When I got pregnant and throughout my pregnancy, I began mentally preparing myself the best I could for a lot of things; the pain of labor and delivery, the crying, the lack of sleep, and the list goes on.
But why, Why, WHY did no one mention the laundry?? THIS was something I needed to mentally prepare for. Oh, if you only knew how hard my poor washer and dryer are working. Day and night they churn and spin, pumping out clean clothes almost as fast as we dirty them.
Before the baby, Philip and I did laundry once a week. Sometimes if I was busy we would go a week and a half. And suddenly we add one tiny human to the family and I’m doing laundry every. single. day! Although it’s been nearly eight weeks since his birth, and we have done this much laundry every week, I’m still shocked when I’ve just finished folding all the clean clothes and then venture to the hamper only to find it nearly full again.
I’m starting to think that I’m blacking out for periods of time during the day in which I just go to my closet, pull everything out, and put it in the clothes hamper. It seems like the only possible answer.
Tomorrow I’ll monitor my activity scrupulously. In the mean time, I have to go start another load.
Just wait until you start potty training… the laundry will only increase by factors of ten. Ewww…
I could keep up reasonably well with the laundry until kid #3. Now I don't even try to keep up. I just had to come to terms with the fact that there are always going to be clothes in the hampers for the next several years. In fact, I have three heaping loads ready to be folded and put away right now, so I had better get off of the computer 🙂
Good luck!
ha! I actually just finally got around to putting away our folded clean laundry that was finished two days ago, and I looked in the hamper and had a good two loads to do already, so I hurried and did them so I would feel on top of it for once.
Plus, Kinsey is going through this stage that she will change her clothes about four times a day, which doesnt help.
As we used to say with our first "Babies don't wait until laundry day to make a mess."
Adding the second child has seemed to exponentially increase the amount of laundry produced in our household.
We have to change JBallz clothes every single time he eats, the baby food gets everywhere! There seems to always be a load in there just waiting for me…laughing at me.
Ashley, I should give you my answer to the changing clothes thing. I learned this from a friend. Girls are notorious for liking to change clothes and with three of them, I knew I was headed toward disaster. So, the rule was, you can change your clothes, but it has to be into a pair of pajamas. That's the only switch you can make and then you're done for the day. Problem completely solved. Once they could really do their own laundry, then I didn't care as much what they did with their clothes.
I have a daily laundry rotation. Monday is whites, Tuesday is sheets and linens, Wednesday is towels, Thursday is darks, Friday is Wes's clothes (because he has sensitive skin and requires expensive hypoallergenic detergent he gets his own day instead of mixing in). Rags get done whenever the pile gets big.
Doing one (two, on darks day) load a day is the only way for me to stay on top of laundry. Each load gets washed and folded and put away in a timely manner and I don't get overwhelmed.
Plus since there's a load going every day I can always throw baby stuff in there if I need to.
Aren't you using disposable diapers? Just think what it was like before disposable diapers. 😉