Organising a family of fours laundry 4 hours per week

louisaL

I'm starting a new Nanny position and to give me more money/hours per week we've agreed I'll do all their laundry including ironing.

There's only me and DH at home and he likes to do his own laundry and we very rarely iron so I've never had to organise a family of fours. They have an Au Pair at the moment who has a lot more hours to do it in where as I will only have from 3pm-4pm Mon-Thurs. I've a feeling I may have to add an extra hour on a day or wondered if anyone has any help/advice. As far as I'm aware they only use the tumble dryer for towels.

iammumtoone

I maybe missing something here but how is that going to work? It will take more than an hour for the clothes to wash and dry! What times will you be in the house as a nanny? I take it you will load the washer and hang out to dry whilst on your 'nanny duties' including being there to bring in if it starts to rain? So the extra hour will only be used for the ironing (which obviously cannot be done whilst looking after the child(ren))

System

How are you going to manage to do it in just an hour a day? Most wash cycles take longer than an hour to start with, you then have to get it dry followed by ironing. Not forgetting that a family of 4 will have m ore than one machine load in a week. You will have no time for Nanny'ing as you will be too busy with the washing.

I don't think that you had thought it through properly when you agreed too do it

Downsizing__for_sanity

I have an au pair as well, but the rule is that she only deals with the children's laundry, not the adults. (But she also deals with the children's bedding, changing it each week.)I think this is fine as I'd rather do my own instead of risking laundry accidents. You will have to be very organised and hopefully they will own plenty of changes of school clothes etc to make your life easier.

Is the 3-4pm to fit around school pick ups etc? If you have 5 mins here and there you should be able to do it - just. Make sure the kids - if old enough - put their clothes in the laundry straight away. Save the ironing till the Thursday 3-4 to ensure they have clean school clothes for the start of the week.

Mon - round up the washing, put in whites wash if you have 5 mins between tasks. Prep coloured/darks, whichever load is biggest for next day. Put in tumble drier and put on. Take out and fold between tasks/baby naps if you can. Then fold and put certain items in ironing pile for Thu.

Tues, Wed - same again, only for darks, coloureds etc. I do not expect my au pair to iron everything - only the school uniform, which I think is fair. I prefer to iron everything, but with a full time medical course, I have had to understand that some things are more important than others.

Thu - set up ironing board and iron, steam your way through it for an hour! We have a steam generator which is much faster than a normal one and makes a difference. However, the time taken will depend on their kit and if you actually get a whole hour's peace to do it in! If they have a dedicated area where you can leave the board etc up, you might be able to get some ironing done in between times each day.

I think you have got your work cut out, but good luck! If you are a naturally organised person, you could do it.

All the best in your new job.

Ellie

DFS

louisaL

Thank you for your replies. The children are 9 and 10 and currently have a nanny (childcare) and an au pair (cleaning, laundry and babysitting) but both are leaving after 2 & 3 yrs.
they had offered me 1pm-4pm each day to do all house cleaning and laundry but I declined the house cleaning and accepted the laundry I'm thinking now I should of accepted cleaning and no laundry although there is time to change as I haven't started yet.
I have 15yrs experience of being a nanny and yes like you said it was for children's laundry only but as these children finish school at 430 I needed to make the hours up somewhere and it's always with either house work or laundry or both!

mummyroysof3

So you are 3 hours a day and the children are not young so I don't understand what the problem is. When they are back at school that's 2 hours a day without them anyway. What method of drying the washing will they expect you to use? Will they be doing any of their own washing? And how much ironing do they want?

louisaL

Since the house cleaning was dropped the hours were dropped to 3pm - 4pm for laundry 4 days a week and then 4pm I would have to leave to collect the children from school. The parents then want pure childcare from 4pm so homework can be supervised and dinner prepared. Then bath before one parent comes home at 6.30pm.

louisaL

Sorry I meant to add its only the tumble dryer for towels so the rest of the laundry will be hung up. They want all laundry of the family's washed and ironed.

belowtheline2013

We have a family of four.

Don't think it could work. An hour a day could work but it would have to be split. 15mins in the morning to sort the washing and stick the machine on, 15 mins in the afternoon to hang it up daily. Then later in the week a couple of hours to iron the dry clothes.

Prothet_of_Doom

As long as you don't get confused between, Elapsed time and Touch Time.

To do a Load of washing, takes about 5 minutes of touch time, and anywhere between 40 mins and 3 hours Elapsed time.
To dry a load of washing takes between 5 minutes and 8 mins of touch time, and anything from 2 hours (tumble dryer) and 36 hours (Line dry, when it's raining lol)
To Iron a load of washing depends on so many factors, but typically a man's cotton shirt takes 3 mins touch time, and a very special dress, takes 8 mins.
If you iron socks, pants, towels, and the like, you need to get a life.
If you iron Bedding, you obviously have visitors coming.
Ironing Elapsed time, can be weeks in our house.
I do it on a priority need basis, and anyone in the family who didn't put their last load of ironing away properly will find that 'going out' clothes are still at the bottom of the pile after 3 or 4 weeks.
I find with a family of 4, that 3 hours ironing a week is more than enough, as long as you don't iron stuff like towels.
I reckon on 4 loads for clothes, 1 load for towels, 2 loads for bedding.

mummyroysof3

I can't see how it would work unless they could put the washer on in the morning for you to sort later, drying it all is impossible unless its inside as you won't be there to get it in when it rains. Think they would be better off looking into a laundry service or something tbh