washing bedding - how often?

Kadeeae

Sheets/pillowcases/duvet cover every week - pillow protectors & thin mattress cover every other week. Duvet itself, usually once a month - we only use thin ones so do these in my machines.

The pillows are taken outside and beaten within an inch of their lives about once a month and left in the sunshine for the better part of a day along with the deep mattress topper. The pillows I wash myself probably 2-3 times a year and the mattress topper is taken to the cleaner approx. every 2 months (switched out with a spare). Also tend to hoover the mattress when the topper is taken off to go to the cleaners.

Just to mention, the beating of the pillows and deep mattress topper can be v-e-r-y theraputic :rotfl:

Bella79

I was the bedding once a week sometimes it may go a week and half and i hate this ! think they smell fuzzy lol even though were bathed/showered twice a day.

Towels i use twice then get washed on a 90c wash as well as bed linens at this temp

I love fresh clean bedding yummy :@)

zarazara

I am reading this thread with interest. It seems the biggest problem is our high standards of what we think is right,ie bedding changed weekly,clean shirt everyday and so on and the fact that both adults in a family both do paid work. It was much better when 1 worked and 1 did the unpaid housework,the home was clean someone to make a good evening meal for the worker and someone home for the children. We women have been conned. It was far better and less stressful to be a housewife,sucessfully run a a clean and fragrant home, have a happy family. The womens libbers of yesteryear taught us this was menial and pathetic and we should be out there earning. Why? just to be another wage slave and eat ready-made supermarket meals?and maybe take a foreign holiday to "get away from it all". Some joke.

Luciferswench

Is it wrong that in the winter i just wash the bedding when i remember we are a clean family and the children wear clean pyjamas daily. If one has an accident then the bedding gets changed immediately. In summer however its more or less weekly as it can get line dried much easier.

BitterAndTwisted

zarazara wrote: »

I am reading this thread with interest. It seems the biggest problem is our high standards of what we think is right,ie bedding changed weekly,clean shirt everyday and so on and the fact that both adults in a family both do paid work. It was much better when 1 worked and 1 did the unpaid housework,the home was clean someone to make a good evening meal for the worker and someone home for the children. We women have been conned. It was far better and less stressful to be a housewife,sucessfully run a a clean and fragrant home, have a happy family. The womens libbers of yesteryear taught us this was menial and pathetic and we should be out there earning. Why? just to be another wage slave and eat ready-made supermarket meals?and maybe take a foreign holiday to "get away from it all". Some joke.

Bear in mind that those Women's Libbers in the 60s and 70s were in the main middle-class ladies with decent educations so they were espousing choice for women wanting a career as well as a family-life. Going out to work full time when you have a family was not and is not a matter of choice for a lot of working-class women without a decent university education. These days few working-class men earn enough for their wives to stay at home as full-time homemakers and I think that's the con but it is compounded by our expectations of what is a decent and acceptable life-style and how to achieve it. That many men don't accept 50% of the responsibility and do 50% of the work involved in running a home when their partners work full-time is another factor and I have very serious doubts about how sensible it is to go out to work full-time when children are very young only to have to pay for very expensive child-care on top of everything else. How some women can bear to tear themselves away from babies and toddlers and go to work full-time is beyond my comprehension, it would break my heart to have little ones who I only saw for an hour in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening. I'm not a parent so luckily I've never had to resolve that particular conundrum myself.

zarazara

B&T thank goodness someone thinks like me. Common Sense. My OH brings home £1200 a month,less when its holiday pay and no overtime. We manage because my adult son who is on minimum wage pays his way full ie £300 a moth plus petrol. I have recently started part time work but am struggling and also dont feel its right to have them come home from work with no dinner on the table and today,for example my husband did the weekly food shop, I dont think this is right when he works full time.

BitterAndTwisted

Were you a full-time stay-at-home Mum until you started part-time work Zarazara?

I have to admit that my world-view could be jaundiced by my own experience: my mother was a SAHM who only ever worked part-time during the day-time until we were teenagers. She had to go back to full-time work and take on an evening cleaning job when there was some dreadful financial crisis at home which I later understood was because my father was a spendthrift drinker and gambler. And that, all on top of dong all of the housekeeping on her own as well. I doubt my father so much as made a cup of tea for himself all during their married life. Considering what my father did for a living and how much he must have earned we should have had a relatively decent and comfortable home-life but we didn't. These days, I expect she would have left him but at the time that wouldn't have been possible. Poor woman.

mama67

I do my bedding and the boys bedding on alternate weeks, so fortnightly, however if needed it is changed more frequently. I do change the pillows over top to bottom at the end of each week, and the quilts/duvets in their covers are flipped over at the same time.

All beds are left open all day to air, and clean pjs are put on every 3rd day.

The mattresses also get turned every 3 months as follows:

Jan - top to bottom
Apr - left to right
Jul - top to bottom
Oct - left to right

I have actually written the months on the mattress so that when looking at the footend the correct month is read correctly. This is how alot of hotels turn their mattresses to get even wear.

I also change the mattress protectors monthly, have 2 lots though so it doesn't matter if they aren't washed and dried immediately.

I have always followed my mums reasoning with bedding and have minimum of 3 sets for each bed; 1 on, 1 in the wash, 1 spare. So that as long as the one in the wash is washed the day the bed is changed there should always be a spare.

zarazara

B&T yes I was a SAHM. We've really struggled financially and only kept afloat due to small inheritances from parents and grandparents. But we owe nothing . We have a tiny 2 up and 2 down, no garage and postage stamp garden. When my other son is home from the forces its "interesting" as both grown up sons have to squash into the box room. But it a roof over our heads and its ours.

BitterAndTwisted

Owing nothing to anyone equals nirvana and that's a wonderful place to be. Lucky you and yours.