Creating a Better Wardrobe for Kids: Part 1

0

I recently created a kid-friendly closet and capsule wardrobe for my four-year-old.

It’s not because I’m trying to be trendy. It’s because I no longer had the patience to deal with dressing my four-year-old on a daily basis.

I created a smaller wardrobe for myself last year, but it wasn’t until I read this article by Zoe Kim that I took the plunge with my toddler’s wardrobe and closet. In the article, Zoe discusses the benefits of having a smaller wardrobe for children and how to do it.

It wasn’t something that happened overnight, but after slowly working on it for a few months I was pretty happy where I landed. The first step, which I’m going to discuss in today’s post, was restructuring her closet. Here’s a before photo:

Her closet has a high bar where I kept any clothes I thought should be hung up. The remainder of her wardrobe (more tops, pants, pj’s, etc.) were in a small dresser. There was also a lot of items that didn’t need to be kept here, like pull-ups and out of season clothes, which I moved to better locations.

The first problem was she couldn’t reach the clothes in her closet. This meant I had to get her tops and ask if she wanted to wear this one or that one. She’d usually say “no” to about 5 tops before finally saying “okay.”

Then she had to find pants in the dresser. She had so many, so she’d often pull them out and throw them on the floor to find the pair she wanted. Since I also had other tops in her drawer, she might find a different top she wanted to wear, causing her to change the top she already had on. The room was a complete disaster once this lengthy process of getting dressed was completed. Plus I had to be there to help. Ugh…

Here’s an after photo of her closet both restructured to help her dress herself and with fewer clothes.

Now I keep all of her tops and dresses hung up with pants sitting on the bar directly above them. This, coupled with a smaller, capsule-style wardrobe allows me to tell her “Okay, get dressed!” and she can do it all on her own. Plus, since she can see everything in plain sight, she doesn’t have to dig around or throw things on the floor to find what she wants. Underwear, pj’s and socks are kept in her dresser.

Her closet set up was a success! It’s been about six months since I redid her closet and it’s been such a blessing! Yes, it took thought and time but was well worth it. She can easily dress without me now and I don’t end up with a huge mess in her room. I’d call that a definite win! What do you think?

Stay tuned for the next post in this series, where I’ll discuss creating a smaller, capsule-style wardrobe for your kids!