How to Do Laundry Only Once a Week (7QT)

When I hear that some people do laundry every single day, you should see the odd sideways glance I give them. Actually, no, you shouldn't. I'm probably a jerk. I don't care how many kids you have, once a day is too flippin' much. Our family, with 2 working parents and a fully(!) potty-trained 3-year-old girl does laundry on Saturday. And only Saturday. (I will admit when I stayed home full-time, we did laundry on Tuesday AND Saturday. But we could have gotten away with just Saturday.)

Side note: Cloth diapers don't count as laundry, so none of this applies to those loads. Also, if you have an infant under 6 months old, I wouldn't even attempt any of this. Carry on.

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Know that you'll be doing more than one load on laundry day. The most I've done in one day is 4 loads. (But I think that actually included diapers, so maybe only 3.)

B and I have one very full basket, Cora's basket is half-full or a bit more. (Kids' clothes are small!) For us, that's usually 2 full loads on laundry day.

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Have only 1 child. Don't know what you'll do with the rest of them. Ship 'em off to somewhere sunny and let them run around naked, I suppose.

*I'm pretty sure I can maintain this once a week thing with 2 kids (after the 6-month window). Time will tell. After 2 kids, maybe we'll bump it up to twice a week.

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Live somewhere so cold that you're inside all winter. Make sure that winter lasts at least 9 months.

Read: no mud stains to sort out. Snowsuits and coats don't get washed until June, of course.

None of this is laundry.

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Have LOTS of clothes. Too many clothes, actually. Especially underwear and workout clothes. Your drawers need to be full of drawers--enough undies for everyone in your family to be able to go 2 weeks if it came down to it.

[I say this, but I'll also claim that I only have enough maternity office clothes to last me about one week right now. And yet we still make it work.]

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Get a HE (High-Efficiency) washer. Our top-loader HE fits an entire basket full of clothes in it. Make sure you have a dryer with similar capacity. I don't know why top-loading HE's aren't more popular--they're only a bit more expensive than the old-school kind. This puppy has probably paid for itself in the 4.5 years we've had it.

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DO NOT separate your colors. No. Just don't. Segregation is over, didn't ya hear? It's unnecessary. Separate your laundry by how it needs to be washed. Which, for us, is 2 things: hot water/high heat dry; or delicate/cold water/low heat dry (or hung). If you're afraid of your colors running, maybe try a color catcher thing. But I don't use 'em. (We also don't use bleach or fabric softener, so no need to separate towels or whites or do any of that nonsense.)

The 'hot wash' (don't-care clothes) are in the washer and the 'delicates' are standing by

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Lower your standards. This is probably the most important step. Bed sheets get washed once a month. Maybe. When's the last time that bath towel was washed? Meh, keep on using it unless I have some spare space in the 'hot wash' load. The only thing I really make sure gets washed are washrags and kitchen towels, because ain't nobody got time for salmonella. And Shout totally works on weeks-old stains.

On that note, don't pre-wash anything unless you got it second-hand. This tip especially applies to brand-new baby clothes. Because if you don't take the tags off and baby never wears it, you can totally re-gift it.

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