Conquer the Clutter Monster
in Your Kid's Closet!

A kid's closet can be a scary place not only for your little ones but for you too. Learning how to organize kids is tough enough let alone their closets. Everything seems to get thrown in a kid's closet.

If your kids are little, you may not want to enlist their help when organizing their closet. It will be easier to do it when you have free time. Just be sure to get down on their level to see things from their perspective. Make things easy to take out and put away.

The first step will be to clear out the whole closet to assess what's there. Kids grow so fast, you will need to complete this crucial step to start a declutter process. Go through and toss the following

• Worn out clothing
• Stained clothing
• Broken toys
• Toys missing their pieces

Donate or store clothes that are in good shape, but no longer fit. Store away toys that they are tired off, but can come out at a later date and be "new" again.

Assess what is left and design a kid's closet space around that. The old shelf over one rod definitely does not work for small children. You could save money and purchase a double hang closet rod to double hang their small clothes. Hang seldom worn items on the top rod and frequently worn items on the bottom so they can reach them. In addition, add either a bookcase or rolling storage bin with drawers for items that fold.

In my experience, kids aren't going to be really good at cleaning up after themselves until their almost three years old. They just don't seem to "listen" too well until three. They're way too busy discovering their environment.

Although you should definitely start early getting them in the habit of cleaning up after themselves, just don't expect great results.

That being said, go ahead and design a closet space around your little one that will allow them to clean up after themselves. Just don't expect them to actually have the ability to do it until they're closer to their third birthday.

Shoes can end up a big jumbled mess on the closet floor. You can buy them a shoe organizer, or better yet, keep them in the garage or entryway. For info on how to best store items in your entryway, see Entryway Storage Organization. This way kids can put their shoes on as they exit out the door. If you decide to keep all their shoes in their closets, just be sure to use a shoe organizer like the kind that hangs over the door, or a basket or rolling cart to contain them all.

To keep the closet floor from getting cluttered again, keep things off the floor and if you must store things there, then store them in containers with wheels.

To make clean up easy for your little ones make labels for containers and designated spaces in their closets.

Try to keep toys your kids play with all the time out of the closet. Store them in baskets or tubs on the floor in their room.

Go through your kid's toys every so often and store away the ones they are not playing with. I call these out of circulation toys which can be stored in clear plastic containers in the top of their closets. When you repeat this pattern in six months, these toys will be "new" again to your kids.

Congratulations! You've created a system of organization that is easy for your little one to keep themselves organized. But… remember, since they grow so quick, you will need to do the occasional maintenance of decluttering, tossing, donating, and storing their stuff. Don't worry, this task that used to be so hard, is now easy in your newly organized kid's closet.

If you liked this, then you may like Organize Kids for some savvy tips to get your most unruly and unorganized kids in-line.

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