I have always been a pretty organized person. I kept a clean room growing up; and as a young wife I like to focus on a neat and tidy home. Both my husband and I are actually a bit obsessive when it comes to neatness. Then we had our first baby and began wondering how to organize kids’ stuff at home… especially when they’re little!
Do you know how much “stuff” comes along with a baby?!
It was everywhere and on every surface…we had to settle for organized chaos. A few years later, we had another child. In the midst of our “organized chaos”, we were still feeling stressed with all the toys, clothing, arts/crafts and general “stuff” laying around. I needed to be strategic about how we organized so that the mess wasn’t impacting our well-being.
This article is written by Katie Strohecker
For more on this topic, check out the full Get Organized collection
How to Organize Kids’ Stuff at Home
Organizing for Baby: Changing Station
When my daughter was about 4 months old, I told my husband that I needed a place on the main floor of our house to be able to change her diapers/clothes and also store all the toys/books/clothes. I was sick of staring at the pack-n-play in our living room! So my handy husband granted my wish and build me the black piece of furniture pictured below. I bought the baskets at Michael’s, and then he built the furniture based off their sizing. It has been so great to use with my two babies!
Now that my second child is two and a half, and I am just about ready to put away the diapering pad/accessories. Sniff, sniff!
Organizing for Baby: Clothing & Toy Storage
We are now also at the point of converting his nursery into a toddler room. So it is again important for the organization to serve two purposes – clothing storage and toy storage at his level. This IKEA piece is great for fulfilling both of those needs. The gray bins used for clothing storage are from Target, and the straw toy baskets are from IKEA.
*Just a note on storing toys in the bedroom…if the goal is for them to play with them in the morning when they wake up {too early–like my kids do :0}, make sure they are toys that are not loud – nothing with sound buttons or requiring batteries. You’ll thank me!
How to Organize the Art & Craft Supplies
Oh me, oh my! So many art supplies to organize! I highly recommend this cart and galvanized pots from IKEA for organizing art supplies. Because it is three levels, there are places for supplies, paper, coloring books, etc. The best part is it can be rolled out when the children are working at the table, and then rolled back to its home when finished. The supplies don’t take over your work space and allow the children room to be creative!
I also use these sterilite three drawer organizer in various sizes to store other art supplies. I have a small organizer on the kid’s little table/chairs holding crayons/stampers for my toddler son, and I hide a larger one inside a piece of furniture. Additionally, I have found that repurposing antique furniture can dually serve as craft/learning game storage, and part of your home decor!
How to Organize the Playroom
Labeled toy bins on low shelving at child level is the key to an organized playroom. In this way, the child can take ownership for choosing the activity, playing with it, and putting it back into the bin and finding its home on the shelf. In our playroom, I have two ladder-type shelves from Pottery Barn and I only use the bottom three shelves for the toy bins. The upper two shelves store DVDs. The organizing bins are from IKEA and Dollar Tree. And the labels were printed from this mom’s blog and she has a pretty comprehensive list, although you can easily make your own for your specific toys. The puzzle organizer can be purchased here on Amazon.
{Check out this article for 5 Tips to Organizing the Playroom}
LEGOs
LEGO building bricks are a toy that are both loved and loathed by parents at the same time and it seems to be mostly because of the storage issues. Since my children are still young (both under 6 years), we are only just beginning to enter this world. There are many creative storage ideas on Pinterest, some go as far as sorting the bricks by color drawers!
So far, I have found that my children need a place to display the creations and a place to store the spare bricks/accessories. I chose stacking bins for their space-saving capability and have also added an empty bin to be used when a new LEGO kit is opened. All the pieces can be dumped out of the package and into the blue bin and this way if the kit is not completed in one sitting, nothing is lost.
Pretend Play
Pretend play is so valuable for children as they learn and grow. By the time our daughter was 2 or 3 years old, she was all into dressing up. Over the next 3 years, and another child later, you can imagine the growth in the dress-up department. Who am I kidding? It was an overflowing basket in the playroom that was a mess all-the-time! It was the first thing I saw every time I would go in the playroom and it was driving me crazy!
So I went back to the craft store and got out my art supplies and created an organizing system that would get those dresses/outfits up off the floor. And a quick trip to the Dollar Tree to get some baskets for the accessories completed the newly organized “Dress-up Area”. I even had my daughter create some princess drawings for the wall.
How To Organize the Baby/Children’s Clothing
When I first found out I was pregnant and having a girl, naturally I started buying baby clothes! Babies change sizes every 2-3 months for the first year. There were so many clothes to keep organized! I found the Sterilite 28 qt. Latch Box to be the best size for the clothes and they were easy to stack about 6 boxes high in the nursery closet. I labeled the front of each box with the clothing size and season so they were easy to identify.
Once I had a second child and it was a boy, it was a whole new set of clothes to organize! As my children got older, I moved the boxes to our third floor using the same labeling and stacking system. Thankfully, they are in one clothing size for longer than a few months now. It’s a little crazy there for the first 2 years changing out sizes/seasons! But truth be told, this method really helped keep everything neat and easy to locate when I need to change out sizes/seasons or want to consign/donate outgrown clothing.
{Check out this article for 4 Simple Steps to Organizing Your Child’s Closet}
Organizing Shoes, Coats, & Winter Accessories
We take our shoes off when we enter our house. I started this practice when we had our first baby and I realized how much time she spent on our floors. Think, for a minute, about all the places your shoes go and all the things they come in contact with. Ew! I didn’t want to expose my little crawling bean to all of that filth!
So we started leaving our shoes in the mudroom. When it was only my husband and I with a little baby, it was fine to just line them up on one side of the room. But as our baby turned into a walking toddler and eventually another child came into the picture, the number of shoes were growing into a mountain. It was time to organize with some shoe racks. The ones I chose are from Pottery Barn (no longer available…sorry!) and match the antique wooden bench we already had in our mudroom.
Hats, mittens, scarves oh-my! There are now four of us in my little family. That could mean as many as 15+ pairs of gloves/mittens, 10+ hats, and at least 6+ scarves. I used to keep a large basket on the bench in our mudroom where all the winter gear would live. But what was happening was someone would be looking for their other mitten or glove and the entire basket would end up being dumped out on the floor. Ahhhh! I couldn’t stand it! I was picking up the contents of the basket multiple times a week and it just wasn’t working.
The Accessories Solution
One day I was in a friend’s home and saw she had these amazing storage cabinets from IKEA in her hallway. Guess what was promptly put on my Christmas list! I cannot tell you what a difference it has made. Plus, it will double as pool/swimming storage in the summertime.
Coats and jackets were another organizing nightmare. Our coat closet is next to the front door that we never use. Our mudroom is used as our main entry because it is next to our garage and makes the most sense. But, alas, there is no closet.
So my husband found an old window, removed the glass, and added hooks. This is where I hung the kid’s coats, hats, and church/dance bags for the last 2 years. We also have a message center from Target (no longer available…sorry again!) that has hooks hanging above our wooden bench, which is where we hang our coats/jackets now. Luckily, there are four hooks – one for each of us! Under the bench, two utility bins (not sure where I bought these!) house our reusable grocery bags and other miscellaneous items such as umbrellas, car seat blankets, etc.
Organizing Children’s Artwork and Important Papers
Children’s Artwork
There are so many papers right from the get-go when you have a baby! Ultrasound pictures, baby shower invitations & cards, papers from the hospital, papers from all the pediatric doctor appointments in the first year, and photobooks to just name a few. Then, once your child becomes a toddler and starts doing art and preschool/church projects, forget it! You have to find an effective way to showcase and keep these prized works for years to come.
For a little while we hung the work on the fridge with magnets and I kept the other important papers in a file folder. But it started to overflow and our fridge was becoming very cluttered (my daughter was very into art!). So I made a trip to Home Depot to buy some wood and Walmart to buys some clips. A little paint, sanding, and glue later…voilá! Our art hanger was born. Now each of my children have 4 clips for their work and my fridge is clutter-free!
Important Papers
As for the important papers, I found a system that works great and the best part is I didn’t have to create it! A local mom created a small business called Customized Crates where she fills a storage bin with customized file folders and decorates it with your child’s name and stickers of something that interests them (foxes, butterflies, sports, music, etc.). I have one for each of my children and all the important papers, artwork that is keep-worthy, and other interesting papers from each year of their life is organized and safe! (*Bins pictured are from her website.)
Organizing Children’s Books
Hooray for reading! The earlier you can start, the better. Reading helps to grow your child’s vocabulary from a very young age. The research on this topic is amazing! I think I started reading to both my kids when they were about three months old. I was coming out of the “new mom fog” and my newborn was sleeping longer stretches and was alert more during the day.
From board books to picture books to chapter books, finding a way to organize them so that they are accessible for your children and also kept orderly can be a challenge. There are lots of fun and innovative ideas available on Pinterest! I settled with the spice racks from IKEA and some baskets/bins. I was a teacher before I had kids, so I have a TON of children’s books. And I also try to rotate seasonal books and favorites to keep it fresh. I keep the seasonal books in a large storage bin in the attic, and only bring those out when it is appropriate.
As they get older
Now my daughter is older and we are considering a change to her book organization method, but the spice racks were great while she was a toddler/preschooler. The cloth/wicker baskets in my daughter’s room and the grey bins in my son’s room were from Marshall’s. The striped fabric bin is from Target in my son’s room. Soon we will be moving the IKEA spice racks to his room. They grow up too fast!
For more on this topic, check out the full Get Organized collection
Featured Contributor: Katie Strohecker
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