Large Family Laundry Day – It CAN be Done! Leave a comment
Jodi Bonjour is an old blogging friend. She isn’t actually old. I just know her from my early days of blogging. We were in a group of bloggers who brainstormed together and tried out all sorts of different ways to grow our blogs, reporting back to each other about what worked and what didn’t work at all.
Over the years, we’d mostly lost touch, but followed each other on Instagram. Her niche is sewing, and I love watching her create things.
In October, Jodi sent me a message saying:
Because I’ve been consistently doing Laundry Day and I have a day when the laundry is DONE, I was able to “do the hand-me-down bins” for 7 kids in one day. It was a lot of work, but it used to take me daaaaayyyyys. Huzzah!
And then in February, she sent me another message:
4 months later and Laundry Day is still going strong. I can’t believe that this isn’t a huge stress for me anymore! If you ever want someone to write a blog post about how to adapt your Laundry Day system for a huge family, let me know.
I jumped on Jodi’s offer.
Here’s the thing. I hear from people ALL THE TIME who love Laundry Day. They tell me they can’t believe how well it works even though they resisted trying it for so long because of all the reasons why they were sure it wouldn’t work. Reasons like working full time (or more than full time) outside the home, or a family member’s extra dirty job that means certain clothes can’t be washed with others, or they have a big family.
Occasionally, though, I hear from people (or read their book reviews) who state that Laundry Day couldn’t possibly work for them because they work full time (or more than full time) outside the home, or they have a family member whose extra dirty job means certain clothes can’t be washed with others.
Or, and this is the most common one, they have a big family.
If someone has a laundry routine that works, that’s the one they should use. But I find it cringy (<- a word taught to me by my teenagers that I’m not sure I’m using correctly) when someone doesn’t have a routine and is overwhelmed by laundry, but won’t try my method only because they’re sure it won’t work. And then feels the need to tell me it won’t work.
Even though they haven’t actually tried it.
Y’all, Laundry Day works.
I love seeing Jodi’s adjustments to the Laundry Day I write about in How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind.
She figured out what works best in her unique home for her unique family and her unique personality.
Maybe Jodi’s story will give you exactly what you need because you also have seven kids and can do exactly what she does.
But my main hope is that you’ll grasp the real truth about Laundry Day. More than a formula, Laundry Day is a mindset. Those who make “it” work make adjustments for their unique life situations.
Laundry Day works because it’s a mental shift.
Getting all your laundry done in one day is less important than knowing it’s possible to be DONE with laundry.
Here’s how Jodi makes a Large Family Laundry Day work as a laundry routine:
It has apparently taken 5 (?) laundry days to get around to writing you about how I make Laundry Day work for my large family. I wish I had done it sooner, but I was reminded by someone posting a ridiculous meme and I felt so bad for them, I had to finally write it down.
It said: How to Stay on Top Of Laundry When You Have 2 or More Kids: 1. You can’t. 2. Find a new dream.
Except you can! Hooray!
So here’s the background: I have 7 kids, ages 2 – 13. Our family generates more laundry than our single washer and dryer can handle in a single day. So Laundry Day needs some tweaking on this scale.
Our Laundry Day is Friday. On Thursday night, I have my children collect all the laundry in the house and bring it to the basement where I sort the clothes and prepare the laundry to wash. I wash the kids’ clothes separate from the adult laundry, washing the kids’ stuff first. If I’m lucky, I can get a load going that evening.
On Laundry Day, as the loads come out of the dryer, I sort them out into the 7 assigned laundry baskets – one for each child. Deviating from the Dana Method, I do not fold, and I do not put them away. The seven baskets collect the clean laundry as I go through each load of kids’ laundry. Once I am done with the kids’ laundry, I move on to adult laundry and linens. These remaining loads are treated in the prescribed Dana Method, and are folded and put away as they come out.
(These are my kids’ baskets on the evening after Laundry Day.)
The day after Laundry Day is Saturday. Saturday is for family chores in our house. As part of their weekly chores, my kids are responsible for putting away their own baskets of clothes. The older children take turns helping me with the younger kids’ laundry. My goal is to have all the kids’ laundry done before Saturday morning, so it can be rolled into the rest of their chores. If I don’t make that goal, I finish up on Saturday, and we put the laundry away before the end of the weekend.
The thing is . . . it is an option to NOT wash all the kids’ laundry in one day.
If I want to prevent myself from having to do laundry all weekend, I will do one or two loads every day of the weekday and sort those loads into my kids’ baskets to wait for Saturday. Every load I do before Laundry Day is a gift to my future self, as it allows me to finish up my laundry work on Laundry Day and have the rest of the weekend free of laundry.
I was doing laundry every day before, and I often felt resentful because it was never ending. Now, I am doing the loads towards a deadline (Laundry Day), and I no longer feel resentful like I used to.
This mental shift also relieves me of the frustration of watching the hampers fill up as I am washing loads of laundry. I can tell myself that it is “next Laundry Day’s laundry” and I am relieved of the daily pressure of laundry guilt even on Laundry Day itself.
(Look at that! No dirty laundry! There is dirty laundry in the upstairs’ hampers, but that is okay because it is next Friday’s laundry!)
I have been using this method for the entire school year, and every time someone posts about their never-ending pile of clean laundry on their living room couch, I tell them about the Dana Method. It is truly life changing.
God bless.
-Jodi
*FYI, Laundry Day probably won’t work for you if you’re on a septic system, as it may overload your system. Sorry!
