Large Family Life Hacks

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Face it–in today’s world, “family packs” are usually designed for four people (at most). Houses are bigger, but less accommodating to an actual family-centered lifestyle. You’ve got a massive master bedroom, and two tiny additional rooms that barely fit a set of bunks? Join the crowd.

There you are, trying to work with two or three times the “average” number of family members in a world where even two children can feel super sized. What’s a peace-loving, chaos-shunning mother to do?

Get creative.

Below you’ll find a list of some life hacks that make large family living doable in a world with a shrinking birth rate. Not all will work for every family, and some might need tinkering to fit your needs. But use them as a starting point and see where they lead your unique situation.

Drinkbands–These little gems are worth their weight in gold. Yes, I color code my kids. No, I don’t want seventeen glasses in the dishwasher every time I turn around or (worse yet) an epidemic of shared cups resulting in a strep outbreak. Drinkbands to the rescue! These silicone rings slip around your glasses (we use stainless steel tumblers for everyone under ten) and keep things sorted with no fuss. They’re dishwasher safe and can be personalized, if you choose.

Dry-erase fridge/freezer–Unless you have a stainless steel front, your fridge is actually the perfect writing surface. Keep a magnetized dry-erase marker on the side (out of reach of littles) allows you to keep a running grocery list, leave notes for one another, or simply keep track of the contents without swinging the door open fifty times per day.

Large Family Life Hacks | To Sow a Seed

Dry Food Dispensers–This is one I can’t speak to personally, as I lean towards glass jars as my preferred method of  dry food storage. But a good number of large families swear by these. Simply fill the dispenser with granola/cereal/whatever, leave them atop your counter, and let the people serve themselves. Most folks who do this also seem to set up bowls & spoons nearby, making it a DIY breakfast/snack station.

Drink dispenser–I admit, we’ve taken this to another level with the purchase of a stand-alone water filter. But a water dispenser that sits on your counter and can be operated by kids is sheer genius. Replace the cheap plastic spigot with one that will stand up to some heavy duty use (try this stainless steel version), set it in a safe location where it’s accessible but not precarious, line up those cups nearby, and never have to run to the sink to stop a child from dehydrating right now during a read-aloud again.

Double toilet roll–Maybe your people don’t need this. Mine, ahem, do. I am tired of being the person who always gets stuck with the last two sheets. Two rolls on the wall? Oh, yeah.

Double diaper bags– Keep one bag of essentials (back-up diapers, wipes,changes of clothing, toys, etc.) in the van, and a smaller version that travels with you during shorter jaunts in and out.  You can always send someone out for the bigger bag if you need it, or re-stock from that bag if needed. (Make a point to check this bag from time to time, because growing babies have a way out outpacing what you’ve set aside.)

Put command hooks on the back of your baby’s high chair to keep bibs within reach. Let the toddler have the job of running clean bibs from the laundry to the hooks.

Maintain a family charging station in a centeral location. That way you don’t have to hunt down a teen who swiped your cord; they’re all in one spot. Even better? No one ever has to go hunting down an errant iPad– they always go back home when you’re done with them.

Multi-arm towel rack–Chances are good you’ve got more than a couple of folks sharing a bathroom. Chances are also good that a single towel rack isn’t going to cut it. Invest in a swing-out version that can be fanned out after showers, to ensure that everything dries in a timely fashion.

Metal rolling utility cart–Your library trips are epic. Ditch the canvas bag and go big. This baby will also serve as a lunch cart for zoo trips, and haul everything you need at convention.

Economy dish towels–A large family can easily blow through a roll of paper towel in a day. “Unpaper” towels are pretty and eco-friendly, but honestly, at $20-50 for a roll of 12, they are just not practical for most families of 4 or more people. (The flip side here is that if you make your own, you can use scrap fabric and manufacture several rolls for pennies on the dollar.) Our solution is to keep a drawer stocked with thin, inexpensive dish towels. Lots and lots of towels. These are good for everything from cloth napkins to quick clean-ups. Yes, it translates to more laundry. But really… you’re doing a lot of laundry anyhow, right?

These are just a few ideas, and there are plenty more out there. Share your large family life hacks with us in the comments!

 

One thought on “Large Family Life Hacks

  1. Our family isn’t SO large (only six children, ages 5 to nearly 18), but I do relate to a lot of what you blog! :-)

    Specifically to some of the topics raised in this post, I can comment that our cup mats have been a wonderful solution to the million or so glasses that used to get used each day. Each person has a “mat” (it’s actually just a laminated circle of colored paper) that they personally labeled and decorated, and their glass/cup/mug stays on it. I made a few extras without names, and use a dry-erase marker to write the names of guests who are with us for longer than one meal, then put a piece of clear tape over the name (so it won’t rub off.) After they leave, I remove the tape and wipe off the name. For bigger gatherings (birthday parties and such), we write names on a piece of masking tape to stick on each person’s cup/glass. (I don’t like using disposable things unless absolutely necessary. For my husband’s 50th birthday this year, we did use disposable cups, so just wrote names with permanent marker.)

    Also, we keep a drawer filled with all the bibs we’ve gotten through the years, and those are are go-to clean-up cloths, like your drawer of thin dish-towels. (I did finally sort out all the plastic and plastic-backed bibs, but was left with a LOT. And there are only two that I used regularly, with all six children…)

    My favorite big-family hack, or at least, the only one that I’ve used very successfully for many years, is the dots on clothes. On the label, I put one dot for the first child, two for the second, three for the third, etc. I read that idea in a magazine when I was a teenager, and when my two oldest children were around 4 and 2 and nearly the same size–but not quite–I remembered it and started it then, so have been doing it for about 14 years! I don’t dot EVERYTHING, just things that could get mixed up. (Dresses belonging to my 18-year-old daughter don’t need dots, as the next girl is only 10. But t-shirts from youth group certainly do, when all three of the teens have identical ones.) When something gets passed to the next child, another dot gets added. (This is admittedly not perfect, as some things have been passed the wrong way, age-wise, but that’s not that often. And the dots, with permanent marker, do eventually fade, so I sort laundry with the marker in my hand anyway, and it’s not that hard to darken only four of five dots and make it obvious.) Personally, I don’t know why my three younger daughters can’t just share their underpants and socks, but they won’t, so the dots save a lot of trouble, and mean that even my husband can (theoretically…) sort the laundry.

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