Kid’s Closet organization Ideas - How I organize my preschooler’s closet

woman holding folded clothing, sweaters, laundry

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Are you looking for inspiration, tips and tricks for organizing your child’s closet? You have come to the right place!

Since having my daughter almost 5 years ago (say whaaaaaat?!), I like to use the changing of the seasons to re-organize and declutter her closet. I do this every year in fall, usually at the beginning of September and then again around March/April. Doing a good closet declutter and organization helps me keep everything tidy and gives me an idea of what clothes she still has and what we need to get. An organized closet also helps my 4 year old daughter to independently pick out clothing without getting overwhelmed. Below you find essential tips and a step-by-step guide on how to tackle closet organization.

Less is better

This is the ultimate tip I can give you. Having less stuff will make your life SO much easier when it comes to your kid’s closet. It sounds so easy but it is so hard not to buy too much. Everything is just so cute and advertising and good deals always get me. But I am trying really hard to limit what I buy.

I am in no way a minimalist, I just do not like having too much stuff in general, it makes me feel overwhelmed. Having less clothes makes it easier to keep a closet organized and tidy for your child. If they have to rummage through stuff to find that they are looking for, no organization system will hold up for long. Before purchasing any more clothing try and ask yourself, if your child really needs it. Of course there are items like Christmas PJs, that our children do not really need but they are fun and bring so much joy so of course we have to get those.

There really isn’t a general rule how many clothing pieces your kid needs. It depends on how quickly they get themselves dirty, how often you do laundry and so on.

Find a closet system that works for your kid

Ideally, you will have a closet set up in a way that your kid can reach everything themselves. This can be a bit tricky sometimes. In our case, even with a small step stool there is no way for my daughter to reach the top half of her closet. So what I do is, in winter I will move all her sweaters and pants within reach, in summer I will make shorts, dresses and so on easier accessible.

Use non-slip kid size hangers

If you want to keep a closet tidy and organized you cannot live without non-slip hangers. There is nothing more frustrating than neatly hanging up all clothes and they just keep slipping down. This is especially true for a preschooler’s closet. Chances are, they will not put the item that fell off the hanger back on it, they will most likely just toss it in the closet. And we are trying to avoid that.

Get some bins/baskets/drawers for smaller items

Bins and drawers are so helpful when organizing smaller clothing pieces, such as socks, underwear, swimsuits. It stops them from just ending up all over the closet. You do not have to get expensive, pretty looking bins and baskets, regular plastic containers or whatever you have on hand will work just fine. I like using drawer organizer inserts in all our closets. I have linked a few additional items I love for closet organization at the end of this post.

Maintain your system

This may be one of the hardest parts when dealing with a smaller kid’s closet. You can organize their closet as good as you can but eventually they will pull out stuff, change their mind and toss it back in. Preschoolers are still little and learning so it will happen and that is ok. When my daughter’s closet starts to get too messy I will tidy it up with her together so she sees how much work goes into it and eventually learns to take care of it herself (you’re always allowed to dream, right?!). The key is to stay on top of it and don’t let it get out of hand. Sometimes I will put the clean laundry away and just straighten up the closet a bit. Takes only a few minutes and prevents bigger chaos.

Label bins, drawers and shelves

Labeling clothing bins, drawers and shelves is something I highly recommend when you have toddlers and younger children. It will help them figure out where to find things and prevent them from pulling everything out when looking for an item. You can either use picture labels or text labels, depending on your kid’s age. My daughter has not been needing this anymore for the past few months, she knows where things are and is pretty good about it. This is a great tip for husbands too. Have you ever asked your husband to grab a pair of pants from your kids closet and they came back with PJ pants? Yeah, been there, multiple times.. Using labels can help fix that (most of the time). This label maker has been my best friend for over 4 years now. I love it. Cannot live without it. I love to really label everything, ask my friends.

How I organized my daughters closet for the changing of the seasons, A Step-by-step guide

Here in Germany, most houses do not have built-in closets (I really miss my American closet). Instead people have larger wardrobes and dressers in their bedrooms. For my daughter's room we went with the PAX system from Ikea. It has the advantage that you can configure it to your needs and change the interior set up as needed. And it is incredibly spacious. The PAX system also works in built-in closets, just don’t add doors.

When organizing closets I like to start at the top and work my way down.

1. First thing I did was pull out the big storage box I have on the top shelf of my daughter’s closet. It contains seasonal items, like winter gloves, hats, jackets and clothing pieces and shoes in the next size up from what my kids currently wear. I went through everything in there, pulled out the stuff we will be needing soon and moved that to our coat closet. I also took inventory of what we have and what is still needed for the upcoming season.

I love having this little storage bin, it makes it very easy to stay organized and lets me pull seasonal items out of the coat closet when they are not needed. This keeps our coat closet more organized and it's easy for my kids to find what they need in there. When I buy something in a bigger size, I just quickly throw it in there and know exactly where to find it once we need it. I prefer having this bin in my daughter's closet instead of the attic or a basement (which we don’t have) because it makes it very easy for me to just quickly pull stuff out.

There was also a sleep sack in there that I donated. We have not used it since my daughter left her preschool in the US and it is just sitting there taking up space.

2. Next I went through the hanging section in her closet. I pulled everything that was too small of the hangers and made two piles. One pile for things that I want to keep for my son and one pile of hand me down clothes.

My son currently only has a dresser in his room, so there are a few of his clothing pieces hanging in my daughter's closet. I am working on getting him his own little clothing rack to hang stuff, just have not gotten to it yet. There are just not enough hours in the day for moms!!

3. Below the hanging section we have two huge drawers and a mesh drawer on the very bottom. I went through the top drawer first, again pulling everything out. I also like to wipe out the drawers really quickly before putting stuff back in. I took all clothing that was too small out and added it to my two piles. I also put all her shorts in the back of the drawer and pulled her long pants to the front.

Her short sleeve T-shirts I took out and hung up and replaced them with her long sleeve shirts and sweaters. I want my daughter to be as independent as possible when it comes to picking and taking out her clothes in the mornings, so I want the clothing of the season we’re in to be easily accessible to her. You could add some drawer dividers if needed, they help keep everything separated and in its place. My daughter is very good at keeping her closet tidy so we haven’t been needing those.

4. The second drawer contained PJs, underwear, socks, tights and we had some bathing suits in there that I moved to the bottom drawer. I went through everything checking the sizes, folded it neatly and put everything back in. Short sleeve PJs got moved to the back of the drawer and long sleeve PJs I moved to the front.

6. The bottom mesh drawer stayed the same. It contains extra sheets and blankets for my daughter’s bed, large towels and hooded towels we use when we go to the pool, which we frequently do. The only thing I did is I added her bathing suits to this drawer as well.

That’s it! It was actually not that bad. I took out quite some stuff that was getting too small, but the closet in general was already pretty organized. Here is the end result.

A little tip: have a small basket or bin in your kids closet so you can toss stuff in it right away when you realize that it is too small. That way it doesn’t get thrown back into the closet and sits there taking up space and making it look like your kid has way more clothes than they actually have. It has helped me tremendously in keeping everything organized and makes it very easy to see when your kid is running low on clothes that fit.

I hope this gives you some motivation and ideas to organize and declutter your kid’s closets and start doing seasonal closet change overs!

I have linked some items, that I love to use to keep closets organized and tidy, below. Let me know if you have any tips or recommendations for organizing a kid’s closet, in the comments!