Here are my 10 Commandments of Storing and Organizing Children's Clothes:
- Thou shall keep the boxes from all thy kids' shoes (so thou'll know what size they are when thou needs them).
- Thou shall remove all stains from clothes when they happen, and thou shalt not leave clothes stored or piled up somewhere with stains on them for years.
- Thou shall always wash dark colors in cold water.
- Thou shalt not let kids stretch out clothes that are too small for them.
- Thou shall have a labeled bin ready to store clothes as soon as they are outgrown so thou won't have to wonder what size they were (because the tag is now unreadable).
- Thou shalt never buy more clothes only because thou can't find the ones saved from the previous kid.
- Thou shall pair socks after washing, and discard the orphaned socks.
- Thou shall throw away clothes have holes in them or are hopelessly stained or faded.
- Thou shall donate clothes that thou never liked, are duplicates, or thou has too many of.
- Thou shall wash all clothes and dry thoroughly before storing them.
All of the above, I learned the hard way. Up until a couple of days ago:
- I had a mountain of baby clothes piled up on top of a changing table in my bedroom. The pile reached halfway up the wall, and constantly shed little socks onto the floor.
- My 5 year old daughter could never find any clothes to wear. Her dresser seemed full, but everything was too small. In fact, she really does not have many clothes; good thing it's almost Christmas.
- My toddler's clothes were overflowing out of her dresser, and another mountain was forming on top. When I removed all the clothes that were too small, what remained fit into two of the three drawers, as well as some thing now hanging in the closet. We never used hangers before for the kids.
Getting the too-small and junky clothes out of the dressers was a huge blessing to the kids (and to my sanity). I just informed my 8 year old son that he now has socks paired together in his drawer, so he should wear them every day. He opened his eyes wide and said in a hushed voice, "They're all together?" I said yes, and he yelled "Thanks!" and gave me a big hug. That just makes it all worth it.
