How To Organize Baby Clothes
Babies and kids grow up. Too fast.
It seems the moment they are brought home from the hospital, the next moment they are at the bus stop ready for Kindergarten. As the saying goes, the days are slow, but the years fly by. Isn’t that true?
When it comes to baby clothes, they seem to grow out of them just as fast as they years fly by. The piles of laundry get bigger and bigger, the closets get fuller and fuller, and the clutter grows and grows. I remember my daughter wore the 3 newborn outfits we had for her, once. Then she grew out of them. Even though we had just 3, then we were on to the next size. Well, she grew out of those clothes quickly too and then trend has never ended.
Trying to make sense of all of her clothes (even though she is only 17 months old), has been a trying task. I have found that the longer I go without organizing them, the bigger mess I have to deal with later.
Though I have learned there are many ways to organize baby clothes. Simple organizers can solve a cluttered mess quickly, but sometimes the last thing you need is one more thing to add to the closet. I wanted to share with you 6 simple ideas I have used to organize baby clothes – not to mention, these ideas can also be used to organize any closet or dresser in the house!
Put everything in piles by size
- Find all of the baby clothes you have – whether they are stored in dresser drawers, bags, or in a closet. Lay everything out and organize them all by size. For example, put all newborn clothes in one pile, 0-3 in another, etc.
Write down what you need
- Take this time to go through every piece of clothing and decide if it is worth keeping:
- Is it ripped or stained?
- Do you have pants to go with the shirt? If not, are you ever going to use the shirt?
- Decide what you are short on. Do you have enough pants for baby? A coat if needed? Are there enough onesies to get through a week?
Donate what you no longer need
- Many thrift stores welcome baby clothes. The thing with baby clothes, often you can find clothes next to nothing in price, even though they look brand new. Your baby may have worn an outfit once, but the next time you tried to put it on, the shirt wouldn’t fit over their head, so to the thrift store it went! So, if you are in need of any clothes, check the thrift store you are dropping clothes off at because you never know what you might find in return!
Time to put the clothes away
- Store vertically. One of the best ways I have found to store our baby clothes is to fold them into thirds, and then file them vertically. That way, I can always see what clothes I have and if I need to do wash pronto because there are no pants left.
- Organize by size. When you are filing the clothes vertically, store them by size. You can even use different drawers for different sizes if you have the space.
Hang up what you can
- Most rooms have a closet, so if you have outfits, coats, and shoes that are not easily stored in a drawer, hang them up. I also recommend buying or making closet size dividers too, so that you know what you have in each size. I had a friend make some for me as a baby gift and I cannot even begin to tell you how handy those dividers have been!
Label
- The key to KEEPING baby clothes organized is to label, label, label. Like I said, kids grow out of their clothes fast; even though they do, you may not want to get rid of them as soon as they are done with them. This is where labeling what is no longer being used, is key.
- I recommend using boxes or even better, clear plastic containers, to store baby clothes.
- An economical and easy way to label clothes is to write on the REVERSE side (sticky side) of a post-it note, the size (see below). Then I stick it to the inside of the bin, which acts as a window
- To organize clothes WITHIN the bin, I put clothes in old (clean) grocery bags by size, labeled with a sharpie marker.
- This way, if I am looking for a certain size, I know what bin to go to and if I have multiple sizes in a bin, I just have to look at the bags to choose the right size.
