We turned to women at every life stage to learn their system for handling those overflowing hampers
I try to do all my laundry earlier in the week, and finish on Wednesday, so I can leave Thursday and Friday for Shabbos preparation and house cleaning. I also have two sets of linen and change the linen every other Friday. I try to cut down on my workload by only washing the dirty sheets right before I need them. That way, they just sit in the hamper, and I don’t have to fold them and use up precious closet space to store them. I wash and dry them on Thursday night and then put the fresh sheets straight onto the bed.
Mindy Berkowitz
I have small children, so I don’t have any helpers. On the other hand, I don’t have a lot of laundry to do, either. I keep all the dirty laundry in a large hamper in the bathroom, and two to three times a week, I divide it into darks and lights and wash a load. I only wash linen and towels every other week, so each week I end up doing another load or two of those.
I don’t wash anything on more than 30 degrees Celsius, because otherwise the colors run. How dirty the clothes are is very dependent on the personality of the child. One of my children manages to get his clothes quite filthy, so I’m constantly washing his clothes. Another one of my children keeps so clean, I often can let her wear things twice before they need a wash just to freshen them, without any extra treatment or warm water.
I’ve found that certain brands of clothing, mainly European brands, hold up really nicely in the wash, while other brands pill and fade and look old even after one season. I make sure to treat the better-quality clothing more carefully, spraying it with stain remover, washing it cooler, so they can last for years. I’m a bit more lax with the other clothing because I know even I treat them well, they won’t be in good enough to save for another child.
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