Organizing and storing baby clothes

My daughter is nearly three and I just got around to organizing her baby clothes. I’m so on top of things!

As I explained in my organization post earlier in the week, the closet where I had been stashing all of these clothes had reached new levels of disorganization.

Many of her clothes were stuffed in trash bags, completely randomly, as a result of me needing to get the outgrown clothes out of her room, but not having enough time for what I thought would be an hours-long organizing binge.

After I pulled everything out of the closet, I ended up with a mountain of clothes. Literally, a mountain. The girl has a lot of clothes. And I was right. It was an hours-long organizing binge that I needed to get all of this stuff in order.

I separated all of the clothes by size (newborn, 0-3, 3-6, 6-9. 6-12, 12-18, 18-24 & 2T) and dedicated a large storage tote to each one. Yes, there’s some overlap there in the 6’s, but baby clothes (like adult clothes) don’t always match up on sizes, so better to call the 12 month clothes “6-12” as some brands do.

I threw away a few onesies and sleepers that were too gross to put on another baby, but until we have another kid, I’m not getting rid of anything else.

I had enough totes to cover my sizes, although they don’t all match. Nobody call the organizing pretty police, please. Especially because I didn’t fold anything! Instead, I made sure all the clothes were right side out and laid them in flat stacks.

The totes are not stuffed full; I thought it was better to keep the sizes separate than to be stingy about storage space.

I can’t imagine this organization method is anything revolutionary; I’m sure many many people use similar systems. It’s simple, and it works.

Elise is in-between sizes now, and it’s been really nice to notice something doesn’t fit anymore, then quickly put it into the 2T tote before it slips back into rotation. I just hope I can keep this up!

A note for new mamas: It would have been really helpful to have empty totes set up before she outgrew any of these clothes. I could have organized things piece by piece along the way and avoided the whole trash bag mess phase.