What the Laundry Chore Looks Like For a Large Family – Plus How I Streamline It

It felt like the addition of a 5th child officially moved us into “large family” territory. Now we have 7 children so surely we are well into the large family scene.

With that has come a lot questions about how we manage the daily runnings of our household.

One of the questions we hear is, what is laundry like at your house? – always asked with horror in their eyes, ha ha!

So today I’m going to answer that question!

How Much Dirty Laundry Does Your Family Make Each Week?

Well, at a minimum, we are going through 9 outfits a day. That’s 56 pairs of underwear alone each week (the youngest is still in diapers). Some days there is more than 1 outfit worn per person though.

For example, on Sundays my kids where nice clothing to church but I usually have them change out of it when we get home. My boys love to go outside and play football and the girls love playing outside too.

Some days they come back inside from playing outside and need to change because they are dirty and I don’t want it tracked through the house.

I also often have a little one potty-training or recently potty-training and deal with accidents occasionally.

Then there are the towels and sheets to wash. We go through a lot more towels in the warmer months when kids are outside getting dirty, swimming, ect.

While some of us will reuse clothes that aren’t dirty, (for example, I will wear a pair of jeans a few days if they haven’t gotten dirty, same with my pajamas) the younger kids typically get their clothes dirty pretty quickly after putting them on.

They get pajamas and outfits washed daily.

All of that to say, we go through a LOT of laundry. I would estimate we use:

• 20-30 towels a week in the winter and 40-60 towels a week in the summer
• 50+ sets of pajamas a week
• 70+ full outfits a week

How Big are Your Washing Machine and Dryer?

When we moved into a new (to us) house 7 years ago, the washing machine and dryer that we had were tiny, old, and pretty dirty. 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 Maytag commercial-sized washer and dryer at Lowes. 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.

Since it’s now 7 years old I am definitely concerned about how much longer it will last and hope I can find a replacement I love just as much.

We’ve had to have it repaired once so far. We had to get our dryer repaired for the first time about a month ago. Thankfully it was just a fuse that had gone bad.

We’ve also moved with it 2 times now, but it’s held up well through those moves (thank goodness!).

Above are photos of my not-so-glamorous laundry room and my washer and dryer that I love.

It needs a bit of cleaning and organizing right now!

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 7 children, who are always home since I homeschool, you have to learn to be flexible.

Typically, we wash at least 8-10 loads a week. Sometimes it’s more if there has been sickness or bedtime accidents. When I was washing cloth diapers, it was even more.

What Setting On Your Washing Machine Do You Use?

I’m including this because I think it might be helpful to some of you if your laundry is not coming clean. I always use the “Sanitize” cycle unless I am washing bedding.

The Sanitize cycle does use hot water AND it fills the water all the way up, but I notice that it makes a big difference in our clothes getting clean the first time.

Thankfully we are on a well and septic system now so we don’t have to pay as much for water/sewer.

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 sheets, blankets, and the baby‘s clothes separately until about 9-12 months. I also wash new jeans a few times separately or only with other jeans, at least for the first 3-4 washes.

Of course, if we get other new clothes that look like they might bleed (hello bright red dress), I will wash those separately for a few times as well.

Everything else typically just gets thrown in the wash together in one big load. Yes, even the jeans!

I don’t have space at my current house to sort everything, and I’ve found this helps me stay on top of the laundry before it piles up too quickly.

There have been a few instances where I round up the whites and put them through a cycle with bleach but that’s not typical here.

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 including this homemade laundry detergent recipe. The truth is, I’ve always come back to some form of Tide. And no, they are not paying me to say this.

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.

I have purchased Gain in the past and to be honest, I don’t like how it smells. Every few years I forget that and buy a bottle again because I have a coupon and it’s on sale, only to be reminded again why I don’t buy it. (I made this mistake just a few months ago so it’s fresh in my mind.)

The exception to this is that I buy Dreft for my baby clothes. It’s actually not even because I think Dreft works so much better than the other free and clear detergents. I’ve used others that work just fine.

The thing is, I LOVE the way Dreft smells so it’s one of my splurges when I have a snuggly baby. (And no, I have not been paid by Dreft to say this either.)

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 4 hours a week folding laundry.

Sometimes a few day’s 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 5 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!

A Little Laundry Time-Saving Tip From Me

One little thing I do to save some time — I seldom fold sheets. I remove sheets from our beds, wash them, dry them, and then put those exact same sheets back onto the beds.

When you are making 8 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.

As you well know, I love saving my family money. When I can find a good sale, a good coupon, or BOTH on Tide, I stock up!

My grocery store (Martin’s) will often run sales where you buy 3 bottles and save $20. This means I am getting an entire bottle plus some for free. I pair that with coupons when available.

What About Laundry and Vacation

Yes, this is always one of the worst things about vacation. If we don’t wash laundry while we are gone we come home with a TON of dirty clothes (think, we go through 9 outfits a day plus 9 sets of pajamas).

Because our family is so large now, we typically try to rent a whole house or condo that has a washing machine and dryer. I try to wash at least half of our laundry while we are there so I don’t come home from vacation to a ton of work.

The last time we went on vacation the condo had a washer and dryer that were the tiniest I have ever seen. Literally, I think you could fit 3 full-size towels in there at a time, max.

I definitely did not keep up with all of our laundry that trip, but still managed to do what I could.

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!