Laundry For a Large Family

This post about laundry for a large family is sponsored by Tide.

The addition of a 5th child officially moved us into “large family” territory. With that has come a lot questions about how we manage the daily runnings of our household. One of the questions we hear is, how do you do laundry with so many kids?? – always asked with horror in their eyes, ha ha! So today I’m going to answer that question!

Laundry For a Large Family

How Big is Your Washing Machine?

When we moved into our new (to us) house 2 years ago, the washing machine and dryer that we had were tiny, old, and pretty dingy. I knew we would need to replace them. I did a lot of research for our family and ended up finding a GREAT deal on a commercial-sized washer and dryer. It is a 6.0 cubic feet capacity, top-loader washing machine and I can easily wash our king-size quilt plus sheets in just one load!

I love that I can fit so much into one load! It has come in handy so many times when I get behind on washing and just need to get a bunch washed at once.

My mom recently came to stay a few days with some of my children while Maggie was in the hospital and she marveled at my huge washing machine.

How Many Loads Do You Have to Wash Each Week?

To be honest, some weeks I’m more behind on laundry than others. Although I wish I could say I always run my home in tip-top condition, the truth is that with 5 young children, you have to learn to be flexible.

Typically, we wash at least 7 loads a week.

Guess What – I Rarely Sort by Colors!

Yep, that’s right! Even though my mama taught me to always sort my whites, colors, jeans, etc., I rarely do that in this house! I do wash towels separately, sheets separately, and the baby‘s clothes separately until about 9-12 months. Everything else typically just gets thrown in the wash together in one big load. Yes, even the jeans! I’ve found this helps me stay on top of the laundry before it piles up too quickly.

The exception to this is if I have something new that I think might still have colors that bleed.

How Do You Wash Cloth Diapers?

As many of you know, over the years I’ve used cloth diapers to help keep diapering costs down for our family. I wrote an entire post on how to clean cloth diapers. I encourage you to check that out if you are cloth diapering as well!

What Laundry Detergent Do You Use?

I’ve tried a lot of laundry detergent over the years and I’ve always come back to some form of Tide. I need something that’s going to get our clothes clean the first time around. I also need something that is really good at getting out stains (for obvious reasons!) and urine (we almost always have someone potty training it seems like!).  Buying Tide enables me to get one type of detergent for all of our laundry needs.

With Tide, our clothes are clean the first time. Plus, they smell and look great too!

Look at how well Tide cleaned Gideon’s new yeti sweatshirt that he spilled chocolate milk and ketchup all over. The first picture is after the spill. The other picture is today after it went through the wash, just before the kids helped me fold that massive pile of clean laundry!

It’s his favorite sweatshirt that he wears ALL the time, so I’m so thankful that Tide keeps it clean for him!

How Many Hours Do You Fold Each Week?

The folding is, to be honest, the part I hate the most! It is time-consuming! We easily spend 2 hours a week folding laundry. Sometimes a few days worth of clean laundry adds up before I get a chance to fold.

When I manage to have some time to fold, I pile it all on top of my bed and turn something on the television to entertain me while I fold. It helps to pass the time at least! The older 4 children do help to fold and put away their clothes too, but the younger two, of course, still need a bit of help. Helping them often makes the task take even longer, but I know in the end that by teaching them well now, one day they will be able to do it without my help!

One little thing I do to save some time — I seldom fold sheets. I remove sheets from our beds, wash them, dry them, then put those exact same sheets back onto the beds. When you are making 6 different beds/cribs, this is a big time saver! Of course, we do have extra sets of sheets just in case, but they typically stay folded in my linen closet until needed.

How Do You Afford All of the Laundry Detergent?

Tide is certainly not the cheapest laundry detergent on the market but it’s the best, so it’s worth it! Frankly, the cheapest laundry detergent is a joke and NOT worth it! Plus, when you wash with something that leaves stains or smells, you end up having to wash more than once which really doesn’t save you any money in the long run! I found when I tried using the other brands, I also had to use more to get my clothes clean — it’s just not worth it to use anything but Tide in my opinion.

When I can find a good sale, a good coupon, or BOTH on Tide, I stock up! And, guess what – now is the time to stock up! Target has some great deals on Tide right now (like buy 2, get a $5 Target gift card!) PLUS Tide just released two high-value printable coupons, available from 1/25 to 2/2!!

• Coupon 1: $3 OFF ONE Tide PODS (excludes Tide Liquid/Powder Laundry Detergent, Tide Simply, Tide Simply PODS, and Tide PODS 9 ct and below, and trial/travel size). CLICK HERE TO PRINT IT.
• Coupon 2: $3 OFF ONE Tide Detergent (excludes Tide PODS, Tide Simply, Tide Simply PODS, Tide Detergent 10 oz and trial/travel size). CLICK HERE TO PRINT IT.

I’m so excited about these coupons! I printed off both and we all headed into Target to stock up. My kids love to come along and help me shop. By using both coupons and the offer for the $5 Target gift card, that’s a savings of $11! Since they were priced at $11.99 each, that’s almost like getting 1 of them for free!! All of this laundry detergent will last us for quite a while now!

Have you tried the new Tide PODS 2.0 yet? They’ve been upgraded with better stain and odor removal power! The 4-in-1 technology (detergent, stain remover, color protector, built-in pre-treaters) work amazingly on all the tough stains and odors my kids can cause!

Yay for clean, fresh, and affordable laundry!

So there you have it — all of your large family laundry questions answered! Did I miss any of them? Are there other questions you’re curious about when it comes to large families? Feel free to leave a comment and ask!