Ask Unclutterer: Overflowing child’s closet
Reader Miriam submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:
How do I get a handle on children’s clothing (shorts, school clothes, skirts, pants, capris, short sleeve shirts, long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters…etc. etc)? I am awash in laundry with little closet space! And I’ve tried to think of it in terms of how many days of clothing (2 weeks) might be ideal yet am still overwhelmed (I’ve two girls who wear the same size!) … HELP!
I recommend starting this process by sorting your daughters’ clothing into warm and cool weather piles. Put all the summer-appropriate things in one pile, and the winter-appropriate things in another. You may also have a third pile for multiple-weather items, like jeans, socks, and underwear.
Assuming that your daughters are under 14, you can now get rid of all of the summer items and, if they’re in good shape, give them to charity. There is no way that your daughters will be wearing the same size next summer, so clear out these items permanently. If your daughters are high school age and have finished their growth spurt, sort the summer clothes into keep and purge piles. Put the keep items into pest-proof storage for the winter and, if they’re in good shape, pass the purge items onto charity.
Once you have the summer clothes out of the way, you will hopefully begin to feel a sense of relief and won’t be too overwhelmed with the rest of this process.
Next, immediately purge any items that are ill-fitting, damaged, or out-of-style. (Your daughters will be able to tell you what’s “not cool” in their closets, even if they’re as young as kindergarten.)
After this, look at what is left and decide if you need to continue. If you need to keep cutting clutter out of their closets, I recommend sorting by purpose — your kids might have school clothes, dress-up clothes, play in the mud clothes, and uniforms for clubs or teams. Once these purpose piles are created, bring each down to a manageable size. As you suggested in your question, two weeks worth of school clothes sounds like a good idea to me. Each girl probably doesn’t need more than three or four dress-up outfits, one or two play-in-the-mud pieces, and, if applicable, just one or two uniforms per club or team. Look at your family’s schedule, though, to get these numbers right for your needs.
Finally, it may be time to have your daughters start to do their own laundry. By fifth or sixth grade, children can be responsible for taking care of their wardrobe. If you can teach them how to take care of their things, you won’t be swimming in laundry any longer. Good luck!
Thank you, Miriam, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column.
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27 comments posted
Posted by Jackie - 10/23/2009
Just to second your opinion about kids 5th or 6th grade doing their own laundry…
When I was 12, my mother had my older brother and myself do out own laundry, because we were abusing the privilege of her work (throwing clean clothes down the laundry shoot because we were too lazy to put them away, etc.)
Learning to do you own laundry young is a great way to participate in the household work, learn to take care of your own things, and begin learning self-sufficiency.
Posted by Michele - 10/23/2009
I have one daughter whom I am apparently feeding too well, because at age 10 her feet are bigger than mine (I wear a pair of shoes that she “hand-me-downed” to me!) and she’s only about a half-inch shorter than I am. So she goes through clothes pretty fast!
We have 2 main strategies: First, any time she emerges from her room in the morning with a piece of clothing that is too small, too ratty, or too seasonally inappropriate, it goes immediately to the give-away pile or the rag bag. That way, I don’t waste time, personal energy, or money washing clothes that she won’t wear any more.
Second, every 2 or 3 months we go through her drawers and closet together to purge clothes that are — again — too small, too ratty, or too seasonally inappropriate. It’s a regular thing that we’ve been doing for a few years, so it’s a habit that we both expect. Also, she doesn’t have a huge emotional attachment to her clothes, so she’s almost always very cool about giving something up. Then I take the give-away clothes to my favorite charity, or we take them together, when we have “enough,” which varies by my mood and space concerns.
I do let her keep a couple of oddball items, like costumes or dresses she’s worn to weddings. In the vast majority of cases, the next time we go through her things, she responds with a comment like, “Why the heck did I keep that? It belongs in the give-away pile.”
As for laundry, she must take her own clothes to the laundry nook on her own. By now she knows that if she leaves something on her floor or if she puts it away soiled, she has only herself to blame if she needs it and it’s not available. I have her help me sort the clothes, but because my laundry nook is very small (in our very small condo), it is not practical for her to help me do the laundry, nor to do it herself.
Posted by NancyV908 - 10/23/2009
I like this post & agree with most of it but have a few comments.
First, I wouldn’t assume that young kids will have outgrown their clothes by next season. It depends on the kid and the type of clothing. Also, often clothes start out on the big side, either by design or, as happens with my son, b/c of where his birthday falls; for the season, his “age accurate” size always seems a little small, but the next size runs a little large. I’ve had many, many items that have fit my kids perfectly well over two or more seasons.
Also, I’m personally not too crazy about giving young kids a huge say in what they wear–or more precisely in what is uncool. For my nearly 13-yr-old, it’s different, & harder. But I am not about to let my 7-yr-old tell me something is unfashionable so she won’t wear it anymore. I don’t buy her clothes she doesn’t like to begin with, but I wouldn’t let her go through her clothes & veto things b/c she no longer thought they were cool. If she really doesn’t like something anymore, I’ll donate it, but I wouldn’t invite her opinion on what’s in fashion. I don’t want to get rid of clothes unnecessarily, but I also don’t want to encourage her to be so concerned about what’s considered “in”–or fitting in–at such a young age. That gets bad enough later. I’d be more likely to let her wear clothes that don’t match, if that’s how she wanted to express herself, but not to veto clothes that are in good shape.
Finally, although I like the idea of having kids do their own laundry very much, I don’t like the idea if that means they do only their *own* laundry, unless the machine is full. I think it’s wrong to run small loads on environmental grounds.
Posted by Celeste - 10/23/2009
Awesome post and even better comments. The only thing I would add is that when you are short on closet space, sometimes a bigger dresser is helpful. I would look for opportunities to fold and store things like shorts that really don’t need to be on hangers. I think any sports uniform can qualify for folding, too.
When you are doing a closet purge, I also think it helps to evaluate the hangers. The non-slip ones with the flocking on them help smaller and more delicate girls’ clothing stay on rather than fall to the floor, and if there are a lot of skirts it helps to put them on a skirt hanger that holds multiple skirts.
Don’t forget the shoe purging, too. Sometimes it seems like kids have too many pairs, only they haven’t tried them on in a while and they no longer fit. I favor a minimal amount of shoes just so they stay in fast rotation and get used before they get outgrown.
Also look for any use of closets for storage of accessories. These can go in some other container rather than take up premium closet space.
Posted by gerette - 10/23/2009
Great post, Erin. With two daughters, generous grandparents, and friends who give us hand-me-downs, we have TONS of clothes. I do a twice-yearly closet switchover and anything that is too small for the two year old goes into a bag for charity or handing down to friends and family. Anything too small for the five year old goes into a bin separated by size and season for when it fits the younger one. (This sounds like I’m way more organized than I am, every bin seems to have 2-3 random items that got thrown in during the switchover.)
Once the out-of-season clothes are out of the closet/dresser, I go through the in-season bins. Realizing that I had, for example, around 20 size 2T skirts, I decided to get rid of some and have limited most categories to 10-15 pieces. Because my girls are in preschool/pre-K, their school clothes and play clothes aren’t differentiated. (Too many days of paint splotches on nice clothes to send them to school dressed up.)
Finally, I definitely agree with NancyV908 about hanging on to things that may well fit the following year. My oldest was in 2T for two years, then flew through 3T into 4T. As I’m putting them away in bins, I cull out anything that I know is too short/tight or just ratty looking, but otherwise I hold onto a good portion of the clothes for the following year. (Note: obviously, for babies, this isn’t necessary. They will be MUCH bigger in a year, but toddlers and elementary school kids are often the same size for a while.)
It amazes me to see the sheer amount of clothing one child can amass in five short years but because they’re worn for months rather than years, they do still look nice long after they’re too small. Happily a friend of the family is having a girl in the spring and I will be supplying pretty much a complete, hand-me-down wardrobe, 0-3mo up to 2T.
Posted by Kris - 10/23/2009
As others have mentioned, don’t automatically ditch clothes worn this past summer. My two-year-old is still wearing a jacket he wore last fall. Items that fit in the fall may still be wearable in the spring. Also, short-sleeve shirts are sometimes perfect to layer under sweaters and sweatshirts to let kids cool off in warm indoor spaces.
Posted by Heather B - 10/23/2009
Space bags are wonderful for storing the out of season clothing when you don’t have much storage space.
I agree with giving older kids the responsibility of washing their clothing. By the time my sister and I were in High School we did the laundry for the entire household. This worked well for my mother since she didn’t buy any delicate items and took care of items that needed dry cleaning herself.
Posted by Annalise - 10/23/2009
I am constantly trying to tame the clothes. With five boys ages 11 down to 1, my “purging” consists of throwing out the tattered clothes and moving too small ones down to the next boy. Keeping on top of it all and the changing seasons is one of my biggest battles!
Rather than have my boys do their own laundry, they all learn to help with the family laundry. That way everyone learns sorting, folding, etc., but we always do full loads and also learn to help each other out.
On a side note, a friend gave me a tip on how to keep track of whose clothes are whose if you have children close in age/size. I use a permanent marker to mark each article of clothing on the tag (or discreet location with the absence of tags these days) with a number of dots that corresponds to the child. My oldest gets one dot, the next gets two, etc. When I pass a piece of clothing to the next boy, I add a dot to it so I can easily tell whose it is. This also is extremely helpful with clothes that don’t usually last long enough to get passed down, like socks. Everyone knows how many dots each person has, so it is a system the whole family can use.
Posted by Mel @ Real Heart Prints - 10/23/2009
Just to let you know I left you an award at my blog.:)
Posted by Heather - 10/24/2009
One recommendation I found on FlyLady was to teach children to do laundry by paying them 25 cents for each process of sort, wash, dry, fold, and put away- and then pay them a sixth quarter if they do all 5 tasks on the same load (limit one load per child per day). This teaches responsibility for completing the ENTIRE task, and also teaches them how to take a large task and break it down into several smaller and more attainable goals.
Another thing I do is keep a magnetic timer (they only cost about a dollar) on my dryer- this way it beeps much louder and I have to get up and answer it for it to go off- and a timer is a great tool for kids (and adults) to use with any job.
Also, when I had only half of a teeny tiny 3-foot closet at college, I used a lot of the canvas sweater-shelf things that hang on your closet rod- and I used the shoe ones too. You can use this to plan out their outfits for the coming week (7 shelves/ 1 shelf per day’s outfit). You can also store lots of different things in these- piles of t-shirts, socks, yarn, purses, toys, etc.
Other things you can do to increase your storage space are to put in a shorter closet rod on the lower half of the closet, use a simple shoe rack as a shelf on the floor, and make sure you have enough shelf space in the closet, and make sure you are utilizing the full height of your closet- you may need tools to help you better organize the top shelf to optimize the way you use space.
As far as uncluttering and purging clothes goes, I think there were already a ton of great suggestions above.
Posted by RML - Being More Through Having Less - 10/24/2009
In the changeover to winter here in Germany, I made the mistake of getting rid of most of my daughter´s clothes and shoes (she is 7 and growing like a weed) from summer.
However then she enrolled in an painting course for which she needed to wear “old” clothes and shoes. Aaargh! Luckily we were able to throw something together plus an old shirt of Daddys. Next time I purge I will remember to keep “painting clothes” as this will be an ongoing theme in her life I can tell.
Posted by gypsy packer - 10/24/2009
If you can keep your child’s total seasonal wardrobe to two washer loads, you should be fine. That’s one load of everyday clothing, one load of dressups and occasionals. This is a generous estimate, since children are smaller than we are. For smaller children, I’d suggest a half a large load per rugrat.
Same rule works for adults. Since I work in casuals, I get a full load a week. In summer, I can get by with a small to medium load. If I were back in an office job, it would be two loads–one for office clothes, one for casuals.
Posted by Karen - 10/24/2009
For my elementary-aged boy, we found a really nice balance by keeping 14 pieces of everything in the current rotation. Everything else that still fits (or is too big) and is in good shape gets packed up for the next season or growth spurt.
With this number, we don’t find ourselves inundated with clothes clutter, nor does he run out of things to wear.
Right now he has about 6 jeans, 3 ‘khakis’, 2 sweatpants and 3 shorts, for a total of 14. In the summer, it’s more like 8 shorts but fewer jeans and sweats.
Tops are 9 tees (some short, some long sleeve), 3 polos shirts for church and 2 turtle necks. No turtle necks in the summer, just a few more (soon to be dirt-encrusted) tees.
Two sweatshirts, two swimsuits and 4 jammies round it out.
One thing, though, I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS keep a fits-now dress outfit hung up in the closet, suitable for funerals. Everyone in the family has one of those ready to go. I can’t tell you how much stress came before I finally learned that lesson. Several times the outfit has gone in the hand-me-down bag with the new tags still attached, but that’s way better than shopping for toddler clothes between meetings with a funeral director.
Posted by Jen - 10/24/2009
Annalise, I love the dot-marking idea! Simple, yet genius.
To keep on top of my kids’ laundry, they have two hampers in their bedroom. One is just for socks and underwear, and everything else goes in the other hamper. I don’t have to do any sorting that way, everything in a hamper goes in together. Socks and underwear get washed all together in hot water, and everything else gets washed in cold. Otherwise I’d have laundry at the bottom of the hamper that wouldn’t see the light of day for weeks.
Posted by Kathryn - 10/24/2009
Girls’ t-shirts and so on often comes in only 4 sizes covering the entire range from 6 to 16 (6x, 8, 10-12, and 14-16). If you bought the next size larger each year, you’d run out of sizes before the age of 10!
And maybe two whole weeks of “basics” is a bit much. There’s a wide range of opinions on the matter, but I’m firmly in the camp that says a lot of clothing items don’t need to be washed after every wearing–especially if your kids have outgrown the “on the floor/wearing their food” stage and have not yet hit puberty/BO stage. That can cut down on the volume of clothing items, volume of washing, and has a positive impact on the environment.
Posted by Kalani - 10/24/2009
A place for everything and everything in its place… this goes for kids’ closets too. First, I would suggest making the closet easily accessible– no furniture items partially blocking access. Then I would separate the toy storage vs. clothes storage. Do clothes go in the closet and the dresser, and toys go in the cabinet? Or is one set of shelves for shirts and shoes and the other for books and boxes? Then I’d assess the size of the kid vs. the size of the closet– are they small enough to put in two or three rows of clothes? Multiple rows of shelves/clothing rods in kids’ closets work really well, because it basically doubles the closet and otherwise there is a lot of wasted space. Then I’d determine which clothes are hang-up clothes and which are fold-up clothes. Are there plenty of hangers for all the hang-up clothes you want to keep? For the fold-up clothes, do you know which drawer they go into when they’re clean? Once you determine how much storage space you have available, you can cut out everything that doesn’t fit in that space. (Depending on your climate, this might be seasonal or it might not be.) For going through and getting rid of clothes, I’d suggest making it a fun hour or two with your kid. They might have to try on items to see if they fit, or get rid of outfits that they absolutely never wear, or seeing if a top matches any pants. Dress-up can be fun! If they equate it with mommy (or daddy) bonding time, with lots of hugs and laughs, they’ll be more willing to go through the purge cycle next time. And if they equate it with a grumpy parent who cares more about getting a task done than their kid’s privacy or right of ownership, then it can be a stressful time that they’ll avoid. If you have a large overflow of clothes, pick one drawer to go through at a time. Or take a day to sort the entire stock into clothing parts, and pick one type of clothing to go through at a time. You can keep the sessions short if you need their input so neither of you get burned out and the whole process stays fun. You can also get your kids involved in your own purge cycle if appropriate– playing dress-up and laughing at silly outfits can be fun for anyone. And finally, making laundry sort/fold a family activity can make it go by in a flash. And putting a hamper in their room (as opposed to down the hall) makes it more likely that the clothes will end up there rather than all over.
Posted by Viv - 10/24/2009
I think the key to organizing kids’ clothes is to NOT use dressers. They just become messes.
Use baskets (IKEA Expedit has a great sturdy shelving system that baskets fit right into) for socks, underwear, and accessories,and then just fold the rest on shelves where they are open and on display. If I had younger kids, I would use the cubbies on the Expedit to lay out clothes in advances, and put one outfit out for each day of the week as I did laundry.
Posted by Elisabeth - 10/24/2009
My 9yo girl had far more clothes than she could use thanks to gifts and hand-me-downs. She also has strong opinions about what she will & will not wear. She also loves to shop. Mornings became a contest of wills over what she would wear to school because she would insist that, despite overflowing drawers, she had “nothing to wear.”
Between the clutter and her stubbornness, I was losing my mind.
Instead of imposing my tastes on her and purging her clothes by myself, I made her do the work. But to do that, I had to get creative.
The solution: The Home Shopping Mall Game.
Together my daughter and I turned our living room into a “boutique.” Closet rods balanced between two chairs provided hanging space. Tables provided flat display space. We arranged all her dresses, shirts, skirts, pants, etc. as attractively as possible. (I sorted the less fun bits–underwear & socks separately.)
Then I gave my daughter a shopping “budget” of 3 (small-ish) shopping bags. She browsed, tried on, and selected clothes to fit her budget. I sanity-checked her selections to make sure she had sufficient clothes for various activities, events, and weather conditions (grungy clothes for art & outdoor playing, nice clothes for social events, sweaters for warmth, etc.). The rest of the clothes (over half the original amount) went to charity.
In the end, my daughter ended up with a wardrobe she liked, and the purging process was actually fun.
Posted by Rebecca - 10/24/2009
I highly suggest that no one attempt to sort a high-school aged child’s wardrobe for them, as suggested in this article. Not only are you asking for a massive fight about what they want to wear versus what you want them to wear, you’re losing a great opportunity to work with them and teach them about fit, quality, and longevity.
Posted by lola meyer - 10/24/2009
Karen’s idea of editing the wardrobe to a reasonable number of pieces is a great way to start. Teaching our children they don’t need an overabundance of clothes is life management skill that will be useful to them as they become adults.
Posted by Diane - 10/24/2009
Having the kids do their own laundry as soon as they reach the age you mentioned is a defnite sanity saver. I went one further and have everyone living in the home do their own laundry, including towels and sheets.
I would also recommend that Miriam not underestimate how long it will take to sort and organize the closet. I’ve found eight hours is a pretty good estimate for most closets.
And she’ll probably find boxes of items stashed in the back of the closet as well… really think about purging those items, especially if you forgot you even had them stored!
Posted by Greg - 10/24/2009
For my girls it has not just been their closets, but the dresser drawers, under their bed, book shelves, etc. etc.
Sometime ago I bought 3 boxes all the same size – about 18″ square and told the girls to fill them full of their toys, clothes, books, etc they no longer played with or wore. I then paid them for each box. It was a way for them to earn a bit of pocket $ and it has helped keep their clutter down.
I then go through the boxes and sort what is still good for donation, or what needs to be tossed. Sometimes my wife “vetos” their over zealous donations for Dad’s cash, but that is okay.
It is a fun thing to do on a boring rainy Saturday afternoon when their is NOTHING to do…
Now that I think of it, it is time we played this game again…even for my college age daughter who is a clothes hog. I affraid that rod in her closet is about to break – with all those great deals she just could not pass up… *sigh*
Posted by sue - 10/24/2009
Elizabeth, I LOVE your mall game. If I had a daughter instead of a easy-to-please teen son, I’d use that. YOur system also teaches her how to assemble outfits! (I confess, one of my pet peeves on a fashion message board is when someone posts “I bought this skirt–what can I wear with it? (Duh, why’d you buy it if it was destined to be an orphan?)
Posted by Melinda - 10/25/2009
when i was doing this with my 11 year old, I began by saying to her “go through all your drawers and put everything you don’t wear, anything you avoid every time you go to pick something, undies that you avoid because they are too stretched or the elastic is worn, throw those into this basket. Even if it fits you and you never wear it, throw it in the basket, socks without a partner, throw them in.” After that the job is much easier.
Posted by dee - 10/25/2009
I have two girls – 2 and 5, girls clothes are definately a challenging. . .you’ve got tights and skirts, dresses, matching hats. . .its endless. The issue for me has been saving clothes that fit for the spring/fall and saving clothes from the older childs wardrobe for the younger one. My girls are born in spring and fall so their clothes seem to fit for at least half of the following season as well. Some things I do to get wardrobes under control:
1. Keep an under-the-bed storage bin for next season clothes. Each fall and spring I go through their clothes and add all of the items I think will fit for the next season to the storage bin. That way, when the following spring/fall arrives I can get a clear assessment of what I need to purchase and what I already have.
2. I keep another storage bin for items my older daughter grows out of that I want to keep for the younger one. When the bin is full I move it to storage and mark it with the size of the contents. I keep the shoes/hats/etc. in this bin too.
3. When I’m doing the sort for fall/spring I have my two bins of “keepers” for the younger child and for the following season PLUS two more bins – one for charity and one for consignment.
4. I also have a seperate storage for keep sake items that I want to pass down – handmade sweaters and hats/blankets etc. For long term storage of these items I either dry clean or wash, and then I put them in vacuum storage bags to ensure that they are kept air tight and safe.
I know this sounds like a lot of storage but its the only way I’ve been able to stay sane when it comes to sorting two girls wardrobes.
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Posted by Susanne Otteman - 11/01/2009
Great ideas! It’s the “mothers/dads” who often have the best strategies.
I’ll add a few other techniques for sorting clothing/shoes/piles to make the process go easier for the child/parent who has yet to learn the steps:
1. Major sort first by major categories (long pants, skirts, shoes, belts, sweaters, toys, awards, etc.)
2. Ask: Do I keep it? Do I throw it away or donate it? Does it need repair?
3. Minor sort: Is it an “A” item? (Always wear it and love it and must have it at arms length.) Is it a “B” item? (Better keep it to wear/use a couple times a month). Is it a “C” item? ( Not my favorite but will need it from time to time and CAN keep it on a shelf or tub)
Sound too simple? This is the best way to begin any kind of organizing. Starting with too big a project and too many little piles first, makes for too many decisions in too many categories which leads to overwhelm and unfinished projects.
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