1. Gather your laundry and supplies.
2. Prepare your children for the experience.
3. Take along activities for the children.
4. Take along a lunch plan for the children.
5. Fold your clean laundry into baskets.
6. Go home and put everything away.
7. Make sure your laundry problem is fixed.

The post Podcast Episode: The Laundry Mat with Children appeared first on Home Plain and Simple.

Why organize kid clothes?

Digging through a mountain of clothes in your child’s closet/dresser is a pain. Especially so if sizes are mixed, half the clothes are out of season, and you can only find half of the outfit you’re looking for on Sunday morning!

Keeping things (relatively) organized is the best way to save some frustration and make your mornings easier! And as a busy mom, anything that makes life easier… yes please!

Here are 5 Steps to Organize your kid’s Clothes:

1.      Keep a designated basket/box for outgrown clothes.

Whether it’s an empty diaper box or a cute decorative basket, keep an easy to access receptacle near where you keep your child’s clothes. When putting clean clothes away, sorting clothes, or just come across something that doesn’t fit- throw it into the basket.

2.      Sort through and put clothes away each time your child moves up a size. If you’re getting new clothes out, put the old ones away.

When your kid outgrows a size of clothing and it’s time to get out a new size, put the old ones away first! Some things may still fit, that’s okay. But once something is too small, put it in the basket, as time goes on all the too-small clothes will phase out of the dresser and into the basket.

Once a size is completely phased out take the clothes from the basket, sort items that need thrown away or donated and then store the rest in a tote in an out of the way space in your home.

By continually doing the work to keep too-small clothing away from the clothes that are actively being worn, it keeps your drawers clear for the clothing that you really need access to. And since you’re working at it as you go instead of all at once, it’s a much easier task.

3.      If clothes are out of season, put them away.

Same as with clothes that are too small, when the seasons start to change gradually phase clothes out.

As it gets warmer and your child starts wearing more short sleeves or dresses, throw the long-sleeved items and long pants that aren’t being worn anymore into the basket of unworn/too small clothes.  (keep a few pairs of pants and long sleeve shirts out for cool days, but put the majority away)

4.      Hang nice outfits, church clothes etc. keep the rest in drawers/cubbies/baskets.

I love dressers, so I sort each child’s dresser into one drawer for pajamas, one drawer for bottoms, one drawer for tops, and a drawer for socks & underwear.

My toddler doesn’t have a dresser, so we use a cubby shelf with organizer bins/baskets. Find a system that works for you and organize the clothes how you like!

5.      Don’t keep excess clothes.

Grandma bought clothes, aunty bought clothes, and your friend from work sent a garbage bag of hand-me-downs. You don’t have to keep it all! When you have too many things it just adds to the mess.

Sort through the clothes and keep what you like, what fits your life, and what your kid will be comfortable in. Put the rest in a box to donate or put in storage for the next kid. If necessary, make a list of anything else you need to buy to fill in your child’s wardrobe.

You’ve got this mama!

The post 5 Steps to Keep Your Child’s Clothes Organized appeared first on Home Plain and Simple.

What does your laundry situation look like?  Right now, I have partially full baskets in the bathrooms and the laundry room.  It’s not my assigned laundry day so anything I might do today will be fit in around the edges of life.  On my Laundry Day though, I commit to completing all of the loads. Wash, Dry, Fold, and Put Away. If your laundry situation has you struggling, here are five reasons why you need to have a Laundry Day in your week and simple steps to start holding a Laundry Day.  

Assigning a day of the week to focus on laundry is an essential step to keeping it under control. I’ve written extensively on Laundry Day in Home Management, Plain and Simple.  You can get more nitty gritty details, tips and tricks there.

Five Reasons for Laundry Day

1. Stress Management: Laundry can be a stressor when it piles up and takes over the laundry room, bathrooms, and bedrooms.  Laundry Day is a commitment every week that keeps it from getting out of control.
2. Sense of Accomplishment: OK, the laundry is never ever completely 100% finished BUT when everything in the house is clean except the clothes on your backs, it’s a satisfying feeling.
3. Clean and Fresh: You and your family are not pulling questionable smelling clothes off the floor to wear, so you all smell nice.  The laundry room smells nice when it is not full of dirty clothes. The bathrooms and bedrooms smell better without piles of dirty clothes.  You can walk into a bathroom or bedroom without stepping on dirty clothes and towels. Bonus: you get to sleep in clean sheets!
4. Your people have clothes to wear: No more questions like: “Where is my ___?” “I have no _____.” “I need _____.”
5. Clean sheets and towels: These are items that can slip by the everyday laundry due to “tyranny of the urgent” laundry.  It is so nice to slip into clean sheets at night and have a fresh smelling towel after a shower.

Simple Steps to Start a Laundry Day Weekly Routine

• Identify the best day of the week to hold Laundry Day.  The best day is one that you are home for most of the day.
• Plan ahead and decide on an order for the loads.  Some things take longer to dry, do you want to wash the jeans and towels in the morning or afternoon?  Wash the sheets as soon as people get out of bed so that you can put them back on the beds before nap time.
• Get an early start.  Put the first load in the washer right after you start the coffee pot.
• Make it a goal to have everything folded and put away by a certain time.
• Get your family involved.  They can collect, sort, switch loads, fold and put away too.  Hint: listen to audio books while folding.
• While you’re in the laundry room, do a small task to clean the room. Dust, wash the window, clean the sink, organize your cupboards, add needed items to your shopping list.

You can do it!  It’s just a matter of creating a weekly routine,  committing one day to doing as much laundry as you can from start to finish.  It won’t go perfectly, there will be good days and frustrating days, but you will make progress.  To make it more enjoyable: make yourself a special drink or treat that you only have on Laundry Day. Make a fun and upbeat playlist for Laundry Day, and write a list of things you are grateful for—maybe put it on a chalkboard in your laundry room and change it each week?  Each day is a gift, our families are gifts, the laundry and the equipment are gifts; learn to celebrate all of it!

Grab a handy checklist of the Simple Steps in the Free Resource Library.

The post Five Reasons for Laundry Day and Simple Steps to Start appeared first on Home Plain and Simple.

A Post by Bridgette

As I sit down to write this post, I remembered the load of laundry I started yesterday morning. It’s still sitting in the washer- wet. Oops! It’s probably stinky by now… maybe I’m not the right person to write this post? Or, maybe it’s something we all struggle with.

 My sister made a comment the other day that stuck with me. She said “I wish my laundry would do itself!” While I completely agreed, I also wondered: how could we make this laundry struggle a little easier?

Laundry is one of those unique chores that is never truly completed, like dishes for example. Even when you’re “caught up” there’s still dishes created by the next meal, or dirty laundry from the clothes you and your family are wearing. These tasks are never-ending, and to stay on top of them we must establish a battle plan.

Laundry Day

In “Home Management Plain and Simple” Kim wrote an entire chapter devoted to “Laundry Day.” She includes tips on how you can tame the laundry monster and stay on top of that never-ending laundry pile. Scheduling a weekly Laundry Day is your first step towards laundry management, this is the day when you do the tasks that take extra time or focus:

• Clean/organize the laundry area
• Declutter and put things away
• Do the maximum amount of laundry you can manage
• Ironing
• Mending
• Washing sheets/blankets or other unusual laundry

Laundry Management on the Daily

Having a set laundry day is a good start to laundry management, however to truly manage the ever-growing laundry pile we must employ a daily routine of management techniques.

One of Kim’s suggestions is to set a daily laundry goal. I remember as a child when there were 11 of us under one roof, our laundry goal was “four by four.” It didn’t always happen, but we tried to have 4 loads of laundry done by 4 o’clock. In my home now, I deal with a much smaller amount of laundry. My goal is to do 1 or 2 loads every-other day. To set an effective goal, take into account the amount of dirty laundry being produced in your home. Then tailor your daily laundry goal to manage the amount on laundry in your home.

A few daily habits to help you stay on top of laundry management include:

• Gather dirty laundry from around the house daily- keeping the laundry in a central location will help you know how much laundry actually needs done. By doing this you won’t be surprised by the pile of laundry your family members have been unintentionally hoarding, and suddenly find yourself “behind” on laundry again.

• Do at least 1 load of laundry start to finish, daily. Or complete your personal daily laundry goal.

• Set a timer when you start a load to remind you when to switch over the loads.

• Train your children/family members to help with laundry. Older children may be assigned laundry as a daily chore.

• Challenge your children to match up all the socks while racing a timer.

• Hold a family “folding party” and listen to an audiobook while folding clean laundry.

By setting a daily laundry goal and taking steps towards laundry management on a daily basis, your laundry pile no longer becomes a “laundry monster” but a manageable task. By enlisting help from your family members and delegating tasks, you are no longer in a one-on-one battle with the giant pile of dirty laundry. It becomes a team effort, “many hands make light work.”

You’ve Got This!

Laundry doesn’t have to be an “oops the pile is bigger than me again” task. If you take these steps and make them a daily routine. It will become second nature to you, and you’ll forget the days when laundry management was even an issue. You’ve got this, now let’s manage our laundry!

For even more tips on laundry or home management, check out “Home Management Plain and Simple.” This book has been an excellent resource in my personal home management journey. Any time I am overwhelmed or don’t know what/where to start next, this book has the answer. From an attitude adjustment, to a simple “start here, and do that.” This book is a must read for any mom or homemaker.

Also, check out the free resource library for more great home management resources!

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