I wish I could put off doing major household chores when the kids are up and active, but usually there’s no avoiding it. Getting kids involved makes things a lot easier, and it turns out laundry can be super entertaining for them. Today we partnered with Maytag to put together a few ideas on making laundry time enjoyable for the fun-sized crowd (and therefore making your life easier too). Ashley, an assistant editor here at Say Yes, invited us into her lovely home with 3 yr old Hazel and 9 month old Bea to photograph their new sunny laundry space while we chatted about ideas on keeping kids happy during laundry chores. Here are four ideas we came up with…
Laundry with Toddlers: 4 Fun Tips
Ashley’s been doing a little renovating in their sunlight home in the east bay. We installed two new Maytag units and then invited the kids along to try it out. Today we’ll be featuring the washer. The Maytag top load washer has a PowerWash cycle that boosts the best cleaning in its class. As I mentioned before, it holds 22 towels! (holy moly). Ashley said, “For one of my first loads in the washer I quickly gathered every towel I had in my house (12) and threw them in. There really was room for at least 10 more towels, which kind of blew my mind (maybe I need more?). But will they wash up nice? Yep! The washer has a deep fill option so the water reaches it’s maximum capacity. Everything came out clean and washed thoroughly.”
With two little kids, Ashley goes through a lot of laundry so larger loads save a ton of time and energy. There are other great features as well like the PowerWash agitator to fight stubborn stains, and the Deep fill option to handle huge loads. All making our laundry chores more efficient and effective.
To make it more enjoyable for those active kids at our feet, we came up with a fun few ideas…
Basketball toss. Nothing like a little competition to get toddlers excited about chores! Throughout the week, while you’re organizing and sorting dirty clothes, let them give their best shot at a three pointer into the basket. It’ll help them burn off some energy too
Spray bottles were meant for toddlers. What is it about toddlers and spray bottles? Edie would sit all down spraying if I let her. Letting them pre-treat stains is a great simple activity that provides an instant result. And, you can’t really mess it up, so no need to stress about them doing it wrong. Great way to work on dexterity and counting too if you give them some instruction along the way.
Scooping detergent. Another activity toddlers love is scooping. Give them the cup and let them dig in to add detergent into the washer. A little extra can’t hurt!
Color sorting. A great way to review colors and coordinate into piles. You can talk about specific colors, and also light and dark colors. The piles might not be as organized if you were doing it solo, but with dirty clothes it doesn’t really matter anyway!
What do you think? Could laundry really be fun? This made me laugh about all the laundry-feelings we have.
Thanks to Maytag for sponsoring this post and making great appliances for our home we love.
I love her rug! Do you know where it’s from?
I feel lucky just to have a washer and dryer in my condo but the washer only holds maybe 3 big towels and a hand towel. I wish I had the room for a big washer!
These are all awesome tips! I’ve been wanting to make our own homemade detergent so that we have a scoopable one, instead of the liquid, for ages now… Maybe that will be a spring cleaning project!
Paige
http://thehappyflammily.com
Yes, great idea- I’d love to as well!
Cute! Great space too. It took me a full five minutes to realize that ‘TV’ on top of the washer was the open lid! Ha
HA!! I was thinking the same thing when I was taking the pictures. And then I thought, wait that’s also an idea for entertaining toddlers during laundry: TV! HA!