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How to Keep Kids’ Clothes Organized

Two simple tips for keeping kids’ clothes organized in their drawers.

Two simple tips for keeping all those tiny kids clothes organized in their drawers.

How to Keep Kids Clothes Organized

Tip #1: Shoeboxes!

I have long admired the organization bins sold in Ikea and other stores, but could never bring myself to pay for them. I recently discovered that shoeboxes make an excellent frugal organization alternative. I just put them in drawers as they come, but you could cover them with paper or fabric or simply add a little washi tape to the edges if you want to make them look nicer. I don’t have a before picture of this drawer of Emma’s, but just picture it stuffed to the brim with clothing. It has all of the same articles of clothing in it now, but there is plenty of space to open and shut the drawer and I can easily find the shirt I’m looking for.

Tip #2: Folding

One more organization tip: fold your clothes (and your children’s clothes) so that they stand up in the drawer – just like Emma’s shirts above. They take up less space this way, and you can quickly select the outfit you want without having to shift other items in the drawer. This is the folding method recommended in Marie Kondo’s The Magical Art of Tidying Up. In fact, it turns out that she also uses shoeboxes and other small boxes to organize drawers!

Bonus Tip

Are your kids putting away their own clothes, but not old enough to handle this kind of folding/organization? Try folding their clothes into outfits, and putting those in reusable mesh laundry bags. Your kids can put the bags in their drawers, pulling out a new one each day.

What are your top tips for keeping kids clothes organized? How about toy organization? 

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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

4 thoughts on “How to Keep Kids’ Clothes Organized”

  1. I’ve just been thinking about how I can better organize the free-play material. I am totally with you concerning, minimal supervision personal,creative development. Especially Quinn is big on writing, glueing, tapeing, stamping, cutting, folding, wrapping, etc. She produces more letters and presents for who-knows-who daily than the full diapers Audrey does. :)

    Then I am also wondering how to store the growing amount of children’s clothing in our home. Though we have lots of space, generally, the time has come that I need to store the kids clothes that aren’t momentarily in use.

    Which posts do you recommend? I am just so hesitant to spend money on those practical transparent, plastic storage boxes, though we can afford them.

    The show boxes are an idea I want to try for the newborn things. I did purchase some of those gingham boxes from IKEA (red and light blue in the kids section)a while ago to store those thick cotton stockings for the kids, as well as socks in the kids’ closets.

  2. This is great! During all of my cleaning I found several empty shoe boxes that I wanted to hold onto, but I didn’t know what I was going to do with them. Now I do! Thanks!

  3. And this way they don’t feel the need to empty the drawer onto the floor looking for the exact article of clothing that is on the bottom of the pile. *sigh* Can you tell I have some experience with this phenomenon?I think we’ll be implementing this system soon.

  4. I’ve done this with underwear, but I’ve never thought of putting shirts and pants in boxes like this. Great idea!

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