How To: Organizing Baby Clothes

It’s amazing to me how much room those tiny, little pieces of clothing our babies wear take up. While my son’s nursery closet started out nice and organized, with specified bins and drawers for each piece of clothing, and even closet clothing dividers, he has grown so fast in the past year that my carefully constructed organizational system flew out the window and before I knew it, I was left with a mess of clothes from his first year, mixed with clothing that fits him now, and a few things for the future that I purchased ahead on sale.Baby/toddler clothing is tricky. Different brands fit different ways: a 9 month shirt does not mean it will fit all babies at 9 months, it just means it maybe, sorta, might just, fit your baby within six months of that 9 month mark. For a new mom that doesn’t realize this – it’ll drive her crazy. And it drove me crazy too. It was always a hunt to see if I could find the right pieces that fit each day, and I found that because it was such a mess in the closet, he didn’t even wear all the clothing he could have.

So one day, I finally went through and decided that I had to come up with a solution and streamline my son’s clothing so it wasn’t such a headache each morning to dress him. This method particularly works well for that first year or two when children are changing clothing sizes as fast as they’re developing new skills. It’s a great way to stay organized while *hopefully* not missing an entire set of clothing because you forgot about it in the back of the closet.

1. Sort baby’s clothing. Go through all the clothes your child has and throw them into four piles: Future (too big), Past (too small), Present (fits currently), and Trash (those stained ones that you should have never kept anyway).

2. Store the Future and Past piles. We have a couple super large storage bins that stay in the basement that I store the too small clothing in. But sometimes Eli will grow out of a pair of pants or a shirt, and the last thing I want to take it down to the basement to store it permanently. So for a more immediate solution, I have a bin that I can throw too small clothes in temporarily, and then about three times a year, I empty it out and store it in our more permanent storage bins in the basement. The same with clothing that’s too big. Create a space in the closet or a drawer in the dresser where you can store anything that your child still needs to grow into. That way, it’s not taking up space in the main area and confusing you as to what fits, but it’s also handy so you remember to access it frequently to keep checking to see if they’ve grown into those items. Remember, every item of clothing will  likely fit differently, so it’s important to keep these bins in a handy spot.

3. Organize Present clothes: For “Present” clothes, put them in the most prominent places, where you find yourself frequently looking for clothes. We hang a few of his dress shirts and bulkier items, like vests and sweatshirts, but for the most part, we use simple Ikea drawers and organize by clothing type: Tops, Bottoms and P.J.’s. I used to try to fit bottoms and P.J.’s together, but I just found they became a jumbled mess over time, and storing them in completely different drawers have at least kept them separate.

4. Maintenance mode: My biggest tip is to check the Future bin way more frequently than you think you should, particularly in that first year. It’s amazing how fast baby can blow through sizes and suddenly you find that they didn’t wear a bunch of the adorable outfits you had on-hand for them. As you purchase or receive more clothes, compare them to the clothing your baby is currently wearing to see where they should be stored. I used to try to have my son try each piece on, but found that was the quickest way to put him in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Instead, grab a piece of clothing you know fits them currently and lay them on top of one another, it should at least give you an idea of if it should stay out, or go to the future bin. In addition, don’t forget to empty out the past bin and put it into a more permanent bin, organized somewhat by size. I ended up storing 0-12 months together, and am now on a 12 month+ bin – we’ll see how many clothes I can fit in there before it fills up!

I’m amazed at how much easier it is to dress my son each morning and how much less of a headache it is figure out what fits but just adding a couple simple bins to the closet. Plus, I’m not finding random clothing items buried in a drawer anymore, kicking myself when I discover my son never even wore it and now it’s too small!

Any tips you’ve found for storing baby clothes? I’d love to hear about some of your systems!