HELP....Laundry!!!

This is a picture of a week's worth of laundry at our house. Four regular laundry baskets full of folded clothes, and 2 extra large baskets. And we only have 4 kiddos, I can't imagine if we had the 19 that the Duggars have.  What a blessing children are but man can they stack up a laundry pile.

This picture is new beginning in our home though, because it is very rare that we get all the laundry done at one time!  Actually it has probably been years since that happened. But over the last few weeks, it is happening, thanks to my new laundry system and little helpers :)

This is how we do it.

FIRST.... I bought 4 new laundry baskets (you can see pictured above) for each child for only about $4 a piece at Target.  Black for Yacko, Blue for Wacko, Pink for Dot and White for Libby. 

SECOND... the children are REQUIRED to help me with this chore. (well all except Libby, not much she can really do yet but her day is coming :) ).  This is very new to me, because I thought there was no way they could do this chore and it would just be easier for me to do it myself.  But then I started thinking, they are going to have to learn this one day, so why not start now when they are young.  Yes, it's not going to be perfect, but really who needs perfect, we just need it done! 

So they help with bringing down their dirty clothes, sorting the clothes (this is a good lesson in colors), putting them in the washer and switching to the dryer, and when the clothes come out we separate them into each person's basket.  Then when ALL clothes have been washed and dried, they are expected to fold their own clothes.  They have had to have some help from mommy in the beginning with this to remember how to fold everything, but don't we all need to be trained on a job for a while before we are expected to do it on our own? 

Now all of this may not be done in one day.  Sometimes, or most of the time, we wash on Wednesdays, fold on Thursdays, and THEN they put their own clothes away in their bedroom drawers on Friday.

This has been such a blessing to me to do it this way.  It keeps me focused on getting it DONE and it is a life learning experience for the children along the way as well.  

Do you have a tip on doing laundry in your home that you could share with us?  All help and tips are appreciated in the never ending laundry department :)