Do you colour code your children?

[nmhermione]

When my son was born, we chose green as a theme colour for his room, his birth announcement (a non-UK tradition where we send friends & family a card announcing his name, birth, weight, etc.), etc. We weren't obsessive about this in any way, he has clothes and toys in all colours. Then we bought new suitcases and I automatically chose green for him, pink for myself (I usually get pink accessories) and blue for my husband, so we can immediately see which is which. Then we got individual laundry baskets, and again I chose them in the same colours, it just seemed to make sense.

I'm expecting my second child, and almost without realising I was doing it, I've already 'assigned' him a colour. I've already bought a suitcase and laundry basket matching his colour. And I've bought matching cups & plates for both my toddler & baby in 'their' colour. I can already see buying them colour coded towels, phone chargers, and other things as they get older.

Am I crazy or does this make sense? I feel like we will avoid some arguments about who left their towel on the floor, and everyone will know which cup is theirs etc. I don't want it to be restrictive in any way, for example clothes and shoes should be any colour they want, but I feel it can help to colour code some things.

Does anyone else do this?

I colour code socks . There's white socks for me, black socks for DH and grey socks for adult DS.
Towels is thither thing. I buy 3 towels for the bathroom in varying depth of one colour fromdark to light.eg. if I go for blue DS will get navy, I get royal blue and DH gets pale blue.

I've just realised I do! Not majorly, but for toothbrushes/towels/toiletries/dressing gowns/slippers we all have our own colour. Yellow, green, purple, navy blue and fuchsia

You wouldn't be the first to tell me that :) I'm a big fan of organising. I have same size labelled baskets in my pantry, bedding boxes for each set of bedding, packing cubes for our suitcases (yes, they're also colour coded), ... I label everything that goes in the freezer and then write the date and contents on a magnetic calendar that hangs on our freezer. I've typed & printed all the recipes we commonly cook and organised them in a big folder in the kitchen (colour coded by type). I've written all those recipes on magnetic ice lolly sticks (yes, colour coded) and then I hang those on the fridge on our weekly 'menu' calendar. I can go on and on and I might have a problem XD

I often get laughed at (especially by my husband) as well as praised for my organisation skills (also especially by my husband - he laughs and then says how helpful these things are for him as a stay at home dad), but it just gives me peace of mind to know where everything is.

That's amazing! Do they still have a slight preference for their colour to this day?

I did - very big family - huge number of boys socks……
Flannels/toothbrushes
School timetable with ‘their’ colours for when they needed sports kits/cookery stuff etc etc.
Life would have been very chaotic without organisation.

I worry it will create an aversion.

Twins, and they did this themselves! From toddlers, very early on everything became colour coded and it's stayed consistent. It has its uses.

as a child, we had coloured stitches in the toes of socks, and the back of knickers - 3 girls, similar sizes, much easier to tell them apart after coming out of the wash. Other things probably had colours assigned but it wasn't the same colour for everything. My socks and pants had red stitches in though, I remember that.

I did this without really thinking about it when they were smaller - for things like flannels and towels etc - so DD1 was red, DS blue and DD2 pink. I still use the same colours if I stitch colour loops in otherwise identical black socks etc! It was just a quick way for DC to know which item was 'theirs'.

No. But they ended up colour coding themselves. 2 boys, one always chose red and one always chose green. They're 17 and 18 now, the red one has branched out a bit over the years but the green one still regularly chooses green.

Growing up in a family of three girls, our clothes/towels/face cloths etc were definitely colour coded.
I remember being secondary school aged and sewing a thread of "my" colour into the back of my school tights and the label of my blouses etc and my sisters did the same.

Is Thursday purple and Saturday yellow?

I didn't do this but my school did.

Every year group was a particular colour - pe kit, ties, pe bags etc. - were all a year colour.

It made it much easier to sort lost kit.

Good luck trying to enforce the colour of your choosing onto your child I guess. As someone with two young children I can’t imagine this playing out.

Swimming bags were another one where they had their colour! Anything where it was quicker to grab something without much thought. I never colour coded their clothes though.

I've never heard of this. I have my kids names instead.

We did this when I was a kid, trouble is, throughout our teenage years we both thought the green towel was ours, and I hated how it never seemed to dry out even on a heated towel rail, meanwhile my brother was happily using it without much consideration of it being soaking wet, and the whole confusion only came to light when we were in our fifties. He took much delight in me being disgusted in using the same towel as him. I can only take some relief in the fact that he was a very clean teenager, not one of those swampy boys.

I did the same for socks as well. Three children's school socks in slightly different sizes drove me mad. Also water bottles and school backpacks were in each child's favourite colour so easy to tell apart.

Then they grew up and it isn't my problem anymore, so it's all pretty mixed.

Ehrm no. But we share laundry basket and they know which colour their toothbrushes are. DS2 loves yellow so if I buy something for him and yellow is an option I will always chose that colour.

I’m not sure I colour-coded but did buy multiples of 2 or 3 items at a time as DC are close in age, so naturally bought what was available eg green, red, purple for them to pick from.

Not in the majority of things but one DS’s lunch is always in the blue Tupperware and one in the red so I can quickly shove the right things in the right lunchbox.

Never had individual suitcases or laundry baskets or anything like that to colour code them. As a family of four we went for a week in October with one large checked bag and three backpacks as hand luggage between us. One laundry basket for everyone.

Cutlery etc is all shared so I never had any idea of colour coding stuff.

When my dc were young & I was teaching at an international school with a long day & weird staggered lunch breaks, I definitely did!

They'd need breakfast to eat on the bus, lunch, break time snack & something for before after school activities.

My Sistema was colour coded to fuck . By kid, & then labelled for the meal it was intended for.

Although after a few months, I realised that labelling the different meals was futile. They’d still eat anything even vaguely treat adjacent for breakfast, pick at anything savoury at lunchtime before haring off to play, & bring home the Stunt Fruit.

But yes - ds was red, dd1 was green & dd2 was purple.

Not intentionally but our I really like green and DH likes purple so our kids have a lot of clothes that are those colours or similar colours. Now I think about it we also unintentionally dress them like us but smaller… so they kind of fit the theme if you will.

Yup. Also: Colour coded flannels and box for winter gloves/sun hats.

I don’t do the plates and cups but the cups idea is genius I load about 10 cups a day into my dishwasher when I do not have 10 children! Colours would identify to guilty party.