ORGANIZE, PLEASE: CHILDREN’S CLOTHING

What’s that?! Is this thing on?! Remember my series “Organize, Please”? Well we’re back today. I’ll be honest and say that I feel very, very far from being organized right now. I think it’s why I haven’t posted anything recently. My digital life is fairly organized, but… our house? It’s a disaster. Closets. Drawers. The basement. Shelves. I feel overwhelmed by everything so I just kind of avoid thinking about… you know 😉

But last week, I went to put a sweatshirt on Jack and… it didn’t fit! He is constantly growing and outgrowing clothing. And it really does seem to happen overnight. While Jack does have some nice clothing that hangs in the closet (button down, khakis, sweaters), we keep a pretty tight “uniform” for his everyday outfits. That alone makes life a lot easier. (Probably a big perk of boy clothing too!)

Even with a fairly edited wardrobe, managing the clothes always feels so daunting to me. He outgrows different brands at different paces, so it’s not every day that we have to do a big closet switch over. It’s more that once or twice a week one or two things don’t fit anymore. I started this system to organize it and it has worked perfectly so far.

THE SYSTEM:

I have this big tote that I keep in his room and as he outgrows things, I just toss them into the tote. That’s really it. It’s simple, but it’s effective.

Once the tote fills up, I then pick a day when I’m in a good headspace (I don’t know if it’s just me but sorting the tiny clothes that he doesn’t fit into anymore can be emotional?!), I sit down to organize everything in one sitting.

Instead of having to constantly be editing his drawers and figuring out what to do with the clothes, I just do it once in a while with this system. It ends up being a huge time saver.

When I’m sorting, I generally sort into three piles:

– Donate

– Hand-me-downs

– Keep for memories

I have a big bag in the basement where I store clothing to donate. (Our town’s Facebook group usually shares big donation drives happening once a quarter from one organization or another.) And then I have separate storage boxes for hand-me-downs and items for memories (monogrammed pieces, special occasion pieces, etc.).

If I’m in the mood, I’ll go through the memories box and pare things down, but if I’m not in the mood, I don’t force it!

Before I bring the donation bag and storage bins to the basement, I also take this an opportunity to go through his drawers and reorganize everything. I take every piece of clothing out and find more things that he’s outgrown. Since my system typically involves me trying to dress Jack and realizing something doesn’t fit, if something doesn’t get worn, it just ends up in the back of his drawer! I refold everything that still fits and take note of what we need to stock up on in a larger size.

Two months ago, he outgrew every pair of pants except for a couple pairs of leggings and last month none of his shirts were long enough!

If you’re curious, these are the pants I swear by and these are the nice white shirts he has (and these are the shirts I send him to daycare in). 

That’s it! A simple way to not feel so overwhelmed by the outgrowing of clothes!