Laundry for a Big Family: The Routine That Keeps 8 People in Clean Clothes

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With eight people in one house, laundry never ends. There's always a towel on the floor, a toddler who changed outfits twice before lunch, and a basket that was empty yesterday.

I stopped trying to get it all done in one day. Instead, I do a little every day and one big wash on Sunday. Here's the whole routine, plus the one shopping habit that keeps anyone from running out of clean clothes.

One or two loads, every day

Every day I run one or two loads. They're mostly the things that need washing often: towels, washcloths, and my 3-year-old's clothes. She's a messy toddler and goes through a lot of outfits.

Small daily loads keep the pile from building up. It takes a few minutes to start a load, and the towels are never all dirty at once.

Sunday is the big wash

Everything else waits for Sunday. That's when we do the big washing: everyone's regular clothes, sheets and whatever else has piled up during the week.

Having one set day means I don't have to think about laundry all week. The daily loads cover what can't wait, and Sunday catches the rest.

The back-to-school trick

This one habit saves me more stress than anything else. During back-to-school shopping, I make sure every kid has more than enough outfit sets.

That way, if I miss a day or two of laundry, nobody runs out of clean clothes. A busy week doesn't turn into a morning with no clean pants.

The kids fold and put away their own

My older kids fold their own clothes, and everyone but my 3-year-old puts their own clothes away. With six kids, there's no way I could fold and sort everything myself.

And I'm not a stickler about it. I don't need a perfect fold or a neat drawer. All that matters is that the clothes get in there. If you're working on getting kids to help more around the house, I wrote about what works for us in my post on getting kids to do chores.

Why we switched to laundry pods

I used to use laundry powder. Then the kids started doing their own laundry, and the powder ended up everywhere. Now we use laundry pods. One pod, one load, no measuring and no mess.

What else helps

A collapsible laundry basket. I love this collapsible laundry basket because it folds flat and saves space. In a small house, that matters.

Dryer balls instead of dryer sheets. I still use dryer sheets sometimes, but they always seem to find their way to the floor. Wool dryer balls stay in the dryer where they belong.

Letting the basket be a basket. A laundry basket has lived in our living room since 2019. I talk about why that's okay in my post on making your home feel calm.

If you're starting out

Pick your big wash day. Choose the day that's usually the calmest at your house, and keep it the same every week.

Wash towels on their own. They take longest to dry, and a separate load keeps everything else moving.

Hand off one job. Even little kids can match socks or carry their own clothes to their room.

Laundry for a big family doesn't have to take over your week. A little every day, one big wash, and enough clothes to cover the busy days. That's the whole system.