If you pass down clothes How do you organise/store it all

[KatieDD]

I am literally drowning in clothes and the girls suit different styles are different shapes it's all very over whelming.
Any top tips ?

[SNoraWotzThat]

Big soft suitcase holdalls in bottom of wardrobes. Sorted through each season.

[lisad123]

I sort b age and season

[nannyjo]

ours are bagged up in black bin bags in sizes from birth right up to just grown out of clothes and chucked in the loft then we get the right bags down as and when needed, wash iron and hang to use

[beansontoast]

i get alot of hand me downs that i have to store for a couple of years.

first of al i try to be sensible about what i keep,with sapce being at such a premium.

i have hold alls (stored in teh top of the wardrobes)with things grouped according to age/sze....whcih i go through approx twice a year.inevitably i decide to chuck stuff each time i revisit. it is surprising how dated things can look (not saying this should matter to you!)

i store the next season/size up stuff in the bottom two drawers and hanging at one side of the wardrobe.

i keep pants ,socks and vests seperately and ds is often wearing MASSIVE pants when i have decded that i simply cant be faffing about with all this wardrobe rotation...it is a full time job!

[psychomum5]

I go thro the childrens clothes about twice a year (normally when I go from winter to summer stuff and back again).

I hold each item up.....look for holes and stains. if clean and worth keeping, I then assess whether it would suit the next child down (like your children, they suit different styles as they are different perosonalities).

if it does, then it is bagged up, and then put into the loft. I tend to bag them up in fit rather than age, as I do find that one 2/3yr top can be the same as another 4/6yr top or even a 12-18mth top......size is so subjective to shop.

I also bag into winter/summer stuff too.....so I don;t go finding winter coats when I was looking for summer shorts.

with the stuff that I feel is not right, I try to judge who to pass on to. each of my friends like different stuff on their kiddies too, so I try to share round to who I think will like what IYGWIM.

and then, for everything else, it goes to charity

[juuule]

They regularly go through their wardrobes and sort out the clothes that have become too small, offer it to the next child down. If next child down doesn't like it then it's thrown out unless next one down after that does like it in which case they put it with their clothes. Does that make sense

When they were toddlers I kept the clothes that one had grown out of in a bag at the bottom of the wardrobe. Periodically had a root through to see if anything fit.

Uniforms I kept in one bag at the top of one of the wardrobes.

[peanutbutterkid]

Bags in loft, labeled by age-range and gender.

[loudmouthmum]

see thru toyboxes with lids, I put labels on saying Girls height 116 or Boys height 110 etc. Then bung in loft and go up to root through every 3-6 months.

[Flightlite]

I found this a nightmare too, but have finally resigned to a system where I have some large, thick plastic bags, which are the sort you get from ELC with tigers or crocodiles on for doing sack races - really huge - I have two of these. One has the 2-3 year old stuff, one has 4-5 years.

The 1 - 2 year stuff is already partly in use so is stored in a separate bag in my room, where I keep the boys' chest of drawers. Ready to be ransacked when he is slightly bigger!

This is a disadvantage of a large age gap - mine are four years apart.

However I did find the rate of clothes and also rate of growth slows down once they are around four or five - my elder one would get through clothes rather than grow out of them, so I'm not throwing away a lot of his old stuff, as it is wrecked!

Ds2 has worn nearly all hand me downs though so defnitely worth doing. In fact we still have too much really.

I just sorted out everything and chucked the stained stuff and the stuff no baby could ever wear comfortably

They have two drawers each in my room for their current clothes. I find sorting it all in one room much easier!

Shoes go under the bed until they grow out of the current 'range' and then I swap them over. (yes, I save shoes )

[Flightlite]

Sorry I am throwing away his old stuff, because it is wrecked!! He is a proper mudlark and gets holes in everything.

There is always sorting out to be done but keeping things in broad spectrum age ranges helps as you can just go through it once every 6 months or so and see what fits.

[KatieDD]

Lol I guess that's boys for you, I'm lucky most of the girls clothes survives but the oldest seems to get through shoes at an alarming rate.

[hana]

I have 3 girls and the stuff that the older ones grow out of go int o one of those plaid market plastic bags, can hold quite a lot. I get it out of the loft 2x a year and go through. I used to save everything, but now am pretty ruthless and only save pristine stuff that will suit the younger dd. They are different shapes as well so sometimes things I've held onto don't really fit all that well. It's a pain isn't it? We don't really have the storage.

[struwellpeter]

I often think I could set up a secondhand clothes and shoe shop with all the clobber in this house...except that my children tend to wear their clothes so hard.

Things from DS1 often pass directly to DS2 in a change of season sort out. DD may cherry pick the odd thing but realistically it isn't worth keeping many things for DS3 who is 5 years younger than DS2 and really fussy. I have learnt this over many years with far too many things kept 'just in case'.

I also find that my children are always being given hand-me-downs anyway and my new strategy is to reduce everyone's clothes to things they like and really wear. That does mean clothes for weekends and holidays as home clothes don't get much of a look-in in term. It also means that if we are ever invited to a party or wedding or event when you have to scrub up there's a great panic as my children just don't have smart clothes!

Am very envious of those organised people who label their bags..

[Jelly76]

I've gone for some clear ikea plastic boxes which contain all the clothes that my sister and I keep swapping between us. My husband was appalled when he saw all the boxes (0-6 years so far) and said there were children in africa with one set of clothes. But at least we never really need to buy anything except maybe socks!! They all get stored in the loft in size order, and I root through them each time they start growing out of stuff. (I will label them... one day!)

[largeginandtonic]

Bags until recently but dh has just made hand pockets in the storage room shelves. I go through clothes at each season when they are older and 3 monthly when they are babies.

Label the bags or you get lost.

[tabby0kat]

My mum always stored clothes and my younger siblings hated hand-me-downs!
My middle son hated gettin all his older bros clothes and wanted his own. Now I sell all outgrown clothes on ebay and then buy new ones with the money raised!! It works well

[Miaou]

Sort into ages, put into bin bags, label them and put into loft. I also have a notebook (which I keep on the bookshelf) which has a page in listing what is in the loft (so if I can't find something I don't have to waste my time hefting the loft ladder out to look up there for it!).

My children very thoughtfully arrived as dd, dd, ds, ds, so I don't have to store things for too long

[NotAnOtter]

miaou how VERY organised

i always forget when or where or what i have put away and then find it when it is too late