Baby Clothes Organization

In light of my 2016 organisational resolution I posted here, I thought I'd share an organisation project I did back in the fall - baby clothes!

When Mini Muffin was born, I had good intentions and a plan to keep all of her baby clothes organised and well stored for future use. As she outgrew each size I folded and bagged them, labelled and put them in a large storage bin. Easy! Until nine months that is, when her bigger clothes no longer fit in a single bag. I ended up just stuffing them into a storage bin, and the sizes started to be intermixed. Then the bins got full, and I resorted to a clear plastic yard waste bag. The clothes were definitely in a state of loosely organised chaos. And that's not to mention the outdoor gear, shoes and socks!

Fast forward to Little Smiling Man's arrival. At that point, I realised the problem with my original organisational scheme. The beautiful gender neutral clothes that I'd received at my baby shower were now mixed in with girl clothes.... in neatly labelled bags by size. Digging through it all was a pain, I missed a few items, and that was before I reached the nine-month-stuff-it-in-a-bin 'organizational scheme'. And now there were boy clothes being added to the mix that also needed to be stored in case a third baby should need them.  The baby clothes situation was quickly getting out of hand!

When Little Smiling Man was growing out of his six month clothes, and Mini Muffin's 2T clothes also needed to be packed away, I decided to take action. I'd been thinking about how to best organise them all, and had a plan that I thought would take an afternoon to complete. It took a few afternoons, but I'm really happy with the result!

Before I began, there were four large storage bins that were stuffed to the brim, two stuffed diaper boxes, and two yard waste bags. As you can see in the picture below, it was pretty out of control.

Before... Everything overflowing and disorganised

Conveniently, the week I started this project vacuum storage bags went on sale at Costco. Perfect! So, I started with the smallest clothes and worked my way up. First, I put all boys and girls newborn pjs together, since I'd want both options to be washed and ready to go prior to a new baby's arrival. I then sorted newborn girl and boy clothes into separate bags, since these I'd pull out and wash for use after the baby was born (and thus after gender was known). Next, I pulled out all gender neutral clothes and pjs, and stored them together; one bag for up to six months, and one bag for larger sizes. From there, each size got an appropriately sized vacuum bag for each boys and girls clothes. And, since I'll want to reuse these bags, I tucked a card with gender and size inside before vacuuming them closed; this way everything is labelled without the bags being marked. Also, as I worked I weeded out the clothing that was still in good condition, but that I hadn't really liked and so would unlikely use again. These were separated out for donation to charity.

Since outerwear is something we'll be digging into seasonally regardless, I put boys and girls outerwear together in a single vacuum bag. Baby Hallowe'en costumes also went together in a single vacuum bag. And finally, I sorted shoes and socks by size and gender in labelled kitchen freezer bags. 

And that was that! I packed away the sealed vacuum bags, and the end result is shown below. Two diaper boxes for donation, and four large storage bins containing newborn to 2T girl clothes, newborn to six month boy clothes, outerwear, shoes, costumes, and an 'on the go' bag for each gender of sizes in the process of being grown out of. Much more manageable and sustainable moving forward!

After - boxes for donation, bins for storage

To summarise my tips -

• Store gender neutral clothes separately for easy access regardless of gender.
• Just because it's in good condition, you don't have to keep it. Donate what isn't functional for you.
• Good quality vacuum storage bags significantly reduce overall storage space.
• Having a variety of vacuum storage bag sizes is a bonus; toddler clothes take up much more room than newborn clothes!
• Experiment with filling the vacuum bags before getting too far into the process.  How you fill them impacts their shape after being vacuumed shut, so you need to make sure that the final dimensions of the bags will work with your storage space (bins, closet, etc).
• One well labelled bag for each size and gender will make it easy to find what you need later.
• Store shoes separately from clothing as they don't compress, so will make everything take up more room.  One bulky bag of shoes is much more convenient than shoes interspersed amongst clothing.

All in all, it was a pretty fun organisational project.  It was certainly nice to be able to take some time to turn my learnings from Baby #1 into a smarter set up for Baby #2 and any subsequent siblings.  It even helped me rediscovered some larger size gender neutral pjs that Little Smiling Man will soon grow in to.  And of course, I am thrilled for the more efficient use of closet space now that the yard waste bags have been eliminated!