Organising handmedowns

[bethany39]

I have three little girls and two older nieces and I get a lot of clothes handed down to me by DSIL/DB, as well as having bits I want to keep from my oldest for my younger two. So at the moment I have lots of clothes of various sizes waiting to be grown into, or for the right seson to be worn. These are all bits I definitely want to keep - I'm already pretty good at getting rid of anything that I don't like or the girls won't wear!

Trouble is I'm not sure the best way to organise/store them! At the moment everything of all sizes is just in a couple of huge bag - but it's practically impossible to keep track of, and I find that the girls have grown out of things before I rediscover/remember we have them...

I desperately need ideas on how to store them better - by age? by season? and in what type of containers/boxes etc? And ideally some easy way to keep track of what I have (so that next time I see a "bargain" age 3-4 Christmas jumper for example, I remember that we already have 5 and probably don't need any more! )

Anyone super organised and care to share how they keep kids clothes organised when they're not actively part of a child's wardrobe?!

I bought the foldable cardboard boxes from the works (with lids) and write on the handle the ages, so I can just take the relevant box down, and then change the age as the DCs grow out of things. But that’s because we can’t store things in the loft, so they are in the DCs bedroom. If we could put things in the loft, I’d do the same system but in the clear plastic boxes and have the age written on the side of the box. We usually have 1 or 2 boxes per age, but I don’t sort it by season, as my DCs wear anything at anytime it seems!
I don’t tend to buy things in advance, as my DCs are quite fussy and end up not liking particular types of clothing, so we just wait until they need something and choose it together. So I can’t help with that aspect.

I have it all in a big box but keep a list in my diary of what I have so I can check it when I see bargains.

but I only have 2 dds with a 3 year age gap so nowhere near as many sizes to keep sorted!

I put similar stuff/age into carrier bags and loosely tie the handles. Then put into the big laundry bags. So all boys trousers 3-4, all girls pjs 5-6. Easy enough to rifle through to check a particular bag before going shopping

I use these, write on the outside what sizes are in there
www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/dimpa-storage-bag-transparent-10056770/

Big plastic tubs in the loft. Ages were on the side when I had a lot. Don't have so much now kids are older as they tend to were things out - so less hand me downs from family. (I've just found brand new school trousers which weren't worn at all, school socks and pants I bought in the Sainsbury's 25% off sale which I forgot I had and bought more....So make sure you check what's there regularly!)

We put the next size up stuff on top of their wardrobe. As they outgrow stuff we bring things down. As the older one outgrows stuff we put it on top of dc2s wardrobe.

Anything bigger again gets binbagged with a sheet of A4 and the age taped to the front and put in the loft. As the top of the wardrobes thin, we go into the loft.

Each DC has a big drawer somewhere with the next size up, so it's really easy to rummage through if they need anything. As they grow out of stuff it goes into big labelled plastic bags in my ottoman bed (labelled by size). When a size has pretty much finished coming through it gets put into a vacuum bag. When their drawer thins a bit I have a sort through what is left and bring out the next vacuum bag.

Thanks everybody, this is all really helpful stuff! Unfortunately there isn't much room in our loft so things have to go in our room or DD1's room, hence I want them to at least look a bit organised rather than just bags everywhere! We've some of those plastic drawers in the living room so I'll see if I can repurpose them with some bags inside to split things up, and put them inside our fitted wardrobe.

@Times10 DD1 is already pretty fussy about what she wears and she's only 5 - if anything I think that means I end up keeping more of the stuff I'm passed down as I'm not sure which of DNs' (10 and 7) stuff she will deign to wear by the time she fits it!

I understand that! I used to keep all of DD1s clothes in case DD2 wanted something DD1 didn’t, but we have limited storage, so we had to get rid of the clothes and hope for the best. Now they’re both at school there’s not much time to wear normal clothes anyway, so they grow out of stuff before they even wear them!

We just use a carrier bags for each size, with an address label (on both sides of the bag for ease). Bundle them all in a tall box and store at the back of a wardrobe. Bags mean they all squish down together so no wasted space.

I just put them into bags ordered by size and labelled. Next size up is within reach in the wardrobe. I used a bag with air sucked out to store the rest.

We use under bed boxes, labelled and sorted by size. I don't bother sorting by season, everything goes in and then when ds needs the next size up I quick wash all of it at once, and put it all in his drawers, with the bottom drawer for "out of season" stuff, so that I can get to it easily if needed, eg for a winter holiday, freak weather etc