10 Tips for Keeping Kids’ Hand-Me-Downs Organized

We are adding another baby to our family in September! This will be our second boy and fourth kid, so, as you can imagine, we’ve accumulated a lot of kid’s clothes over the years. But up until recently we never had a solid organization system for all those hand-me-downs. We just stuck each size of clothes in its own storage box, slapped a tape label on it (which often was inadvertently inaccurate), and then shoved the boxes in a storage unit or garage, stacked as high as they could go. When it came time to find the next size of clothes for Eden, we’d have to unstack all the boxes and look in every single one to find what we were looking for. Suffice it to say, that system was not working out so well. So when we got to our new home in Texas, I knew it was time for a real organization system when it came to the kid’s clothes and shoes.

Over Memorial Day weekend, my husband and I finally buckled down and sorted through all the kids’ hand-me-downs. It took days of work and meant that our bedroom was a disaster area for quite some time. But now I can finally say that we’ve worked out a system for organizing the kids’ clothes and shoes that is infinitely more sustainable and easier to use. You’d think I’d have figured all this out years ago, but it’s taken me almost seven years of parenting and 3.5 kids to get the point where I’m happy with how we store the kids’ old stuff. I’m going to try and spare you the same amount of grief by providing you with all my recommendations for organizing and storing kids’ clothes and shoes for hand-me-downs. So here are my top 10 tips for keeping all your kids’ old stuff as organized as possible!

1. Only save clothes and shoes that are in good condition and that you love.

Have you ever received a bag of hand-me-downs from a friend or family member only to go through it and discover that more than half the clothes are unusable due to stains, tears/rips, or having been washed nearly threadbare? It’s happened to me more than once! Most people don’t sort through their kid’s outgrown clothes before putting them in storage. As soon as their kid outgrows a size, they put those clothes in a box and never look at them again until they need them or decide to give them away. That is exactly the opposite of what you should do!

When your child outgrows a size of clothes or shoes, carefully consider each piece of clothing and inspect it for damage. If it has any stains, holes, or other issues you can’t/won’t repair, DO NOT STORE IT! Put it directly in the trash. Once you’ve gotten rid of the obviously unusable clothes or shoes, go through your pile again and set aside anything you just don’t like. Whether that’s because the material was uncomfortable/difficult to wash, or because it was a gifted item that doesn’t match your style, if it’s something you don’t like and probably won’t have another kid wear, then there is no reason to keep it. Put it in a donate pile and allow it to have a second chance at life with someone else who will actually use it.

These steps are super important because they will save you storage space as well as time and frustration down the road when you reopen that box. The last thing you want to do is open your hand-me-downs up and find a bunch of damaged, dirty, ugly clothes you don’t like and won’t use. Only save what you love and what is in good condition. Everything else needs to go as soon as your child outgrows it.

2. Store clothes by gender (girl, boy, gender neutral)

I recommend sorting almost all clothing items by gender (although I’ll give some exceptions later on in my list). This may not be necessary if you only have girls or only have boys. But if you have a mix of both, be sure to sort—and label!—your clothes accordingly. We have two girls and are about to have our second boy. Most of our kids’ clothes are gender specific and are stored in bins labeled by gender and size. But a lot of their clothes are gender neutral. I like buying t-shirts for my girls from the boys section at Target when they have cute graphic tees. And some of the brands that I like, such as June and January or Whistle and Flute, sell most of their clothes in gender neutral styles and prints. Lots of baby pajamas and onesies can also be gender neutral. If you have tons of gender-neutral clothes, consider having a separate set of storage bins labeled “gender neutral” so that you can search those bins for both your boys and girls.

3. Store clothes by size

Before starting our new organization system, we would separate clothes by gender, but only vaguely sorted them by size. We’d basically try to squeeze as many sizes as we could into one bin, with each size of clothing stacked on top of each other from biggest at the bottom to smallest at the top. But that system was obviously flawed, since there was no way to differentiate the sizes other than to look at each article of clothing individually to check the tag. When we didn’t have multiple sizes shoved in one bin, we’d dedicate an entire bin to just one size. Neither method was the most efficient one possible. After reorganizing all the kids’ clothes, we decided to separate out each size into a labeled garbage bag. Then we’d fill a bin with as many garbage bags as would fit. Once everything was packed inside, we’d label the bin to include all the sizes that were inside. This cut down on the number of bins we needed quite significantly, while also solving the problem of storing multiple sizes in one bin without confusion. We used garbage bags because that was what we had on hand, but you could use laundry bags or, if you want to be even more efficient, vacuum sealed bags.

4. Store clothes and shoes separately

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s actually a lesson I learned the hard way. There’s several reasons why shoes and clothes shouldn’t be stored together. First, there’s the obvious reason that shoes are dirtier than clothes are. Even if you clean the shoes first or put them in a separate bag along with the clothes, there’s still a chance that old shoes may damage the clothes they’re stored with. Second, your children’s feet may not grow at the same rate as one another. While your first child may have worn a size 4 shoe when they were in 2T clothes, your second child may only be in a size 3 or may have larger feet and be wearing a size 5. You don’t want to have to search through multiple sizes of clothes to find the correct size shoe for your kiddo. Third, your child may go through multiple sizes of shoes before outgrowing their current size in clothes (or vice versa!). You’ll have the most luck finding the correct sizes in both clothes and shoes if you store them separately from one another.

5. Store pajamas separately from other clothes

This tip may come as a surprise, but I really think it’s a game changer. In my experience, pajamas in almost every brand run slightly smaller than clothes in the same size. My kids always move up a size in pajamas before they move up a size in everything else. Rather than getting out the next size box of clothes and digging through it to find only the pajamas, store pajamas in their own box with each size separated out into labeled bags. We chose to use gallon sized Ziplock bags to store pajamas, although you could use any type of bag you like, such as vacuum-sealed bags if you have the time and money to plan ahead for that. Each bag was labeled by size on both the front and back. If I had too many pajamas in a particular size to fit in one bag, I separated them into two separate bags, one for short sleeved pajamas and one for long sleeved pajamas. Once all the pajamas in every size were separated into labeled bags, I put them into a storage bin labeled either “Boy Pajamas” or “Girl Pajamas.” This is going to make finding the next size in PJs so much easier than it was when they were stored with all the other clothes!

6. Store jackets and coats separately from other clothes

Kid’s jackets and coats are a lot like pajamas in that they usually are not true to size (at least, not in my experience). Unlike pajamas, though, I’ve found that coats and jackets tend to run big. My kids can frequently wear the same coat for two years in a row, even if they’ve gone up a size in all their other clothing. And, depending on where we’re living, we may need heavy duty coats one year and then only light jackets the next year. Storing all your kid’s coats together in one bin allows you to sort through it every year when the weather gets colder and decide if you can reuse what you have or if it’s time to buy new jackets. If you have lots of coats and jackets to store, you can separate them out by size groupings (baby sizes, toddler sizes, little kid sizes, and big kid sizes). But I don’t recommend storing 2T coats with the rest of your 2T clothes, because your 3T child may still fit in their 2T jackets. Also, jackets are the only clothing item we did not sort by gender (you may choose not to sort shoes by gender, either, depending on how gender specific your kids’ shoes are). We did that for two reasons: 1) we didn’t have enough coats to justify it (most of the places we’ve lived have had mild winters), and 2) because many, although not all, of the coats and jackets we have are gender neutral. If you have tons of coats for your kids, or if you have very gender-specific ones, then you can separate them out by gender as well as size group.

7. Separate clothes/shoes of different sizes stored in the same bin

I’ve already discussed this method in tip #3, but I think it’s important to emphasize that having things sorted into boxes isn’t enough. You need to make sure that different sizes are kept separate from each other by putting them in individual bags or organizers. There are several different methods you can use to keep different sizes separate from one another. We used trash bags and Ziplock bags because that was what we had on hand, and we didn’t want to spend the money to get an expensive organization system. But if you do want to be as organized as possible, there are lots of other options out there, including laundry bags, vacuum sealed bags, packing cubes, and under the bed/soft-sided storage bins. Just make sure that whatever method you end up using can be 1) easily stacked to accommodate multiple sizes in one box, and 2) easily labeled to eliminate confusion and make finding what you’re looking for quick and easy.

8. Label boxes clearly and on all sides

Over time, our previous organization system devolved to a point where several of the boxes we had the kids’ clothes stored in weren’t labeled or were incorrectly labeled. Essentially as my kids outgrew their clothes, I just looked for an empty bin that was the correct size and threw the clothes in there thinking that one day I’d go back and organize it all. Don’t do that, guys. Be better than me. Make sure that when your kids outgrow a size of clothes you not only label the bags or containers you store the clothes in (on all sides), but you then update the labels of the boxes you put that bag of clothes in. My oldest daughter will outgrow sizes we don’t have labels for, whereas my third child will outgrow sizes we do have labels for. When Psalm outgrows her clothes, I have to create a new, labeled bag for those clothes and then put them in a new, labeled box (or change the label on an existing box if there is room in it for her clothes). But when Eden outgrows her clothes, I simply take out the bag I originally took those clothes from, put the clothes back inside it, and put the bag back inside the already labeled box that matches that size. While it may seem like a lot of work for Psalm, it means that when it is Eden’s turn to wear those clothes the work has already been done and everything stays organized.

It’s also crucial to make sure that all visible sides of both the bags and the bins you’re using are labeled, so that no matter how things get stacked or stored you’ll be able to see exactly which gender and sizes a box of clothes contains. This cuts down on your search time and makes finding and putting things away much easier.

9. Use vacuum sealed bags where possible to save space

You can use whatever storage methods you like best, but I highly recommend using vacuum sealed bags where possible. Vacuum sealing your clothes makes them much more compact and easy to store, saving space and cutting down on the number of bins you need to use. If you have lots of kids, like we do, hand-me-downs can rapidly multiply until they’re taking up tons of storage space in your garage or closets. While simply moving to this new method of organization cut down dramatically on the number of bins our kids’ clothes were stored in, we could have saved even more space if we planned ahead and bought vacuum bags to store the kids’ clothes in. Eventually, I’d like to switch over from the garbage bag method to the vacuum bag method. For now the system still works either way. But if you’re just starting out and want to know the most space-saving method, vacuum sealed bags are definitely the way to go!

10. Buy storage bins that are all the same so that they stack neatly

There’s nothing more annoying than trying to balance storage bins from multiple brands precariously on top of one another. Every brand has its own unique sizing and fit. So when you’re buying storage bins for kids’ clothes, be sure to get them all from the same brand and in the same size so that they will stack neatly. We personally like the tough boxes you get from either Home Depot or Lowes (although beware! because these bins are NOT IDENTICAL. While they’re the same color and have very similar designs, the Home Depot tough boxes and the Lowes tough boxes have different lids and feet, so they do not stack neatly on one another. If you’re going to buy the tough boxes, be sure to get them all from one store or the other and don’t mix them). This time around we did not store shoes, jackets, and pajamas in the same style boxes as the rest of the kids’ clothes, because we didn’t have enough of the tough boxes on hand. But ideally someday we’ll switch over to make sure all kids’ clothing items are stored in the same boxes. Whatever you end up going with, make sure to buy enough for everything you will need to ensure the neatest possible storage.

Those are my top 10 tips for keeping hand-me-downs organized! Do you use a similar method? What other ways have you found to keep things neatly stored and easy to find? While I feel like our methods have improved dramatically since we reorganized, I’m always eager to hear suggestions for how to improve!