Making My Home a Haven--Kids Clothing

This is Ali's side of the closet. We put the changing table in the closet since we weren't using it much from about the time Jer was 8 months on. Empty suitcases on the bottom, the next shelf holds winter snowpants on the left and a box of Ali's shoes on the right. The next shelf holds extra disposable diapers and wipes on the left, 2 bins of socks and undies on the right. The top holds her clothing tub, where her pants, pajamas, and skirts go. Shirts and dresses and complete outfits are hanging on either sides. On the top shelf are 2 apple boxes, one for Jer, one for Ali. In these boxes are the next size up of clothing for them. I've already sorted out the clothes they have for spring and summer so they're ready to go. When they outgrow clothing, they are usually bagged up and taken to our shed and put in either the blue "boy" tub or the purple "girl" tub or sorted to be given to friends as "hand-me-downs". I have one tub each for infant clothes of each gender and one tub for 1 year old and up for each gender in the shed. Any clothing larger than the next size up is stored under Jer's crib in a separate box or in our shed and is only checked through once or twice a year. I try to mainly keep the next size on hand, but not clothing that is so big that I will have to store it for several years before they can wear it. On the top right of the shelf is games/puzzles/blocks/Duplos that I keep out of the kid's reach so they don't scatter little pieces everywhere. If they want to play with one item, they can, but it goes back up on the shelf and not in the toybox.

Most of Jer's sweaters and complete outfits are hanging and I use a closet shoe organizer for his onesies, pajamas, and t-shirts. The bottom half of this closet is used to store our baby blankets, extra comforters, and tub full of linens since we don't have a linen closet here. The top shelf on this side of the closet is for our game collection.

Jer has a sock box on top of the dresser. This makes it handy to just reach in and grab a pair even if I'm holding him in the mornings. Stray socks are laid next to it, waiting for their mate! The dresser holds things that they don't need on a daily basis, like fancy church clothes, shoes to grow into, clothing that's too small and needs to be taken to the shed and put in the blue "boy" tub or other baby odds and ends.

Two bins hold socks and undies for Ali. One of her chores is to put these laundry items away when I'm folding laundry. As soon as Jer is potty trained, he will have bins too.

Two empty child-size suitcases I got at a yard sale for 25 cents each work great for trips to MN. However, they are currently empty, but I'm thinking they would be a perfect hiding spot for toys that are rotated out for a week or month at a time. Shhh! Don't tell my kids!

Keeping the kid's closet organized isn't too tough at our house if we keep at it and if I consistently go through it every couple of months and do some rearranging and sorting of clothing. As time goes on, I get more and more into my system and have figured out how it works best for me. Eventually I want to convert Jer's clothing to a tub, perhaps this week as there is a local sale on storage tubs. I really like how Ali can go through her tub herself and choose her own clothing and put stacks of clothing away for me. While my closets aren't picture perfect, elegant, and straight from a designer nursery magazine, they are functional, and that's all that matters to me!

One note: If you use tubs for your child's clothing instead of a dresser, be sure that you put them up high enough so that they can't get into them if they are really little. I learned this the hard way as Ali used to empty out her clothing tub repeatedly when she was a year old because it was just sitting on the floor of her closet! She's now at an age where she never empties her tub, because if she did, she knows that she would be responsible for folding and putting it all away!

Now, on to something I really struggle with.....school supplies! Now that we're accumulating more and more educational stuff like coloring and tracing books, lacing cards, alphabet flash cards, paints, crayons, markers, craft ideas, etc. I need to set up a system for keeping that all in one place and organized! More on this another day........