The ultimate laundry routine – for kids!

The weekly laundry is a breeze if kids are on top of their daily laundry routine of putting their dirty clothes in the basket, separating colours, zipping up zips, turning socks the right way around (not inside out) and emptying pockets. However, if you’re a little behind schedule with your routine, this article gives six fun laundry tips for mastering the adults and kids’ laundry routine, while ensuring you have some fun doing it! 

1. Kids laundry routines: Do a little bit every day

Doing laundry every day may seem daunting but in reality, it will save you time in the long run. Instead of attempting to tackle dirty washing once every weekend, simply take 20 minutes out each day and wash at least one load. Even better, give each person in your family a designated day and when that day comes around, they are in charge of putting one wash on. They’ll be raring to go once you’ve shown them how. Remember that kids still need supervision when doing the laundry.

2. Getting it right: Know how to sort laundry 

Organising kids’ laundry is much easier if there’s a laundry basket in every room – and it’ll help them take responsibility for picking up their dirty clothes instead of leaving them on the floor. Show kids how to empty their pockets of any bits and bobs (so they don’t make a mess of the washing), fasten buttons and separate colours.  

In addition to this, having individual clothes baskets for clean clothes is also a good idea. Allow each person to choose a colour and little ones could even decorate their tub with stickers. Once the clothes have been washed and dried, sort items into the baskets. This is a great way of storing clothes so kids can easily recognise their basket of clean washing and take to their room.   

3. Lots of people doing laundry? Create a chore chart

Family life is hectic, so sometimes kids need a leg-up when it comes to organisation. Create a daily kids’ chart for doing laundry and other chores to help get them involved. For example, your oldest child may be tasked with putting the wash on, your middle child might know how to sort laundry and colours, and your youngest might remind everyone to put their washing out on a certain day. Make sure the weekly laundry routine chart is in an obvious place – the fridge is a great spot for hanging important family notices and will remind brothers and sisters whose turn it is to do a chore.

4. Make a family laundry routine a team effort

Is that pile of dry laundry getting bigger and bigger? Folding clean laundry can be as daunting as a pile of dirty washing and few people will actually walk past it and choose to fold it. However, get all hands on deck, and suddenly folding and sorting the clean laundry becomes a doddle. Bring the laundry into the living room where brothers, sisters, mums and dads can have easy access and sort and fold while you chat away, watch TV or practice spellings.

5. How to sort laundry: Put it away, straight away

Once you have all the washing dried and folded, encourage kids to put it away straight away by making it into a fun game: who can put their clothes away the fastest? To help young kids navigate their wardrobes, why not create some fun stickers to indicate where their socks, pants, t-shirts, jumpers and trousers should go? Now that’s how to do laundry!

It’s easy to try and put dirty washing to the back of our minds but with some simple laundry tips, knowing how to do laundry can be a fun family affair. If you are looking to get the kids more involved with hygiene, washing and doing laundry, this advice should have you off to a good start!