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Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Who knew that babies came with so much stuff? Certainly not my husband and me.
As you start collecting baby stuff, you will need to become a master at
If your kids are a little older, still check out the tips in this post, but also grab these tips on teaching kids to declutter for themselves.
I’m not going to solve your organization issues by telling you to get rid of a lot of things. However, there is no doubt that it’s easier to organize when you have less stuff. If you want tips on decreasing your things, check out the Marie Kondo show on Netflix or grab her book here.
In the meantime, keep reading for my tips and ideas on how to organize all of the baby items to minimize clutter.
If you want some personal motivation and small steps to get the clutter under control, join my free one-week organization challenge here.
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Organizing Hacks
Pack away things that are not appropriate for your baby right now.
Most things that you have for baby are needed frequently, so you want ready access. However, you likely have some clothes and toys that your baby has outgrown. Pack these away. On the flip side, you may also have clothes that are too big or toys that are too advanced for the current stage. These can also be packed away. I keep a small storage tote in the back of my son’s closet for clothes that are too big. I then also keep a box for clothes that he’s outgrown. Once the box fills up, I move the clothes to space-saver bags.
Maximize your storage space.
Identify where you might be able to store things that don’t need to be readily accessible, and then make the most of that space. If you have a closet, find which size storage tote fits best and then get a bunch that are the same size. By using a uniform storage tote size, you will have easier stacking and therefore, can fit more. I also highly recommend these storage bags. Use these for all of the soft items like clothing and bedding. You can then put them into the storage totes if you desire. If you have a garage to store items, consider shelving or even overhead shelves to maximize the space for totes and boxes.
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For large, odd-shaped items, save the boxes.
Many baby items that are used short-term are had to fit into storage totes. For these items, save the boxes. Just breakdown the boxes and store them up against a wall behind a dresser or storage tote. Then when you are ready to pack away the item you have a perfect size box for it. We did this with the newborn swing and the
Store accessible items off the floor when possible.
A crib, rocking chair and dresser take up a lot of space in a small nursery. Therefore, decrease the items needing floor space as much as possible. For stuffed animals, grab an animal net like this one. This keeps all the stuffed animals contained without taking up any valuable floor space. For books, get a couple of floating shelves like this or this. They give you great storage without taking up any floor space. If you have a closet, you could hang a lot of your baby’s clothing to decrease the size of the dresser you need. Regardless though, use your closet as a place to put plastic storage drawer sets to increase your storage. You can likely fit one high underneath of hanging clothes, or you may be able to stack a couple if you aren’t hanging clothes. These are helpful for storing various items like diapers, wipes, formula, baby food, etc.
Paxton is amazed how much we can store by stacking storage drawers in his closet. 
The animal net hangs out in the corner and keeps all the stuffed toys corralled.
Roll clothes.
When storing clothes in a dresser, you want to fit as much as possible but still be able to readily find all the cute outfits. I found that rolling each item maximized the amount I could fit in each drawer while still making it possible to see everything.
Skip the diaper changing caddy.
Instead of having a designated cart for all your diaper changing essentials, dedicate a top drawer of the dresser to diaper changing items. This means one less item taking up floor space.
Get multi-purpose furniture.
In the past, once
Take advantage of cute storage boxes.
There is a good chance you will want an end table next to the glider. When you get one, grab one of these that has an open space to fit a storage box. You get the table and you can pick out a cute box to match the nursery décor. The box then works as a place to store items in a readily accessible way. If you like the look of these boxes, you could even do larger shelves with them (either floating or regular if you have the floor space.). You could even use this awesome hack and roll the clothes inside the cube boxes!
Use multi-purpose toy storage.
For keeping toys contained, grab an ottoman like this one. It looks nice in your living room and doubles as extra seating.
Store puzzles efficiently.
Those chunky baby puzzles are great learning toys, but finding a way to store them and not lose the pieces can be challenging. I use plastic legal-sized envelopes that are see through like these. They are great for the Melissa and Doug chunky puzzles. You can then fasten them closed and store in a decorative box.
Repurpose containers.
Some food containers make great storage! I repurpose the Costco animal cracker containers for toy storage simply by making a label to cover the current one. I also use drink mix containers to store small toys or diaper bag snacks. If you want a baby-proof container, Tide Pod plastic containers work well.
Use small storage trays to keep drawers organized.
When storing small items in drawers, it’s really easy for them to become disorganized. Grab some of these plastic trays to compartmentalize your drawers and keep small items organized. I also love these storage containers for keeping small toys contained inside an ottoman.
Try to limit baby items to what is actually necessary.
For what I’ve learned about which baby items you actually need check out the articles here, here, here, and here.
Final Thoughts
There are my tops tips and organizing items. One final thought, when designing a baby nursery keep it practical with regards to storage. So many nursery designs emphasize the cute but aren’t practical for storing all the items you will accumulate. When designing your nursery, try to incorporate bins/baskets, drawer space, floating shelves and storage under the crib.
What Next?
I know the concepts seem easy, but actually having the motivation to tackle organization can be challenging. I’ve got two motivation solutions for you to try!
Right Now
Head over the YouTube and find some cleaning/tidying channels to follow. I really like Anna O’leary’s channel because watching her videos actually makes me want to go organize.
Overwhelmed at the Thought of Starting?
If you are reading this, I’m guessing you are a parent, and I’m guessing you are tired. The thought of trying to organize when everything has gotten so far out of hand can be overwhelming. I want to help you tackle everything in a week. Join my free organization challenge where I break everything down into small tasks spread out over the course of the week. You get emails with simple tasks you can work through to tackle just one group of items at a time. If you follow along, you will make huge progress by the end of the week. You can sign up below or read more about the challenge here.
Happy Organizing!
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Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Mom, wife, veterinary pharmacist, equestrian, ice cream lover and occasional hot mess
I LOVE all of these tips! We’ve been feeling super cluttered with baby stuff, especially after we got so many goodies at Christmas time. I can’t wait to use all of your great tips!
Thanks! After all the things the grandparents got Paxton for Christmas and his birthday, I decided we needed to get it under control!
What a useful post this is. I love the multi-purpose use of the containers. I’m a bit of an organization junkie so I will be stealing these ideas for sure!
I have a really hard time tossing containers that could be used to organize something. We now have another animal cracker container, that I washed out and am still trying to figure out what I’m going to use it for.
Growing up I always wondered why my mom did certain things a certain way. It wasn’t until I was older when I realized that moms have a LOT of experience in small life hacks around the house and these are some of it.
I never knew most of these things until I became a mom. We must develop the ability to figure out life hacks as a survival tactic.
Your ideas are really good. I always seem to live amongst clutter, (no baby things, just me and my husband lol). So many of your ideas would be useful in my house too.
Thanks! I find getting clutter under control with everything having a place helps decrease my stress.
Great post. I don’t have kids yet, but posts like these are essential, because from what my friend who have kids tell me, having a baby will quickly turn your house upside down if you don’t try to stay on top of the organization part!
That’s very true! Babies have so much stuff. You have to figure out how to get it organized from the beginning, or else it’s really easy to get so far behind it’s overwhelming to try and catch up.
The Puzzles! I’ve always had a hard time with storing puzzles. That’s perfect!
Thanks! Getting the puzzle stack under control was so satisfying!
Love all these tips! I’ve been slowly working on getting my house more organized but the motivation part is the tough stuff! The Marie Kondo series helped me jumpstart my clothing organization so I’ll try the videos you suggested!
I find that as you start to get things organized you become more motivated to keep doing it. I also started with my clothing from Marie Kondo inspired motivation.
I don’t have kids and still find these tips useful. I am queen of repurposing items for storage, and I have been rolling things like tshirts for ages (really makes it easy to find what you’re looking for).
Rolling shirts was definitely a game-changer! I also have a really hard time tossing containers that would be great for storage, even if I don’t currently know what I’m going to store in them.
This is an awesome list of tips! I like the storage bins, I use them myself as they are a huge help. Putting away the things your child can’t currently use is a good idea too.
Storage bins definitely allow you to store the same amount of things in a drawer but make it 10 times more organized in the process.
these are such genius hacks! i could use some of these with my dogs LOL!
Our cat cabinet didn’t make it into this post, but it definitely got organized with some of these hacks!
Save the boxes! Yes! There’s nothing worse (especially when you know you need to save them for the next child) but there’s no easy way to store odd shaped items. Save the boxes!
I find that breaking the boxes down flat and sliding them behind something in the garage is a good way to keep them without taking up valuable space.
Not until recently did I realize that rolling clothes instead of folding saves space and even look cuter. Thank you for these wonderful tips
I have been rolling my clothes when I pack them for ages. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized I could apply that to putting them away at home as well.
The plastic envelopes for storing puzzles are genius! I need to know where to find them.
Here are the ones that like! https://amzn.to/2B5fR9K
Excellent tips, Lauren. I also use my dresser for diapers and wipes! BTW your bookshelf is toooooo cute 🙂
Thanks! I love collecting books for Paxton (even though some are a little old for him right now) and I needed to come up with a way to store them all.
I have been organizing my spare bedroom and turning it into an office/weight room, and these are great tips, even without having kids! I have a dresser in there, and it is housing a lot of my craft stuff, like extra fabric and other materials. I will definitely try rolling my fabric to save space. I have a ton of it, so I need all the space saving tips I can get. Lol.
He who dies with the most fabric wins, right? LOL
I don’t have much fabric, but I would think that rolling it would save space and make it easier to find what you are looking for.
Lauren,
I love the puzzle idea!! That is fantastic!!
Trish
Thanks! I was so excited when I got the puzzle stack under control.
I always prefer those big tupperware bins, uniform so they stack well. I also have those cute box/drawers for storage area with cubes,….my mine just hide a big mess behind each one. Thanks for your advice.
Those cubes are definitely a place to hide a mess. I usually end up using them to toss stuff that I’m not sure where else to put it with the intent of dealing with it later. Most of the time, when I come back to organize it I’ve decided it can all just be trash.
great tips for space optiization I love these storage bags, I Use these forclothing and bedding.
Those storage bags are amazing! I can’t believe I missed out for so long!
I’m not a mom but some of these tips are great in general. I’ve been rolling my clothes for years ever since I say a tip in a magazine (likely Real Simple) and I’ve never gone back since. It’s seriously the best!
I rolled my clothes for packing to save space but it took me a long time to realize it worked at home too!
One of the biggest struggles when you have children is organizing the toys! I agree with many of the tips here.
Yes, the toys can get overwhelming quickly!! My son’s new favorite activity is taking every toy out of the storage area just for the sake of taking it out.
These are all great ideas for organizing all the stuff! I am constantly going through and organizing my daughter’s toys. Now that we have a second, I can’t imagine how there will be room to store even more lol. Decorative baskets, cube shelves and over the door shoe organizers have been my go to organizing products!
Over the door organizers are something I haven’t utilized yet, but I’m definitely considering trying them!
This is such a great post for moms looking to reorganized their homes. Toys can get out of control. We’ve learned to categorize them and put them in a bin inside our closet. It’s easier to access, too!
Categorizing toys is a good idea. That helps kids learn where they are too.
I love those storage bags for clothes! I use them for all of my baby’s clothes as soon as she outgrows them. I’ll look into the YouTube channel you follow! I’m always looking for new people to follow 😊
I can’t believe I went so long not knowing how amazing those storage bags are! I was definitely missing out.
I love these ideas so much! Thank you for sharing! I am especially so excited about the idea of saving boxes for large awkward items. I just recently tried to figure out how to save my baby’s jumparoo in long-term storage. Nothing worked! It’s just out there getting dusty. Next time, I’ll know what to do!
Thank you, thank you!
Mrs. S@whenfithitstheshan