Kids go through a lot of dishes and utensils. We try to assign one cup per day and each kid is responsible for washing it out if she chooses to change her beverage, but they usually drink water and often share a cup. Something must be getting past me though, because we go through a lot of cups. We also go through a lot of utensils.I realized a few weeks ago that it takes a few minutes to put away all the clean utensils and turn them the right way for storing in the drawer. I'm all for saving time and being efficient, so I started loading the utensils in the dishwasher according to type. You know how the utensil holder has different compartments? Well, spoons go one section, forks go in another, knives in yet another, and serving utensils or larger ones go in yet another. If I have too many of something to fit in one compartment, then I may have one compartment that is mixed. Everything sharp goes in sharp-end down and everything else goes in handle down. I don't like emergency room and urgent care visits and just know someone would get hurt with a sharp pointing up.
This makes unloading and putting away so much faster! I take one or two types of utensils out at a time and I just have to sort them by size, not by type. It works for me!
To read up on what else works, visit Kristen at WeAreTHATFamily.
I would do that in mine except when I have too many spoons of the same size in a section, then end up 'nestling' together and don't get cleaned in between. I have general issues with my dishwashers ability to clean effectively though. lol.
ReplyDeleteWhen we got our new dishwasher, it came with the individual sections for utensils. At first I was skeptical, but now see the beauty of separating the different types. It's like laundry... don't wash the reds with the whites and you will be a happier camper.
ReplyDeleteI do that, too. When we had just compartments, I mixed the utensils so the spoons wouldn't nest. Now we have the individual "slots" for utensils. I group the spoons together, the forks together, and so on; putting them away is much quicker!
ReplyDeleteGood idea. We used different colored ir types of cups (their fave color) for each of the kids which helped mulitple cups at our house.
ReplyDeleteLove this idea. Can't wait to try it!
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