Home Organisation 101: Squirm’s Drawers

Find the A Bowl Full of Lemons post here.

This was a pretty easy week. The task was a child’s wardrobe. Squirm doesn’t have a wardrobe, instead he had a set of drawers. He’s also much too young to use them himself, so this was about creating a system for Mr Pilot and myself to use.

Before Photos

The top drawer – this is where we keep the wipes and other small things – as you can see, our change table is on top of the drawers

The clothes drawer. So many clothes! And baby clothes are so hard to fold neatly!

The wraps and burp cloths. This is the neatest drawer, but very over crowded

The too big and too small drawer. It’d be really nice if babies could just stay one size for a while 🙂

Our biggest problem is the sheer amount of clothes in different sizes that comes with having a baby. There were clothes that Squirm had grown out of and clothes he hasn’t grown into yet. Both sets of clothes had to be dealt with. We also needed a very flexible system – something that was easy to alter for the different clothes and seasons.

I ended up buying two shallow tubs that are designed to fit under the bed. In one I sorted the too small clothes, the other held the too big clothes. This freed up a lot of space in the drawers. I also took out so e winter stuff that we din’t need now we’re going into summer. Those two tubs fit nicely under Squirm’s cot.

I kept the newly emptied bottom drawer and the one above it for burn cloths and swaddling wraps. There’s also room in there for bags and wearing wraps. The third drawer became the clothes drawer. The cooler clothes,are at the front – mostly singlets and cotton onesies.

The top drawer was the last to be organised. Because we use reusable wipes, we have a wipe system (two containers, one for clean wipes, one for dirty) set up in the divided,drawer. I moved the bibs forward (since we’re using them more now) next to the wipes, then put all the shoes and socks into a small container behind the wipes. Hats went into the corner. In the other side of the divider I put dry wipes on one side and wet bags on the other, with the wipe container at the front next to things like nappy cream.

So far, it’s been much easier to use and find things. I also realised how many clothes Squirm had, and realised we can probably pull back on buying so much. We do need to buy a couple of night things for the next size up, both not much more than that.

After photos

Plastic tubs for the too big and too small clothes

Top drawer. This one had the most organising and it’s the one I feel is working the best now

The clothes drawer. Not perfect, but an awful lot better. I’m going to try to put washed clothes underneath clean ones so that everything gets worn more evenly

The pretty empty drawer with burp cloths and a couple of lighter wraps. We were washing on the day I organised the drawers, so there were more things to put away later

The bottom drawer with heavier wraps

Find other Home Organisation 101 posts here