I Run My Dishwasher Every Night (It’s a Lifesaver for My Family of 7!)

Running a household of seven is no small feat. To be honest, most of the time I feel like we’re in way over our heads! One thing is for sure: It’s a loud, chaotic house. But I do everything I can to make sure it runs smoothly.

The biggest way I (try) to keep this ship afloat is by creating rhythms so that our home can operate at least somewhat on autopilot and we can focus on the things that matter most. For instance, each kid has an afternoon checklist, accessible on our Skylight calendar, and includes things like emptying their backpacks and a Power 10. This way, I’m not nagging, they know what they need to do, and our home stays somewhat picked up. 

Planning comes into play in a big way for cleaning. While I try to practice habit stacking for things like keeping the toilets clean or my desk cleared off, other household responsibilities require more of a scheduled plan. That’s why shutting the kitchen down each night is an absolute non-negotiable. (I honestly cannot remember the last time this wasn’t done.) 

Each component of our kitchen shutdown routine is crucial to making sure the next day starts on the right foot. For example, the trash gets taken out every night so we aren’t wrestling with over-full bins while trying to pack lunches. Another never-miss component of our nightly kitchen tasks is running the dishwasher, which is probably the most impactful chore for keeping our kitchen humming. 

Running the dishwasher every night ensures that it can be emptied every morning (another of the kids’ chores). Starting the day with an empty dishwasher sets us up for success: There’s plenty of room for the breakfast dishes, which means that dirty dishes won’t pile up in the sink. This, in turn, encourages us to add the rest of the day’s dirty dishes to the dishwasher. By the time dinner is over, the dishwasher is just about full and ready to be run again. 

This rhythm works perfectly for our family, preventing the bottleneck that would occur if the dishwasher were running during the day. This would inevitably lead to a pile of dirty dishes in the sink and/or a dishwasher that needs emptying and dishes that need to be dealt with. And if there’s anything that makes the super-hectic dinner hour worse, it’s having to clean up the kitchen before cooking!

But even when our dishwasher isn’t full at night (like if we eat out or if we have to run it during the day for some reason), we still run it on schedule. I would feel guilty for running a not-full dishwasher, but I’d always heard that using the dishwasher actually saves water as opposed to washing by hand. I recently reached out to an expert to see if this was true. 

Sure enough, Kat Garside of Integrity Energy corroborates this. “Dishwashers are significantly more energy-efficient than hand washing, especially in hectic households,” she says. She explains that “a standard dishwasher uses around three to four gallons of water per load of dishes.” Hand-washing on the other hand, “can consume up to 15 gallons of water every five minutes, and that amount of water can increase dramatically if you get distracted by your children or a needy pet.” It’s like she’s been watching me! (Here’s how to hand-wash efficiently if you don’t have a dishwasher.) 

Knowing for sure that I’m actually saving energy by running the dishwasher, whether it’s full or not, supports our run-it-every-night habit, which not only helps our household run without a hitch, but also saves this often overwhelmed mama some much-needed time and energy.