I don’t hang my toddler’s clothes… ooooh how dare I?! I hate children’s hangers and I hate hanging clothes. He’s a toddler; I don’t think he cares if he has a wrinkle or 2 or 7. The only things we hang are bulky items such as coats, sweaters, hoodies, and dress or special occasion clothes. This does cause a clutter in the storage of other clothes but I have found a system I love and is pretty easy to stick to.
I saw a post at the dawn of Pinterest that suggested packing infant clothes in zip-lock bags when traveling. I thought “Hmm.. pretty simple yet effective, but how about all the time?” ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY!!! The husband can no longer say “but I cant put together outfits like you” when asked to dress the kid. They are all preplanned. Storage is sooooo easy because entire outfits will no longer take up nearly as much space.
Supplies: Box of SLIDER gallon zip-lock storage bags. That’s it!
Note: I usually slack on this in winter as pants and winter clothes are more bulky and a pain in the tit. PERFECT for summer however.
All this in one dresser drawer! You can even switch to shelf storing with this easy trick.
Start by trying to gather all you child’s clothes that they actually wear, wash them, and have all together.
Set aside about an hour, give or take depending on how much clothes your child has, to do this. It’s actually kind of fun and once you get it done the first time it will be a snap to keep it going.
Start by sorting clothes accordingly. I like to separate mine into shorts, collared shirts, and t-shirts. If you have a daughter you may want to do dresses, shirts, skirts, leggings/stocking. I do not like to do pants because of the bulk so I usually store them all together to just grab whenever I need a pair. Here in Louisiana summer we won’t be needing them anytime soon.
Start sorting into outfits. You will most likely have a LOT more shirts than shorts so I usually pair one collared shirt and one or 2 t-shirts with each pair of shorts. Kids are messy and having a backup shirt is always nice. This is also like having more than one outfit in one bag, saving space! Once you have all your outfits together get ready to bag
Note: I always end up with a couple of extra t-shirts that don’t match anything; these become sleep and play shirts.
One pair of shorts & 2 shirts.
Try to put into bag as flat as possible. This usually mean only folding shorts over once. Use slider bags because they make this step so much easier. Close bag leaving about a 3″ gap open and squeeze out excess air. Once you have done about 8 or 9 bags, stack them on one another, each being slightly opened, then sit on em or squish them. This will push out even more air making them even smaller to store. After pushing out air seal bag.
Voila!
If you have a bow wearing daughter you can include bows that are exclusive to a certain outfit into it’s bag so you always have it together. You can also add socks to the bags so you always have a pair handy when getting your little one dressed.
The Math: I ended up with 17 bags. 14 of these bags had 2 or more shirt options in them. (We’ll say they all had 2 for maths sake) That’s 31 outfits in a 7″x19″ space. Can’t beat that. Nothing better than walking into your child’s room and grabbing a bag and having an instant outfit with backup clothes to throw in the diaper bag. Even better when we’re going away for a few days. I grab a handful and throw them in the suitcase and he’s set.
To keep this up, keep a box of zip-lock bags in the drawer with their clothes or where-ever you sort laundry.
Hope this was helpful. I promise you this is super easy. I am…well… I wouldn’t call it lazy so much as “unmotivated” and even I keep this up.
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