s/o decluttering post - kids clothes question

Do you think they will keep the clothing in drawers where they belong? Because it might not be the amount of clothes, but the lack of caring if it's neat.

If it's the latter. You may have lost the battle already.

Mine doesn't care where his clothes are. But, he's old enough that I tell him to clean his room every week, including folding and putting away his clothes. I don't bother him between times & he doesn't complain when he has to do major fold and put away.

Oh...what kind of system do you have now? How much goes in drawers?

I redid the boy's closet and began hanging everything possible. When he was small, I switched top & bottom rod according to season. He could only reach the clothes on the bottom rod.

That left the drawers for under things--a drawer for the boxers & one for socks. A couple drawers for pjs. And 2 drawers for hoodies.

It worked well when he was younger. He used to be neat & organized. LOL!

What about creating dividers for the drawers? That way they need to put them in the dividers and not just shove them in.

I saw an idea where someone used shoeboxes to cut into dividers. Like one shoe box cut in half lengthwise. The cut side was to the side of the drawer. She had also cut the ends off some of the boxes.

Thought it was a great idea.

We're in the same boat. Except i only have 2 kids. I got them a set of basket type drawer organizers at ikea. It made all the difference in the work for my younger daughter. We went from crazy, overstuffed drawers to neat, organized drawers (for the most part.) For her, the most important thing was giving her control to decide what goes in which bin. Now I'm not allowed to put away her clothes because I usually do it wrong. Lol.

I think that if your child isn't wearing something regularly it should be donated. I have two grandmas who are way too interested in buying clothes for my daughter. I periodically go through her closet, and if it hasn't been warn in a month or more, it's gone. Of course we keep several dressy type things that aren't going to be worn regularly, but are good to have on hand.

I agree that 2 weeks worth is ample. It can get tricky when you're sorting for multiple kids though ( I have 4 boys so I feel your pain) --- say child 2 passes on 4 weeks worth of clothing to child 3. You get rid of all but that 2 weeks worth, which is great for child 3. But with wear and tear, there is very little left to hand on to child 4. Soooo -- a lot depends on your individual kids and how hard they are on the clothing, how fast they're growing, how picky they are in taste, etc.

I find it is helpful to keep a surplus for younger kids -- you never know what season they will fit something (or not) or when they will need a particular color of shirt for one of those random spirit days at school. The key is to have a good organization and record keeping system to facilitate finding what you need after you've got stuff in storage.

I've started taking photos with my phone, then storing those in Evernote, so I have quick access to knowing what we have already -- saves us from picking up duplicate pair of black dress pants on sale, knowing we've already got some that size at home in storage.

I also have found that the rubbermaid bins are not my best solution for clothing storage. I've tried using those vacuum pack bags, with some success, but I also like using big zippered totes from Ikea-- they smush down smaller if they aren't full (unlike a plastic tote), they keep the clothing clean, they're easy to squeeze under a bed on into a tight corner in a closet.

RST

We keep it pretty lean here. My kids have nice clothes, but not a huge number of them -- eg, my oldest son has about seven pairs of pants, and my daughter has maybe ten short and ten long-sleeved Ts. Basically once their dresser and closet are full and organized, if something new comes in, something goes out. I find that if the dresser drawers are so full that clothes poke out or they are hard to open and clothes, the kids end up wearing the same couple of things over and over again.