How to deal with that never-ending pile of kids’ clothes
When I gave birth to my first child, the clothes were part of the fun: dressing her in adorable onesies, shopping for baby outfits, gratefully receiving hand-me-downs. Fast-forward six years: Two more kids, countless growth spurts and heaps of clothes later, I’m overwhelmed.
Socks are everywhere. Tops spill out of drawers. The laundry basket overflows. The kids are bigger, and so are their wardrobe needs. Spirit weeks, holidays and the extracurricular activity du jour require more outfits, more laundering, more organization, more money. And even when we are done with an article of clothing, we have to fret over what to do with it.
“It’s one of those things as a parent that you cannot predict until you're in it,” says April Perrin, a wardrobe stylist and sustainable fashion advocate who is a mother to three young boys. “This is a lot of time and energy and a mental load to coordinate.”
We asked experts — by virtue of their professional training or their personal skill at home — for their best strategies for dealing with kids’ clothing: procuring it, organizing it, saving it, living with it.
Buy less
The less clothing you have, the less you have to launder, sort and organize (and lose your mind about).
“In the age of Amazon and big birthday parties and overbuying and fast fashion, we now have so much stuff,” says professional organizer Annie Schmidt, who owns Dallas-based Schmidt Organization Systems. She repeats: “Everybody has so much stuff.”
For Brooke Raybould, a Dallas-based momfluencer of five boys, less is more — “because I have to keep track of it, and I have to keep track of their closets,” Raybould says. “As moms we are making some crazy amounts of decisions. There’s a stat that we have 300,000 items, a crazy number of items, that you have to track in your home. The majority of that falls on the parents, usually the mom, on how many items you are tracking.”
Spend less (or nothing!) on secondhand stuff
When the unexpected pops up, like an event where her kid needs a specific outfit, that’s when Perrin texts her friend group to see if she can borrow something in lieu of purchasing. “More often than not I can find whatever I'm looking for,” she says. “Buy Nothing” neighborhood groups are another great resource for borrowing.
If you haven’t yet given apps like Poshmark and Mercari a chance, now is the time — you can access high-quality brands at a steep discount and find new clothes with tags still on. These online platforms have a lot to offer busy parents who don’t have time to rummage through consignment or thrift stores in person.
Give a capsule wardrobe a try
Capsule wardrobes have been big for adults for years, and there’s no reason they can’t work for kids. Raybould buys her five boys all the same thing for the whole season, and focuses on basics in neutral colors that can be easily mixed and matched. “I don’t have time to curate everyone’s outfits,” she says. “I buy a solid pair of light-blue, neutral shorts and a couple shirts.” To streamline the process, she shops retailers that carry sizes for all five boys.
Creating a capsule wardrobe for your child can help eliminate the temptation of over-purchasing. Buy half a dozen tops and bottoms to mix and match, a dress or two for girls, along with a sweater and jacket for cold weather.
Plan, plan, plan
Buying in the moment can cause impulse purchases, and planning ahead for the upcoming season, sports event, school shindig or holiday can lead to better decision-making when purchasing. “I know six months from now, my oldest will need a new coat and snow boots,” Perrin says.
To avoid the fast-fashion trap, professional organizer Schmidt, who is a mother of two girls, hits up seasonal department store sales, focusing on durable quality brands that can be passed from one daughter to the next. She buys their clothes a year in advance to embrace half-off discounts. “I’m getting the same deal as Target, but getting higher-quality pieces of clothing,” she says. (Don’t forget to size up.)
Be judicious with what stuff you save
Not every hand-me-down is suitable for your younger child. One daughter may love dresses, while the other prefers shorts; your oldest son may be a Paw Patrol fan, but the younger is a Bluey devotee. So don’t store the older child’s clothes out of guilt. It just adds to the mental load (and takes up space in your home).
“I feel like I'm always thinking: What am I saving this for?” says Jaime Hayes, owner of Good Order DC, a Potomac, Maryland-based organizing company, and a mother of four. “Know your kids, and that goes for buying and saving.”
In a large household of five boys like Raybould’s, hand-me-downs don’t always make it all the way down to the youngest. “If it’s a dressier item, if it’s more of a fun pattern and a splurge, then yes, I’ll be passing that down,” Raybould says.
For the clothes that are ripped, torn and stained, look for a textile recycler rather than a trash can. Perrin recommends Retold Recycling, SUAY and TerraCycle. These textile recyclers send a bag with a prepaid shipping label, so you fill it with your solo socks and tattered tees and send it back to them.
How to handle all those hand-me-downs
Professional organizers Hayes and Schmidt both recommend having bins labeled “too big” and “too small” in kids’ closets. When your kid outgrows clothes, toss it in the “too small” bin. When the bin is full, donate it. And with multiple children, the older sibling can toss their hand-me-downs in the younger’s “too big” bin, so it’s waiting for them when they need the next size up.
For families with kids that have a larger age gap, Hayes suggests storing clothes some place central — not in their closet — where you won’t forget about them. There’s nothing worse than finding a giant storage bin in the attic filled with a whole size and season of missed opportunity.
Organize clothes to minimize morning drama
Getting your children dressed and out the door in time is one of the most high-intensity parts of the day. I’ve heard parents having their kids sleep in their school clothes just to eliminate the stress of pulling on pants and a shirt at 7 a.m. The struggle is real, but having a smart organizational system in place can ease the morning routine tension.
To streamline the process of getting dressed in the morning, Schmidt keeps baskets of clothes in her laundry room rather than having her two daughters run upstairs to get ready. “Every family is different,” she says. “You have to really see what is functional to you” It could be as easy as keeping a basket of socks near their shoes in the mudroom.
“Set up a system where the clothes they wear the most often are the most convenient,” Hayes says. She also encourages “having systems that encourage independence,” so parents don’t have to hover and micromanage. For younger kids, the mom of four recommends getting a closet hanging system (5-Shelf Weekly Clothes Organizer for Kids, $29.95) with compartments and picking out the week’s outfits in advance and placing them in each compartment.
She also suggests hanging clothes for younger kids, rather than having them dig through drawers. Hayes is a fan of using a double-bar (Hanging Closet Rod, $29.99) in the closet, which gives you more real estate to hang clothes. Dressy items can be hung on the top tier and play duds on the bottom, where it’s easy for the little ones to grab.
Use your dressers smartly
Schmidt likes to use the dresser for items like underwear, socks, pajamas and swimwear. To keep bureaus tidy, she uses spring-loaded drawer dividers (SpaceAid Bamboo Dresser Drawer Dividers, $49.98), and stacks folded shirts vertically, rather than one on top of another. “That way you’re able to see everything instead of what’s just on top,” Schmidt says. This prevents the mess your kids make when digging for buried items.
For Perrin’s young boys, she only keeps what’s seasonally appropriate and their current size in drawers, so that whatever combo they pull out and put on is acceptable. The system gives them some autonomy: “They can go in their drawers and pull out what they want.”