How to Organize Kid’s Clothing in a Dresser

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I usually organize and declutter my children’s clothing twice a year with the seasonal changes in spring and fall. This helps me stay on top of it and keeps everything fairly tidy.

Here in Germany, it is not very common to have built-in or walk-in closets in the bedrooms. I do not know why! I find built-in closets awesome and think every home should have them. Unfortunately, we do not have them in our house.

Below you will find a step-by-step guide as well as tips and tricks on how to declutter and organize your child’s clothing in a dresser.

Dresser or wardrobe

When I put together my son’s room, I had to figure out how to store his clothing. I decided on a dresser, instead of a bigger wardrobe for four reasons:

1. A dresser does not take up as much room and there will be more area left for toys and playing.

2. I really try to not buy so much clothing anymore. Having a smaller storage space also means I can’t buy too many clothes for my kid. It forces you to minimize and declutter frequently.

3. Small children’s clothing is fairly small so it fits perfectly into drawers.

4. The dresser we purchased matches the style of the rest of our house so we can use it elsewhere, when my son gets older and eventually needs a bigger wardrobe. Or he can have a dresser and small wardrobe combined. We will cross that bridge when we get there.

Take everything out

Unless you just got a dresser and are starting to put things in, you want to take EVERYTHING out! I like to do this one drawer at a time, top to bottom.

Start with the first drawer. Take everything out and sort it into three piles: one pile for things that go back into the dresser, one pile with clothes to donate/sell, one pile for clothes you want to keep for younger siblings/family/friends.

Continue this system with every other drawer, until your dresser is empty and everything has been sorted into piles. Put your donate and hand-me-down piles aside.

Sort clothes by category

Take the pile that contains all clothing you want to put back into the dressers. You will now want to go through all the clothes in this pile and sort them by category. Pants, sweaters, pjs, socks, and so on.

When I have larger items that are out of season, I like to store them in a storage tub and keep them in our attic until the next year. That gives me more room in the dresser.

Once you have sorted everything you will get a pretty good picture of how many clothes you have and what you may need to stock up on.

Plan out each drawer

Seeing how many pieces of clothes you have in each category you can try and figure out what goes into which drawer. There are two things to consider when working on a system for your dresser’s drawers:

Space: Make sure you use the space you have efficiently, since it’s very limited in a smaller dresser. Make sure each drawer is filled properly, not leaving huge empty gaps, but do not over stuff drawers.
Convenience: You are going to take out clothes daily so you want them to be easily accessible. Try to think about how you select clothing.
For example, in the fall/winter I need to grab a short sleeve onesie, pants, sweater and socks to get my toddler dressed in the morning. Those items I want to be in the front where I can see everything and take them out without rummaging through drawers. I won’t be needing shorts anytime soon, so those can go in the back. And so on.

Once you have an idea of where you want to put things, start folding everything and putting it into the drawers. I like to do one drawer at a time.

How I organized my son’s dresser

When I organized my toddler’s dresser I chose a system that is convenient for me, rather than one that will let him access everything. He just turned two and really doesn’t care about what he wears, and if he likes to help pick out his clothes, I just lift him up. I may change this in the future, as he gets older so he can independently take his clothing out. But for now this is what works for us.

If you are looking for closet organization tips for a preschooler, who likes to pick her clothing independently, take a look at how I organized my daughter’s closet. Her closet is set up to be independently used by her.

My son’s dresser has a total of four drawers.

Top drawer

The top drawer is the smallest of all the drawers, so perfect for underwear, socks, tights and pjs.

Second drawer

The second drawer contains all tops we will need in fall/winter. I divided it into sweater/long sleeve shirts, long sleeve onesies and short sleeve onesies.

My son wears the short sleeve onesies underneath his sweaters, since winters can get pretty cold and we spend a lot of time outside. So I wanted them easily accessible as well.

Third drawer

The third drawer contains bottoms. I separated those into overalls and regular pants.

I also put sweatsuits and short sleeve shirts into this drawer.

In the back of the drawer, behind the pants I store shorts. We hardly ever need shorts here in fall and winter so I don’t need those to be in the front.

Bottom drawer

The bottom drawer holds bulkier items, such as sleep sacks, sheets, duvet covers and extra blankets. I also added swim suits to this drawer, since we don’t need those daily.

The best way to fold clothes for drawers

I am sure you have seen the folding technique I use on my toddler’s clothing around. I think it is the best way to store clothing in drawers.

Folding it this way lets you see everything and you can easily take stuff out and put clothing in without creating a mess.

To fold shirts, you want to fold in the sleeves, then fold each side to meet in the middle. Flip the bottom up and then flip it again all the way to the top.

To fold pants, fold them in half. Fold the bottom to the middle, do the same with the top part. Fold it in half one more time and you are done.

Label everything

If you have a nanny, babysitter or a husband who also access your kid’s clothing frequently, I highly recommend labelling your drawers. This will guarantee everyone knows where to find what they are looking for and also helps when putting clean laundry back into the dresser.

Especially with husbands this is a game changer! Have you ever asked your husband to grab a pair of pants for your kid and they came back with pj pants?! Has definitely happened in this house. Multiple times. So having labels is great.

I have linked the label maker I have been using for years here. It is amazing. I can only recommend it. I have used it so much in the past I could not live without it (affiliate link).

Organization items that are great for dressers

For my son’s dresser I used the SKUBB drawer organizers from Ikea (ad). You can find similar organizers on Amazon, if you do not have an Ikea nearby.

I also love the drawer separators that can be adjusted as needed.