Cloths- Uugg & Kids emptying drawers.

Uugg.  first, can i whine?  I hate the changing cloths from one season to the next!  I was never good at it when it was just me.  Add the kids and it feels like i can't ever get it all organized.
Anybody else buried in cloths and cloth chores?  Have any tips to make the organization easier?
 
Second question.  Do your kids empty their drawers every.chance.they.get?  How old were they when they stopped doing this?  Do you keep their cloths in their room?  security suggestions for closet with double folding doors?
Currently i have sticks through the drawer handles so they can't open them and they have not figured out how to open the closet.. yet.  If i forget the sticks it is a free for all. when i am doing something in the drawers it is all i can do to keep them out.  I am considering moving the dresser into the spare room/office.  This change of season would be a good time.  If this is something they will out grow soon, I might just deal with it.  so, how long can i expect to be living with two tornadoes?
 
TIA for any words of wisdom, suggestions.

 

Absolutely you can whine.  I'll join in.    I never got around to pulling out Vivi's 12 months clothes and organizing them for the twins to wear and I just realized today that the 12 months pants that I bought for the twins are too small.  I think they'll get another 3-4 weeks out of them and then they'll be cutting off circulation.  Oops.  I guess I'll skip right to the 18 months clothes from Vivi - if I get them down from the attic before the twins are in 2Ts.
 
Drawers.  Drawers.  Drawers.  Both sets of drawers are in the twins' room.  Vivi won't empty them out any more but she had been caught climbing into them back when she was 2.  So her room contains her bed, an ottoman, and stuffed animals - that's it.  The few times that the twins are upstairs and able to get into their room without being in their cribs, they empty the drawers faster than I can blink.  Honestly, for the most part their clothes that they actually wear never make it to the drawers anyway. I sort their clothes into laundry baskets and I feel like I'm doing a decent job if they get folded.  I'm not sure how to fix that issue since the only time I have to put their clothes away is when they are asleep and since the drawers are in their room... :unknw:.
 
Personally, I would probably move the dressers out in preparation for the day that they aren't in cribs anymore (assuming they still are now).  Because then the issue won't be so much about emptying the drawers as using them to climb or (if it's not anchored) potentially knocking it over or smashing fingers.  My plan is to keep them in cribs until I can trust Vivi with the dressers in her room (if that day ever comes).
 
For the closet with folding doors, would something like these work?  I use those on the cabinet doors on our kitchen island to keep them out.  I also have them on the drawers with the craft/office supplies.

 

Here's my system (stolen from smarter women than myself):

I hang everything except panties, skirts, and pants. Tshirts, tops, dresses, dress up, etc is all hung. I have an empty diaper box in the bottom of the closet and, as things don't fit or go out of season, I just pull them off the hanger and drop them in the box. Twice a year I do a Facebook post to our MoMs group to come claim clothes from the box.

Yes, the girls definitely went through a period of dumping drawers! I just cram stuff back into them. We've rediscovered pants after they've outgrown them, so I don't know how to prevent that. They don't do it anymore at 3.5, though.

Our dresser is a late '70's behemoth that weighs a millions pounds and it can't be tipped. I stood on a drawer myself to test it. I bought. It on CL for $20 and painted it. It's not a hazard to them and it's not too precious, so I don't sweat it.

I feel like the chaos is manageable, but not perfect. That pretty much the zone that I'm comfortable living in, though. As long as nobody can die in their room, we're doing okay!

 

om gosh!  i hadn't even thought about them climbing it.  Its pretty heavy but they are not light weights and i bet with a little team effort they could flip it!  thanks for that tip!   :huh:
It is moving out.
 
those safety straps look like they will work!
 

oh great.. another cloths area (that i completely blocked from my mind) that needs work!  But you are right hanging cloths seem to be safe from the whirl winds.. i need to go through what is there and use that space better.  Also, it will easy to put hanging things away quickly since i can already have them on hangers in the laundry room.
 
Yep and i am with you both on the finding cloths after they no longer fit.  Last week i discovered 2 pairs of shorts for Nicholas, that i didn't know i had... now that short season is almost over!  Well, he will get to wear them at least a couple of times. 
 
 

 so far so good.  lol.
 
 
edited b/c i can't spell.

 

As Steph said, Hang it all! They usually can't reach it so it keeps it away from them. My boys were terrible about this (Annabelle is not terribly interested yet) so we moved the dresser into my little closet away from them. They are 4 and I broke them of the habit last spring. They did go through a bad spell where they would yank the hangers and break them so I made them sit in corners while I hung up everything again and cleaned up the mess. It worked!

As to seasons changing I try not to put stuff away that won't fit- I get rid of it before next year. Everything that currently fits is in the closet. As they grow out of it I put it in the Goodwill/ARC bag immediately. If you do it little by little it does not pile up. But I'm a clothes freak and if I was nearby I'd totally do it for you.

 

We bought dressers from Ikea with enough drawers for everything, so I don't store off season anymore. The dressers are actually screwed to the wall--not with a strap; the dressers themselves are screwed to the wall. The kids have always left them alone though.

I do the same as Steph and dump stuff as they outgrow it. Once a season I go through the drawers and purge anything I've missed.

I've got all of Anna's old clothes that we kept for Ellie organized in bins by size in her room's closet so I can't miss things.

 

My kids were never too bad about dumping drawers, but their dresser is in the closet and we lock the closet with these:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000P635T2/?tag=mytwins02-20

As far as organization, the season changes are hard and their closet is crammed. When it got cold enough to get pants out, I got rid of half their shorts and replaced them with pants. The rest of the shorts, except for a few i keep just in case, will go when it's mostly too cold for them. I will do the same thing in a few weeks when we need long sleeve shirts. I also have plastic bins with lids on an upper shelf that I can store things that I don't want hanging or in drawers, like a few sweatshirts for chilly summer evenings.

And like others have said, I hang as much as I can. Only pants, underwear, etc. is in drawers.

I also consignment shop things. Once Upon a Child takes all seasons at all times, so when they outgrow things or I move them out, I take them in, and whatever they don't buy goes to Goodwill on my way home (Goodwill is conveniently between OUAC and my house). It's a lot of work in spurts, but I can't stand the clothing clutter!!

 

Oh you have no idea how fast i would take you up on that ^^

 

Oh my gosh mine went through the "dump everything out onto the floor" phase and it drove me NUTS!  Then they would sit/stand in the drawers and since it was a cheap dresser, they popped the bottoms out of the drawers so many times that they bottoms would no longer stay in!  I finally bought a different cabinet this spring http://www.biglots.com/p/c/storage-and-organizaton/ameriwood-white-4-door-storage-cabinet and bought plastic baskets to hold their small clothes on the bottom shelves (1 each for undies/socks, 1 each for pj's).  The top I have their shorts on the bottom shelf, and their pants on the very top.  I also hung all their shirts in the closet instead of trying to cram them into a container each. 

This works fantastic, and I'm planning to get another cabinet for my older kids to use.  It's much sturdier than the cheapie dressers we've found, and the baskets are easy for them to slide in and out and drop their clothes in (or get their own clothes out).  Now that it's cooler outside, I'm going to rotate their pants and shorts, so the pants are low enough for them to get themselves, and their shorts move up to the top shelf.
 
As for too small clothes, I toss them into a storage container in their closet.  Once it's full I got through it and sort it into bags.  Girls in one, boys in another, goodwill in another and garbage.  I give the girl clothes to one cousin, the boy clothes to another cousin, usually have 1 bag for goodwill and a few things that are too stained to even donate, they go in the trash.  I try to sort it twice a year.

Hand me down clothes from my older 2 kids are sorted into tubs in the twins closet, with the size clearly marked on the side and top of them.  So as they grow I bring out the next size tub (or tubs) and rotate them into their drawers.  I have from size 6 to size 10-12 in there right now.

 

Mine aren't dumping yet, but they do try and open the bottom drawer, so it's only a matter of time!

And I HATE changing out clothes.....I get anxiety about it!

 

We just added cabinet door locks on their dresser. All of their furniture is strapped to the wall except their cribs
Closet door locks: we use these on the sliding doors(bedroom) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000067Q6K/?tag=mytwins02-20
and these on the bi-fold doors(pantry) http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000P635T2/?tag=mytwins02-20

I have never done their clothes by season for 2 reasons. The weather is very random sometime we are still wearing shorts at Christmas and 2 they are growing I change their clothes out often anyway.