Never Lose Uniforms Again

With this easy laundry system, you will never lose uniforms again!

Both of my kids are playing sports right now. My daughter has been playing soccer for years and now my youngest is playing as well. One of the most frustrating parts of sports for a Mom? Washing those uniforms!

Just like other sports, soccer requires lots of parts. There are the tall socks, shorts, shirts, shin guards, and different shoes for inside or outside. My daughter has practice uniforms and 2 different game-day uniforms, so I have tons of uniform washing to do!

I quickly realized that keeping up with all the uniforms was next to impossible. We’d have the right shorts but the shirt was missing, or we’d have one of either colored sock and I’d be going nuts looking everywhere. Finally, I came up with a simple uniform washing system.

With my system, I never lose uniforms anymore!

The only time we do lose something it’s because someone didn’t follow the uniform system! So, what exactly is the system? It’s actually very simple and requires some baskets.  Since my kids are little and their uniforms are small the cheap canvas bins work great. You can usually find them at Target or Walmart for $5 and in multiple colors. You can also go even cheaper and get baskets at the $1 store.

Every sports player in the family will need their own basket and you need one extra. You must keep them in the laundry room. (My laundry room is very small so we keep these on top of the washer or dryer. It’s not pretty but no one sees is it but me!) I purchased some smaller baskets that can stack on top of one another at the $1 store. After some trial and error this has been working for us. We have a dirty and a clean.

Here’s my dirty basket ready for the wash!

As soon as the game is over I make my kids take off their sports gear and put everything in the blue basket. This is for the dirty uniforms. My daughter has multiple uniforms for practices and games and she has several practices each week plus games so I know exactly when she needs what. You will have to decide what day to do the laundry 🙂

When it’s time to do the wash, I throw the dirty uniform clothes into the wash and wash/dry them. I keep a mental note of what’s in there if I washed the uniforms with other clothes. When everything is clean it goes back into the white basket of that player. (the clean one!) For us, white basket = clean uniform. That’s how we color coded. Blue = dirty, White = clean! It’s easy for my kids to see and easy for me to scan and see what I need to wash.

Now when it’s the night before game day or practice day we know exactly where everything is. The key is that as soon as your sports player gets home, you must have them take it all off and put in the dirty bin! And the other important thing Moms is that sometime you will need to do the wash! Ha! If you have a mud room ( I wish I did!)  I would totally keep these bins or baskets in the mud room so that they don’t go anywhere until the uniform is off and in the dirty basket.

With this simple system, I never lose uniforms! We have the socks, shorts, shirts, and smiles all ready for game day 🙂 We also put the sports shoes in a shoe basket so we aren’t running around looking for those as well.

Do you have a laundry hack or tip that works for you? Check out these other ideas.

• Aileen of Aileen Cooks has a great 6 basket laundry system and some fun laundry room printables.
• Medium Sized Family’s Laundry Hacks 
• or try my DIY Febreze Spray