Before you had kids, if someone had told you how much laundry you would have to do, you would not have believed them. Piles of dirty laundry are the proof that your household is home to living, growing and thriving things. Children and sticky things will always find each other. So what can you do to cope? Let's have a little refresher course in doing the laundry.

First, ask yourself if you really need to wash some things as often as you do. You might like a clean towel every time you shower, but could you wait to wash the towels once a week? Everyone needs clean socks and underwear everyday, but if everyone stayed indoors on a rainy day, do the jeans really need to be washed or can they be worn again? Frequent laundering will actually wear clothes out. Of course dirt wears it out, too, but if something was lightly used, you may be able to spare the clothing some abuse by wearing it a second time.

In the interests of preventing stains from food or drool, always have plenty of bibs for the babies and toddlers in your family. If you know a meal is going to be particularly messy one, remove your child's shirt first or use an entire bath towel pinned around the child. A towel can be a little less humiliating for a child who regards himself as too old for a bib. Despite all your precautions, you will have items that acquire stains every day. The number one rule of treating a stain is to not let it get set in by drying and hardening in the fabric. Immediately rinse the item in plenty of water by hand. If you don't have time to deal with it right then, as least leave the item to soak in a bucket or sink, until you do have the time. When you do have time, apply a little detergent, even liquid dish detergent, to the stain and rub and rinse with the hottest water permitted for the fabric. For best results the stain should be gone or at least nearly gone before you put it in washing machine with a treatment from a conventional laundry stain spray. If after washing in the machine, the stain is not gone, but you think it could benefit from an alternate treatment, allow the garment to air dry if you cannot get to it right away. Do not put it in the dryer because the heat could cause the stain to set.

Even with all this advice, it is good to keep a little perspective as a parent. If your day gets so busy the children are still in their pajamas by supper time, at least you only need to change them once again at bedtime, and they have not dirtied another outfit to be washed that day. As a parent, doing the laundry can be an expedition of discovery. In going through pockets, or cleaning the lint screen, or putting away the underwear in the underwear drawer, you can discover all kind of things that your children regard as treasures. Do not worry; the children will be growing up too quickly and will be doing their own laundry before long.