Hellobee

As Jackson has gotten older, I’ve learned that I’m going to have to constantly arrange and re-arrange the things in his room to best meet his needs. He’s fiercely independent (as are most toddlers, it seems) and loves when I let him do things for himself. I’m all about promoting his independence as much as I can, so I’m constantly looking for ways that I can re-arrange the things in our life to allow him to try new things out.

One area where we can consistently and easily encourage his independence is through his clothing choices. He went through a brief phase where he absolutely insisted on choosing his own clothes each morning (he’s less picky now), and he still gets very excited when he’s able to get into his closet to pick his own things out. So, I’ve tried to arrange everything in his room to be as accessible and toddler-friendly as possible. I’ve tried to store all of his clothes in a way so that he’s able to get to them as independently as he can, and so I don’t have to do everything for him in the mornings when he’s getting dressed.

Jackson has a tiny closet (his whole room is tiny, really!) so I’m pretty limited in what I can do in there. I got a hanging organizer before he was born and it has been a lifesaver in keeping such a little space organized. As of now, I keep several different baskets in the organizer and each has a different category of clothes tossed in (shorts, pants, socks, etc.). Jackson learned pretty quickly what each basket houses, and now he’s able to grab a basket, pull it out, and choose what he’d like to wear. His tops are harder for him to access – for now, I just hold him up and let him decide what he wants to wear. I have them organized by long-sleeved and short-sleeved shirts.

At the bottom of a closet is yet another basket where we keep all of his shoes. There’s no organization to it – I just toss them all in there. It makes for easy cleanup and means that Jackson is perfectly capable of cleaning it up all by himself when he dumps every single shoe on the floor in the mornings to decide which ones he wants to wear. It’s also been a great way to practice finding matching pairs – he’s a pro now!

I keep all of his pajamas in his dresser – they’re kind of folded here, but generally they’re just tossed into the drawer…eventually we’ll teach him how to fold, but for now I want to make things as easy as possible for him to clean up by himself. I don’t keep the pajamas organized, which means that sometimes he chooses some pretty crazy combinations to sleep in! Right now we’re practicing the concept that he has to choose a shirt and pants to wear, not two shirts or two pairs of pants. It’s a work in progress.

And finally, the extra clothes – you know, the ones that are off-season or too big. We don’t have a ton of extra room for storage in our house, so I was determined to keep all extra clothing in his room. That’s where the built-ins come in.

We’ve got several big boxes that I have labeled with various sizes and that’s where we keep all of the excess clothes. When he was little, these were full of clothes for the next few sizes – now I just have a few pieces here and there in the size up, and I also store off-season clothes that he may still fit into next year.

It’s nothing fancy, but I’ve found that it’s really helpful to spend some time thinking about how Jackson accesses his room and how we can store things so that we can maximize his independence. He’s so much more happy and cooperative when we allow him to choose his clothing, and our mornings go so much more smoothly!

Our next step is to re-organize how we store his toys and other paraphernalia so we can maximize the use of the things we need and get rid of the things we don’t! Slowly but surely, this room is transforming from a nursery into a toddler’s room!

How do you organize your kids’ clothing?