Hand me down

[radegund]

This afternoon I FINALLY attacked the landing cupboard, where stacks and nests and huddles of the Oyster's outgrown clothes have been lurking. I started out all organised (in, like, 2006), with folding and keeping like with like and everything, but that broke down fairly quickly, and for years it's been a case of stuffing things in wherever there's space.

I pulled everything out and triaged it, then put it back in piles and bags, with - and this is the genius part - labels on the shelf saying "Feaster's next size", "Feaster plus 2 sizes", "Feaster plus 3 sizes", "Oyster outgrowing". So when they move up a size, we just shift everything over. I'm counting on the Feaster moving through the next couple of sizes faster than the Oyster, which means we shouldn't need much more space than we're using now (or at least, not until the clothes get really large).

Curiously, we seem to have about twice as many 2-3-year-old clothes as the sizes on either side of it. Hmmm. I wonder if that's because this is the size the Oyster was when I took my first career break, and I was revelling in my ability to pay attention to what he wore?

For my next trick, I'll tackle the Feaster's outgrowns, which are stuffed in a plastic box in our room. They'll go up to the attic when I've separated the sizes. I'm not sure if I'll have individual bags for all the overlapping and incompatible small-baby sizes, or just have bags numbered 1, 2, 3, etc., or what. But that's altogether less urgent than today's task, which was long overdue.

And now I don't have to go panic-shopping for the Feaster, who is popping out of nearly everything. I've even washed all of the size he's moving into, so I can make the transition over the next few days. Result!

Comments

[thereyougothen.livejournal.com]

don't worry, i've found that once the clothes become big enough to become a storage problem, they don't seem to last to the next child anyway...

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Heh. I suppose not!

[rmc28]

I like your way of organising it :)

I have boxes of Charles's outgrown clothes labelled by age, for the as-yet-unplanned baby2. I seriously need to cull his current clothing pile of the outgrown clothes. We keep shoving them back in at the bottom which is crazy.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll let you know if it works! We're pretty inefficient at weeding out old stuff too - but now we have A System, of course, that'll all change :-)

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Well done!

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Thank you!