With several children, it is practical to keep the pants, t-shirts, jackets, and co of the first to give them to the 2nd, and so on.
But how do avoid clutter?
Because baby girl dresses, even those of our dragons, take up space!
I’m turning one of my newsletters on the subject into a blog post, hoping it will help you in your management because I had a lot of questions about it. So here are the solutions!
No need to keep everything, as no need to give everything. There is always a happy medium. =)
A mother from daycare recently asked me: “Arsene, any advice on how to manage clothes? I keep all those from the first to give them to the second and it takes up so much space…”
It’s true that I only have a little dragon at home, so the rotation happens quite quickly when a sweater is damaged or too small.
That said, I still have a few things up my sleeve thanks to all the moms I met, your good advice, and my own expertise!
So here is a little word on that to help you.
Is there a quantity to keep or give away?
If we give everything, it’s still a tidy sum to redeem everything. If we keep everything, we quickly fill our space…
And if you’re more of a second-hand consumer, that’s time shopping, filtering clothes if you buy them in batches, etc. And time, I always include that in the equation.
Here are 5 tips to guide you on your children’s wardrobe:
1. Sort out the obvious – eg. bye-bye clothes that are very worn, with holes, stained or that you don’t like at all (what, you have the right!)
2. Choose a physical space to store your little ones’ everyday clothes.
3. Pick another space for clothes that will do later – I recommend using bins if you’re storing them in a big room like the basement, otherwise it’s easy to get out of control! You can have a SUMMER and a WINTER bin to facilitate seasonal changes, for example.
4. Fold all their clothes into a small rectangle (both every day and “later”). This way you will save about 50% space!
5. Consider your washing cycle: do you wash once a week? Maybe 30 winter kits are a bit too much…
The image above is precisely the drawer of daily clothes for Eli. When I took the picture, we were about halfway through the week, so halfway through our wash cycle.
Eli has a single bed with two large drawers’ underneath: one for everyday clothes, another for those who will do “later”.
We fold EVERYTHING into a rectangle, so we have plenty of room to fit all the necessary clothes.
What do we do with the other clothes?
We give them to the following: I particularly like the family bazaars or the group on Facebook, where I found takers very quickly.
Season changes
“But Arsene, what do we do with all the snowsuits?”
You will have noticed that I mainly talked about T-shirts, pants, and jackets.
For snowsuits and accessories, Eli has a small wardrobe in his room. Once again, we keep the rule that it has to fit in the wardrobe and that it remains easy to close the door!
If you have several children, you can also create a bin for winter clothes or pumpkin pajamas that will be used later if there are several, or simply include them in the WINTER bin with their pants and sweaters for the cold season.
You can buy a medium as a big bin, it depends on your reality. That said, just because you have a lot of room in the basement and the bins are piling up doesn’t mean you should have them everywhere!
