One thing that is guaranteed to cause me stress is a messy, cluttered house that I feel is out of control. When I was pregnant with my first daughter (we’ll call her ZB), I was so excited to be having a baby girl, and I collected all the cute, frilly accessories to put in our sky-blue Peter Rabbit nursery. After she was born, I struggled to keep up with her laundry, and her little closet frequently overflowed (even though a good 25% of it was clothes she had outgrown). I couldn’t rotate the old clothes out quickly enough before it was time to change sizes again.
Something’s gotta give
It wasn’t until her little sister (we’ll call her IZ) came along 16 months later though that I was forced to wake up to this new reality: something had to change. With 2 babies so close in age and the younger one receiving the older one’s clothes without much turnaround time between, there were baby girl clothes everywhere! Even with my perfectionistic standards, I could not keep up with either the laundry (so many blowouts from the younger one and so many food disasters from the older one) or the clothing rotation between putting away the older one’s clothes once she’d outgrown them and then pulling those same clothes out again just a few short months later when her sister grew into them.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the overwhelm was not limited to my girls’ clothes. I found myself in a weird transitional phase where I was too big for pre-pregnancy clothes and too small for maternity … oh, and let’s not forget, half of the clothes that I did fit into would not work because they were not nursing friendly. Nevertheless, my closet and drawers were stuffed with clothes, and I found myself feeling negative every morning when I would go to pick out my outfit; more than half of the clothes that I saw were clothes that I couldn’t wear. In desperation, I scoured the internet for advice on handling the wardrobe dilemma that is “newly postpartum and nursing.”
Enter the Capsule Wardrobe!
I listened to a TED talk by Jennifer L. Scott on “The ten-item wardrobe” and was applying the principles from that into my own wardrobe (that’s another whole blog post lol) when it occurred to me … why can’t my girls have a capsule wardrobe? As it was, they were outgrowing their clothes before getting a chance to wear all of them, so why not narrow their wardrobes down to our favorite outfits that look really cute and are also really comfortable and functional? Why do I have to push hangers of “not my favorite” onesies to the side every time I pick out an outfit?
In my experience, the 80/20 rule is true for baby clothes as well. We all have our favorite outfits that we love for our babies to wear, and – at least in my case – those are the ones we reach for most often. Before the capsule wardrobe system, I was washing and redressing my girls in the same 10-15 outfits (only about 20% of their respective wardrobes) again and again, while about 80% of their clothes were just hanging there and not being worn. So, why in the world did I have all those extra clothes in there just to have the toddler eventually pull them off their hangers and get them dirty so I’d have to wash them again?! I decided to completely rethink the way I was managing their clothes, and as a result, I actually enjoy dressing them again. And I don’t feel overwhelmed by baby clothes anymore!
Strategies for decreasing overwhelm
If I could speak to pre-second-baby-me (heck, even pre-first-baby-me), I would advise her to do the following from the get-go:
- Minimize way, way down. Especially if you have two babies close in age who are passing clothes down to each other, the more minimal the better (within reason).
- With babies and toddlers, I can’t be quite as minimal as I am with my own clothes, just because they’re messy and they still have pretty frequent blowouts and food messes. So, I do keep some extras, but not a ton of extras.
- Personally, I found it helpful to keep count of how many onesies/sleepers/pants etc. we were going through every week, and I used that number to set a hard limit for how many items to keep in each respective category. For example, we always have seven onesies (that all fit!) for my younger daughter. And we always have five rompers/dresses for her (see more on the individual categories below).
- I keep more than seven total daily outfits because accidents happen, and although I generally do laundry every day, I want to have the freedom to go longer and still have clean clothes. Set a limit that works for you and for your family’s lifestyle.
- Also, when you’re minimizing, if there’s a pair of pants (for example) that doesn’t coordinate with any shirts or onesies, it may be time to rethink that pair of pants. I have found so much relief by just keeping clothes that go well together, so I don’t have to think so much every morning. 🙂
- One load of laundry a day.
- With very few exceptions, I wash one load of laundry a day. I don’t try to do multiple loads in one day, and I try to avoid skipping a day as well.
- I have simplified my sorting into 2 basic categories:
- 1. “Laundry items that are delicate and can’t be thrown in the dryer” (i.e. bras, delicates, and clothing with stains)
- 2. “Laundry items that are not delicate and can be thrown in the dryer” (i.e. towels and washcloths). I run kitchen and bathroom towels laundry in the same load. I know that may be controversial, but I figure it’s better to wash them together than to get behind and have wet towels just sitting there breeding mold and microbes. Occasionally, I will break a particularly nasty load up and wash it separately, but for the sake of not getting behind, I generally try to just keep things simple so it gets done.
- Our laundry pattern generally goes “Clothing one day, towels and washcloths the next.”
- Finish that load of laundry before going to bed.
- This means dry, fold and put away everything. This is why I avoid trying to do multiple loads in a day, because inevitably, I forget to put a load in the dryer or I leave it sitting in the basket, and the next day it’s still sitting there and has to be done in addition to the next day’s laundry. You see where I’m going here?
- Little tasks done to completion on a consistent basis are more effective than sporadic laundry marathons – at least in my experience.
- Minimizing will help you to complete step 3, because your loads will be much smaller. Just had to put that piece of encouragement in there, because I know how daunting that felt when I first tried to implement it and how easy it is now 🙂
- Simplify the rotation process. I originally thought I needed to have big rubbermaid tubs for each individual size. Picture: 1 tub for newborn, 1 tub for 3 month, 1 tub for 6 month, and so on and so on …. Let me just save you the trouble by letting you know now: That is way too complicated for an overwhelmed mama, and it takes up way too much space. Don’t get me wrong here — I love organized spaces, and I tend to actually be a microorganizer with very detailed categories. But with two babies so close in age, I had to drastically simplify it.
My Clothing Rotation System
My system is three large bins lined up in my basement (with labels):
- Box A: Things for ZB to grow into
- Box B: things for IZ to grow into
- Box C: Things that are too small for either of them.
When my oldest outgrows an outfit, the second I realize it’s too small, I immediately put it in Box B (things for IZ to grow into). I then look in Box A for a similar item that she can now wear instead. When my youngest outgrows an outfit, I immediately put it in Box C and reach for a similar replacement item in Box B.
This process is uncomplicated enough that I can just do it on a daily maintenance basis. Eventually, Box C gets overfilled and I’m faced with the more complicated emotional task of going through that box (that’s another whole post, and I will be happy to share my system for doing that as well). But on a daily basis, I just pull items out of rotation and swap when I first notice they’re too small.
What do I do with all of the extra baby clothes?
Okay, so you’ve minimized your baby clothes down to the basics, but now what? In my case, after I had completed this step, I had piles and piles of clothes and now I had to figure out what to do with them. That is enough to make any mama overwhelmed. I get it. In my experience, it’s important not to overthink it. Handle each item only once, decide which pile to put it in (I suggest dark trash bags so you can’t see the items and second-guess yourself), and then move on to the next item. Once you’re done, handle the piles – without looking at the items again! – and take them to their respective homes.
- Stained or damaged clothing
- I get it. This is most likely sentimental clothing that has been quite literally worn out. It’s SO hard to declutter these types of baby items. But it’s also really hard to be overwhelmed on a daily basis.
- For me, this meant that I only kept THE very most sentimental items (and I set a hard limit at 10), and the rest of this pile ended up going in the trash. And even when I think back on the items that I sent out, I don’t miss them! Life is so much easier now that they’re gone.
- Some people send these sentimental baby clothes to small businesses that incorporate them into quilts or t-shirts etc. You do what makes you happy. I can only say what worked for me, and I don’t regret it. 🙂
- Clothing that is still in good condition, but belongs to someone else (and they want it back)
- This category can be overwhelming to tackle too. You have this pressure to make sure the items don’t get damaged, because who wants to be that person who borrowed someone’s sentimental clothes and ruined or lost them?! My best advice is to just get it back to them ASAP. Get it out of your house and off your mental to-do list as soon as your baby has outgrown it.
- Clothing that is still in good condition and can be sold or donated
- It’s your choice what to do with this pile. I have sold “sets” of baby clothes that all are within a certain size (example: a bunch of 0-3 month baby clothes for $10). Depending on your level of overwhelm, you may or may not feel up to the challenge of finding a buyer etc. When I’m particularly overwhelmed, I find it much easier to just get it out of the house. Sometimes it’s better to see improvements in your home sooner, and it’s not always worth the hassle of trying to get a few bucks.
My Babies’ Capsule Wardrobes
Now that I’ve shared my tips, and explained my system, are you ready for the summer edition of our current capsule wardrobes for 2 under 2? 🙂
For ZB:
- Three footed sleepers (one not pictured) & one nightgown
- four t-shirts (one not pictured)
- four onesies (one not pictured)
four pairs of pants (two pairs not pictured)
- eight sundresses
- one swimsuit/watersuit
- one lifejacket
- six pairs of socks and one pair of breathable slip-on shoes
For IZ:
- Seven onesies
- Five rompers/dresses
- Two shirts
- Four pairs of baby bloomers
- Four pairs of pants
- Two coveralls
- Seven sleepers/nightgowns (two not pictured)
- Four pairs of socks & one pair of booties
A word on accessories:
They share a basket of bows, and they each have a sunhat of their own. Realistically, the toddler doesn’t keep any bows on her head even when I do put them on, so I generally limit bows to the baby (under close supervision … I never can get over my anxiety around strangulation risks) or on them both during picture time. We always have just what we need, even if there is only one red bow, for example. There is always a complimentary color for the other sister to wear.
Key Takeaways
When you say no to one thing, you’re saying yes to something else. Do I miss all the cutesie patterned socks and baby shoes that were adorable but didn’t match any of my baby’s outfits? Actually, no! I enjoy the heck out of the adorable baby booties that we do have and the socks that actually coordinate with everything else in her wardrobe!
From one busy mama to another, baby clothes don’t have to make you feel overwhelmed. By minimizing our baby clothes, simplifying our clothing rotation process, and consistently doing one load of laundry a day, I have finally gotten to the point where I am excited about their little clothes again … something that I couldn’t have said six months ago.
