Storing Kid's Clothes for Hand-Me-Downs

Families with many children are infamous for hand-me-downs, and often those same families can teach others a lot of organizing and storing. After all, what good are a stack of hand-me-downs when you can’t remember where you stored them or if you finally find them only to realize your child has already outgrown them?

Large families know that clothes are clothes, and taking good care of good clothes will often save you more money than repeatedly buying and replacing cheaply made apparel. A good storage routine is on-going and begins with the daily task of laundry. With each load of laundry as you fold each piece of clothing, inspect it for wear and tear. If it is stained, throw is out immediately. If it is irreparably torn or worn out, toss it. When you run across an article of clothing that seemed snug on your child the last time he wore it, put it aside. In short, only put things back in the closet or dresser that fit well and look nice. This not only keeps you on top of organizing your second-hand things, but it also helps to ensure that your child looks well-kept even if he insists on dressing himself.

After a few weeks worth of laundry, you may notice that the pile you began is getting larger. It is now time to create your storage regime. First gather your supplies: plastic-lidded storage boxes, a marker, and sticky labels. If you plan to keep your stored clothes in the closet, also keep these supplies in the closet. Keep you supplies in the laundry room if you are separating and organizing in the laundry room but storing in your children’s respective closets.

Next, separate the clothes that you have decided to keep and pass down into seasons, sizes, and special occasion wear, and no matter how small the stack put only one size and season in each box. Label the box with the size and the season and the name of the next kid who will be that size, and if you are an expert at the size of your kids and how they grow, estimate the year that your child will grow into that specific box of clothes. Write that information on a sticky label, and place it on the box as well. For special occasion outfits, while you can employ the same method, you may want to take extra precautions to keep the article safe, such as using airtight hanging bags, cedar chests, or mothballs especially if the outfit is meant to be an heirloom like a baptism or communion dress. Place all the boxes on the chosen shelves with the labels facing outward. It is noteworthy to add that obtaining boxes of the same brand and size will make stacking easier.

At the beginning of each season, you are ready to shop in your own closets. Determining how much shopping for new clothes must be done is as easy as reading the labels, and there will be no sorting out worn or stained clothing or washing, drying, and folding—everything in the box can go as is right into the closet or the dresser. When the contents of a box it used, remove the labels and recycle the box for the next round of hand-me-downs.

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