I always thought that mothers were being over-dramatic when they complained about all the laundry that they had to do.  Like, yes, I know that kids can’t even eat toast without messing on themselves, but seriously, it can’t be all that bad can it?  We all wear one lot of clothing per day, reuse some items (that by the grace of the laundry gods, didn’t get destroyed after the first wear) and try not to spill spaghetti down our fronts – so I just don’t think it could ever be as bad as they say.

But I was wrong.

Like I was wrong about most other things I thought about motherhood (prior to becoming a Mom myself).

This post is powered by the LG Smart Inverter washing machine

Guys, I don’t know hey.  Maybe it’s just our family but I literally just freaking blink and the previously empty laundry basket is now overflowing with dirty clothes.  Well, that is, when they actually remember to put it inside the basket and not next to it.  It does my head in.

When the kids were really little it was because every single feed would result in them either messing all over themselves, throwing up all over themselves (or me) or a massive poop right up their backs!   At my first baby shower I actually wished that they would do that.  Wait what?  Why the hell would I ever wish that?  Well guys, there’s that ignorant pre-mother thing I had going.  It was so that I could change them into all their cute little outfits all the time.  I know right?!  Soon I realised that the reality of it is a totally different story.

Now when I think that they have that whole exploding poop thing controlled and only vomit on themselves when they’re really sick, they still make the same amount of laundry.  At first this phenomenon blew my mind.  How is this even possible?  Where does it come from?  What are they doing?

Then I realised it’s because they have a set of school clothes that they wear, then extra mural clothes, then home clothes, then pajama’s.  That’s all in one day.  Add to that the occasional dress up for a party mid week or the fact that they insist on playing in the dirtiest sandpit in our garden.  Plus Seth has taken to cycling to work in the week now which is great for him and his health, but not great for the laundry pile.

We’d been coping with our little front loader all these 8 years of having a varying number of children.  But we were only surviving with doing 4 to 6 loads of washing a week!  It was crazy!

So when LG offered us the LG Smart Inverter washing machine to review I said hell yes!

Here’s a few reasons that I was so keen to try it out:

• I have been lusting over a top loader for ages – my Mom in law has one, and aside for being amazing at being organised, she was always totally on top of her laundry.  This is testament to how she keeps her house obviously, but also to the size of her washing machine.
• We have some blankets and things that just won’t fit in our washing machine and so I have to take it there to be cleaned and that sucks.
•  Smart Inverter Control which eliminates wasted operation by efficiently controlling energy use, which means a saving of 36% on energy consumption.
• It has Turbo washing which means that it can deal with Knox’s seriously dirty clothes but also a delicate wash so that it can deal with my rather precious tops that shouldn’t be washed in the same setting.
• We also had a little issue with the installation, but I called the number and they helped me sort it out in a jiffy.

We’ve been using it for almost a month now and it has honestly changed my life.  Yes, I know that sounds like I’m just saying that, but I’m not because it’s true.  In one load of laundry I am now washing almost three times more than I could in may old machine.  THREE!!! I don’t math well, but that’s a heck of a lot more.

This machine is flipping on the ball.  It tells me how much power to use, calculates the right amount of water for the load and just works so much better than our last one.  Plus, it’s quiet on it’s normal function, but if you are night time washing it has an even quieter function!

But what about water saving?

I know that a big concern about top loaders is the water issue.  Apparently they use a lot more than front loaders.  I can’t speak for all makes and models or whatever, but in our experience this has not been the case.  We measured the amount of water per load of our old machine and our new one now and it’s the same.  I don’t know how this can be, but it really is.

And it’s doing THREE times more washing than the last one, so in the long run we are definitely saving more water this way.  Oh, and you can put your own water in first which it will sense, then only add the necessary to run the load.  Which means that other grey water can be used to wash your clothes in conjunctions with clean water.  So that’s a huge win considering that we are living in Cape Town.  (Plus we catch all the water and use it for flushing loos etc).

Also because of its size (and the water crisis), I only do one load of washing a week and we’ve been doing just fine.

So all in all, I have been really impressed with our new family member.  Here’s to doing less laundry this year!