{"id":1019,"date":"2023-11-26T17:02:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-27T01:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/?p=1019"},"modified":"2023-11-26T17:01:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T01:01:12","slug":"kids-and-laundry-5-ways-to-lighten-your-load","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/kids-and-laundry-5-ways-to-lighten-your-load\/","title":{"rendered":"Kids and Laundry: 5 Ways to Lighten Your Load"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A mom in my office the other day was wearing a T-shirt that\u00a0said:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cRaising small humans\u00a0is exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It really is, isn\u2019t it? The shirt sparked such a fun conversation I almost forgot to check her kid\u2019s ear! We agreed one of the hardest parts of parenting is the endless laundry.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">My sister-in-law and I \u2013 both mothers of 3 kids spaced closely in age \u2013 have really different approaches to laundry. She only does it on Tuesdays. I do it all the time. No matter how you slice it, doing the laundry can take down the most amazing parent and reduce us to an exhausted heap.<\/p>\n<p>How to get through the loads? Here are 5 ideas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Accept<\/b> the infinitely refilling nature of the laundry basket. For me, it\u2019s a battle between not letting clothes pile up vs. feeling defeated by the laundry never being completely done. I had to make a conscious choice to give in to its never-ending nature.<\/li>\n<li><b>Daydream <\/b>about (or indulge in) drinking cups of coffee (or a\u00a0glass of wine) as you fold each morning (or after the kids are in bed). Or try\u00a0being zen and fully present about the experience by savoring the scents and\u00a0feeling of the clean clothes. Doesn\u2019t work as well for me \u2013 but maybe you\u2019re a\u00a0better yogi than I am.<\/li>\n<li><b>Recruit <\/b>the minions (yours, not Kevin, Stuart, and Bob). Kids can wash their own \u2013 they sure know how to make clothes dirty, so why not\u00a0teach them how to make them clean again? They can take turns washing everyone\u2019s\u00a0clothes or just be responsible for their own. Or they can sort, fold, deliver.\u00a0The possibilities are endless.<\/li>\n<li><b>Stop folding<\/b> \u2013 really \u2013 our kids don\u2019t care about folded\u00a0clothing. That said, when I announced my folding strike, one of my 3 did say\u00a0how much he liked folded clothing. Was he working me?<\/li>\n<li><b>Stop sorting socks.<\/b> Consider this approach: one big sock\u00a0bin. If you want a pair \u2013 find your own. And seriously, most kids really don\u2019t\u00a0care about matched socks these days.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mom in my office the other day was wearing a T-shirt that said:  \u201cRaising small humans is exhausting.\u201d It really is, isn\u2019t it? The shirt sparked such a fun conversation I almost forgot to check her kid\u2019s ear! We agreed one of the hardest parts of parenting is the endless laundry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1177,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[147,155,225,224,223,61,226],"class_list":["post-1019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-life","tag-allowance","tag-chores","tag-laundry","tag-motherhood","tag-parenthood","tag-parenting","tag-responsibility","ages-all-school-ages"],"metadata":{"_edit_lock":["1701046761:8"],"_thumbnail_id":["1177"],"_edit_last":["8"],"slide_template":["default"],"video_format_choose":["youtube"],"_custom_body_class":[""],"_yoast_wpseo_content_score":["60"],"qode_animate-page-title":["no"],"qode_show-page-title-text":["no"],"qode_show-page-title-image":["no"],"qode_show-sidebar":["default"],"qode_hide-featured-image":["no"],"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":["60"],"wpfp_favorites":["505"],"_yoast_wpseo_primary_ages":["293"],"_yoast_indexnow_last_ping":["1701046831"],"ase_chapter_enable_timeline":["off"],"_wpb_vc_js_status":["false"],"_yoast_wpseo_focuskeywords":["[]"],"_yoast_wpseo_keywordsynonyms":["[\"\"]"],"_yoast_wpseo_estimated-reading-time-minutes":["2"],"_yoast_wpseo_wordproof_timestamp":[""],"_wp_old_date":["2018-04-26"],"ase_map_component_start_point":["a:2:{s:3:\"lat\";d:29.76;s:3:\"lng\";d:-95.38;}"],"ase_mapbox_style":["openstreet"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4348,"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019\/revisions\/4348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kpthrivingfamilies.org\/pediatricsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}