Oh, the joy of hand-me-downs! When haphazardly done, keeping clothing for future children can be a huge mess that takes over your limited storage space. Nobody wants to inherit their older sibling’s pudding stains and ripped knees. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way; following these three steps will help save time and money on your next child’s clothes by keeping the best and storing everything effectively.
1. Evaluate – Evaluating is the most time-consuming, but also the most important step in the process. If you don’t carefully and critically select the clothes that you’re keeping, you end up with an enormous quantity of not-so-great stuff. Get rid of anything that’s torn, stained, or generally worn out. Also, toss (or donate) anything that has a bad fit or is annoying to get on or off your child.
2. Categorize – Categorizing is slightly different for every person; the important thing is to separate clothing into categories that make sense to you. After all, you’re likely going to be the person retrieving the clothes, and you need to be able to find them quickly and easily because hey, you’ve got other stuff to do. Separate first by size (0-3 mos, 3-6 mos, 6-9 mos, etc.)then by clothing type (Shirts, Bottoms, Socks, etc.) or by season/weather (Summer, Fall, Cold, etc.). You don’t have to have separate containers for every single category, but be sure to group like items together within your containers, like putting shirts on one side and bottoms on the other.
3. Store– Where you store hand-me-downs isn’t nearly as important as how you do it, which must be in specifically labeled containers. A label that reads “Baby Clothes” won’t be nearly as helpful as one that says “6-9 months-Winter.” Don’t panic with visions of an entire closet filled with neatly labeled boxes and nowhere to put your shoes. The containers don’t have to be those giant plastic tubs; they can be as simple and small as a shoebox of onesies. I love using gallon Ziploc bags for storing clothes. Just pop all of baby’s 6-9 month shirts into a Ziploc, sit on it to get the air out, zip close, and you’ve got an incredibly space-efficient, airtight, and economical storage solution. Throw all of the different categorized bags into one container labeled with the size, and retrieval will be super easy.
When you notice something has gotten too small for your child, do one of three things: Toss, Donate, or Pin (put a safety pin through the tag to mark it as too small, launder, and store it). Make your decision about the item as soon as you know your child has outgrown it or you’ll end up either accidentally trying to squeeze it on your child again, or with a huge pile of “undecided” clothing. The most important thing to remember is that you will get more clothing as gifts when the next baby comes along; only hold on to the best quality items (same goes for toys and books). You should also probably keep any kind of sweatshirt with animal ears on the hood. I’m a sucker for those.
As a professional organizer and Certified Interior Decorator, Caroline Clark merges form and function to create beautifully organized home and work spaces. She founded Organized Simplicity (www.organized-simplicity.com) to help busy New Yorkers who are tired of feeling frustrated and embarrassed by their apartments regain control and reclaim their spaces.
