weekly, but that is not happening for now. 🙂 You can do it however you like!

Other Tips to Simplify Laundry:

💛You do not need to fold everything. If you don’t have older children to help, or they are gone, or you get behind due to sickness, etc.–whatever the case may be, it doesn’t all need to get folded. When I had younger children I wish I had throught this through sooner. It gets put in a drawer, they fish through, pull it out, and throw it on the floor anyways. Do yourself a favor and don’t bother folding it. I would just sort it by person on the back of the couch and then put it in their drawers. SAVES SO MUCH TIME! I hang nice clothes in their closet anyways.

💛Less clothes is a good thing. Keeping a minimal wardrobe is really helpful.

💛If you get behind, spend a few minutes catching up. Sometimes our routine gets thrown off track by illness, an activity, or just choosing not to do it for any reason. With our volume of laundry it can quickly pile up! That’s ok, life happens! Just spend a few extra minutes catching up another time of the day. I will sometimes call everyone in and set a timer for 10 minutes where we all catch up on whatever laundry/folding there is to do. Like the saying goes, many hands make light work! It’s so true!

I hope that you find something here that helps you simplify your own laundry routine.💛

💛Mandy