With Kids, you Need to have a Clothing System

I have heard of several great ways to get your kids, especially girls, to put matching outfits together. You can invest in hangers of several different colors or put colored paper on your existing hangers and hang the coordinating pieces on them. Or you can put colored paper around the hangers for the same thing. I personally have no desire to have a 3 or 4 year old coordinate. I would rather see my daughter in a polka dot skirt, striped sweater with flowered tights than a perfectly coordinated outfit. It just makes me smile when I see young girls who have clearly dressed themselves. I mean really, you only get to be young and get away with it once and if it makes her happy then I say go for it. My only rules are that their clothing be weather appropriate and fit. You can bet that if there is a spaghetti-strap sun dress two sizes too small within my daughters reach during zero degree temps in January THAT is going to be the only thing she is going to want to wear and a tantrum will ensue when she is told that she can not wear it. So I must be sure that such clothing is out of reach.

My kids' closets have clothing bins that make up our simple clothing system. It has worked for us for a few years now. I put clear bins in my two oldest kids' closets that they use for clothes that are to be worn in the future. I label the bins with size and either “winter” or “summer.” Those two season categories tell me whether it’s long or short sleeved, long pants or shorts, etc. My youngest has a tall dresser of drawers so I use his drawers to do the same thing. We are often lucky to get hand me downs which go into the appropriate bin/drawer. I also try to hit big sales at the end of the seasons and I am never too shy to buy something that won’t be worn for 2 or 3 years if the price is right (if you could read the labels on the drawers in my 1 year old's room you'd see that the last drawer is for size 4). My daughter’s bins are up high out of reach (or she would cause trouble as explained) but my son’s closet makes it best for them to be piled on the floor and he doesn’t get into them.

There is a separate place in each of their closets for clothes that they outgrow. My kids are boy 7, girl 4, boy 1, so I only get to pass down the 7 year olds clothes within our house. So the oldest boy has a large bin for the things he outgrows that will eventually be worn by his little brother. When the bin is full they get filed in the youngest boy's room. The 4 year old girl has a shelf of outgrown things that gets bagged regularly to hand down to a friend’s daughter as does the youngest boy.

I find that having a place that is easily accessible to store future clothes can be a real money saver. You can buy clothes for the kids ahead on sale and you can be sure to find them when you need them. Of course I am hesitant to do this with pants because once kids have grown out of the toddler sizes they almost have to try pants on to get a good fit. However, shirts, sweaters, underwear, socks, pajamas, etc. can always be bought ahead. How many times have your kids grown something like pajamas mid season so you go and buy a couple pairs only to find that you had some tucked away in the back of a drawer. Well I have in the past, but not any more!