Do I have the wrong approach to my laundry?

[naomi01]

Hi everyone,

Since the birth of my DD four months ago my laundry (total 2 adults, 2 kids) seems completely out of hand, I spend much of the week dealing with colored and white loads, cold and warm, hot for bedding, unsuccessful attempts to remove stool stains etc... and above all, hanging the kids stuff to dry. I have always done that figuring it would cause less damage and less shrinking and they outgrow things fast enough as it is. In my current state of laundry-desperation, it occurs to me that is I bought a size higher than I normally would have, would they have shrunk to the "right" size in the dryer and could I have saved myself all the trouble of line-drying? Have I been taking the wrong approach all along? Currently I buy slightly too big (for growing room of course) but should I buy a lot too big and just let them shrink?

Comments please?

Naomi
DS 12/02/02
DD 10/18/04

[ellies mom]

I'm probably not the best person to give laundry advice. I'm not interested in reselling the clothes, so I'm a little blase about the whole thing. I wash all of DD's clothes together in warm water on delicate in our top loader and normal in our new front loader. I dry just about everything on low heat. I do air dry a few things, but more to avoid ironing than shrinking or fading. I will rinse out stool type things before washing for the most part. I have almost no shrinkage (a few gerber sleepers) and almost no-set in stains other than spit-up stains on bibs, but that is what they're for, so I don't worry too much about that. I do usually one, sometimes two loads of her clothes a week. DH does his own. So, over all, I do 1-2 (usually one) load of laundry three days a week. It works for me, would it work for you? I guess it depends on how relaxed you can be about the whole thing.

[amp]

Naomi - I know a lot of people line dry stuff. I never do. I hate how it feels. And I don't buy the most expensive clothes out there, so I just don't have the time, inclincation or energy to worry about it. All of our clothes get washed in the same loads as DS's clothes (of course underwear, sheets, etc get washed hot, clothing warm or cold, etc). And it all goes in the dryer on low heat (hot for bedding, underwear, socks, towels). Everything fares well for the most part. Those that don't, well, they aren't worn out enough after DS wears them to be concerned.

[egoldber]

I wash all her clothes all together regardless of color. I use a warm wash and dry on permanent press, which is how I was all my clothes. I use Zout to pre-treat stains and thats about it. I also wash her bedding with her clothes.

Sorry, but I don't have the time or energy to be fussy with her laundry. And IMO, all her clothes look fine. I have enough clothes that they probably only get washed every other week, which I think makes a big difference in the wear and tear factor.

HTH,

[laurena]

I've washed all of my DD's stuff together on warm/cold, with the exception of anything white that I care about saving for the (I hope) next child. I use Spray -n- Wash to get out stains and it does the trick for stool stains. I've also used Dreft since she was born, but now that she's almost 1, I'm switching to using regular Tide. I dry everything on the lowest setting. I haven't purchased much clothes for her, so everything is washed/dryed often. So far, I haven't had too many problems with shrinking/fading/fraying. I find that as with my own clothes, the better quality it is (hopefully purchased on sale!), the fewer problems I have with those issues.

I do find that I do a load or two almost everyday now (definitely more often than pre-DD), but taken in little bits, I haven't found it overwhelming.

Hang in there!

[AvasMama]

FWIW, I don't mess with all that stuff either, and this is coming from someone who *does* buy relatively expensive baby clothes and resells them. I wash all clothes (ours and Ava's) on cold, separated into three loads -- whites, darks, and light colors -- and dry normally. Bedding, towels, etc. get their own load and are washed in hot water.

I have never had any significant shrinking or fading problems and no damage to clothing. Most of her better-quality clothes (Hanna, J&J, Gymbo, Baby Gap) all usually still look like new at the end of the season. She does have a lot of clothes, so it's not like each outfit gets worn every week, but a typical outfit will still get washed/dried 10-12 times in a season and most come out in like new or excellent condition for resale.

Personally, I think all this line-dry stuff is silly -- who has time for that?

Robyn & Ava

ETA: I spray all stains with OxyClean spray as soon as possible. Have only had one or two that didn't come out completely. I find Oxy works well even if you have already dried the item -- just saturate it and let it sit for a bit and wash again.

[Samraelanelevi]

Well with 4 kids I do lots of laundry! I tend to buy the more expensive clothing (Hanna and Gymboree) and also purchase or make lots of hand made items. For store bought clothing I separate into 3 separate loads-whites, darks and lights. Then I wash in warm and time dry the items. I do have certain sweaters that I line dry. Now for the hand made items I wash in delicate (inside out) or hand wash depending on the item. I then line dry these pieces but then put them in the dryer for a few minutes to soften them up.

For stains I rinse with water and use oxi clean or shout to pretreat. For the most part my kids clothes have zero stains. As for shrinkage I do not notice that they shrink much if at all-maybe it's the timed drying. I do resell items too and have never had complaints.

[shishamo]

I have three kids and DH working out 3-4 times/week, and I do lots of laundry, probably every other day about 2 loads. I just separate them into two piles: lights and darks/bright colors. Everything goes into warm wash and permanent press dry. For the handknit sweaters (I knit, so we have quite a few), I wash warm inside that mesh laundry bag thing and dry them on a towel.
As for stains, I make a pile, soak overnight in the washing machine with Oxyclean, and wash with others in the morning. It always comes out clean.

As for shrinkage/fading, I have not noticed much: I buy Hannas, plus some random items from Gap, Zutano, Mini Boden, Mulberribush. Some of the Zutano print ones did fade (the print part: Flower Market line comes to my mind), and Mulberribush screen prints tends to crack a bit after a while. I suppose if you hand wash/line dry them it may have been better, but I just not have patience for that :-)

[wagner36]

Oh my! Just reading your post stresses me out!

I do not line dry or lay-flat-to-dry anything, except for one Hanna sweater that I keep trying to hide from Charlie so that I don't have to wash it anymore. He loves it though, and he knows that I hide it in my closet or on the stairs to the attic, and he will run around and find it. I think all of Charlie's clothes look pretty good, but I'm not trying to resell anything, which I think is the big reason that people hang things to dry.

I do 4 loads of laundry a week:

1) Darkish clothes and Jeans - I use Cheer or Woolite Dark for this load, because it REALLY helps keep my black shirts from fading.
2) Brights (including reds) - I'll sometimes consolidate this load with the darks if it all fits. I put a Shout Color Catcher sheet in this load in case the reds or some other bright bleeds. For this load I either use Cheer Dark or the new Method stuff I just bought (after someone recommended it here).
3) Towels and Sheets - Usually just one load a week, but if we've had guests, then I'll do two, since our guest bedding and towels are white.
4) Whites - Not just pure whites, but DH's T-shirts, and socks, etc. I soak this load overnight with Oxiclean, then wash it in the morning. On weekends like this one, where I haven't done laundry yet, I just wash with regular detergent. I find the oxiclean gets most of our stains out of the whites.

I'm not real crazy about stains. If I know there is a stain, I'll put some stain stuff on it, but most of the time I just hope for the best - and it usually works out just fine. DH is pretty good about stripping DS down to a onesie if he's going to give him paint or tomato sauce - but I think we'll have lots of mud and grass stains this summer, so I'll have to learn to deal with those....

[C99]

I hang stuff to dry, but my entire basement is has lines hanging from the ceiling in neat rows, so that makes it easier. (They were there when we moved in.) I generally only line dry white/stained things that I need to treat again, sweaters, or jackets of Nate's. A lot of my stuff and my husband's stuff gets line-dried simply because we're tall and shrinkage really becomes an issue.

I wash all of Nate's stuff separately (from our stuff) still, although I will likely combine it w/ #2's stuff when she arrives. W/ the exceptions noted above, everything gets washed on warm or cold and dried in the dryer on medium. The only thing I wash on hot are diapers.

[tsem]

It seems from reading all the replies that the more laundry one has the less special treatment the laundry receives. With three children under 5 I have lots of laundry (1 to 2 loads/day) and rarely line dry. I line dry sweaters and dd's dresses. I do separate the colors and wash in warm/cold and dry on medium. I have to pretreat stains as my dd is now feeding herself and is very messy. She likes to rip her bib off- I need to get more bibs with snaps. I get so tired of the laundry!
Traci

[AdoptChina]

We have 7 kids, so if I had to line dry everything, there would be no room for people in our house lol

I put all the older kids clothes in the washer (cold or warm) and in the dryer (low or medium). Connor's & Makenna's stuff gets washed depending on each piece....some get tossed in with the other kids stuff, some on delicate, some hung to dry etc

I use All Free & Clear due to kids allergies...and downy free.

The one area where I am obsessive is color separation. As you can imagine, going to each kids room to get their dirty clothes and then sorting them is a major chore, so I made my own system. I have 5 hampers set up in my hallway.....
1.blues/greens/purples
2.blacks/browns/greys
3.reds/oranges/yellows/pinks
4.whites
5.delicates/hand wash

Now I dont have to do any sorting...I just grab a hamper, treat stains with zout (or if bad soak in oxiclean) and wash. I tend to do a whole load of jeans or towels alone since we have so many lol

[naomi01]

Wow, maybe I have been overdoing it. I am definitely going to try sticking more stuff in the dryer... a lot of DS's stuff looks new at the end of the season too and if it would anyway after "dryering" it then why do I bother? Thanks for the advice about shrinking - it sounds like not too much is shrinking in the dryer so I won't try my size up idea.

Two more questions please
1) what is "method" detergent?
2) I had been wondering about oxiclean, we've never tried it and spray n' wash definitely does not get all the stool stains out - can oxiclean be used on colors (eg pink, stripes etc?)

My brother was just telling me this evening I need to soak overnight (never something I have tried)

Thanks to everyone for the advice... its time to make some changes and take back my laundry! :-) (actually I suspect I will still end up line drying some stuff knowing me, but hopefully a lot less)

Naomi

[C99]

1) Method detergent is an environmentally friendly detergent made by a company out of San Francisco and sold at Target. http://www.methodhome.com/

2) I believe that Oxyclean is a color-safe bleach, so it should be OK to use on colors. Personally, I never have any luck with it.

[Jennamax]

I just wash all of DS' clothes with ours. I use All Free and Clear for everyone's clothes - that way I don't have to worry about separate loads for him, and for us. Luckily, he never spit up much, so I wasn't dealing with stains.

[AdoptChina]

For me, the only way to get oxyclean to work is to use HOT HOT HOT water and soak overnight. This can cause some of the color to bleed out of the fabric (this happened when I soaked the boys coats) and turn the water colors, but the clothes looked fine after washing (didnt get all the stains out, but at least they are wearable again lol). Have heard sometimes clothes can fade from this (Naartjie comes to mind).

Some people make a paste w/the oxyclean and apply directly to the stain...Ive heard more fading with this method, but a lot of people say it works well

[AvasMama]

Oxyclean has worked well for me on all colors of clothing. I use the spray version, not the powder version (which you have to soak clothes in to get it to work). It comes in a spray bottle just like Spray-n-Wash. I just saturate the stain, let it sit for a bit and then wash in cold. Never had any fading with this method and it gets out pretty much all stains we've had.

Robyn & Ava