Sorting Kids Clothes the Easy Way

If you have more than one child, I'm sure you know how much of a pain sorting and folding laundry can be.  It's especially bad when you have more than one child of the same gender.  All those tshirts, leggings and underpants all look pretty much the same when piled into a laundry basket.  It doesn't help that my kids are quite slim and don't fit things marked for their age.  It also doesn't help that sometimes the labels are buried in a side seam, and are impossible to find.

I recently read the most awesome laundry sorting tip. Unfortunately, I cannot find the original post where I read this, despite a lengthy search, but I did find it mentioned in a post on the Amarillo Globe News and on The Daisyhead.

This is how it works … get a permanent marker (I used a black sharpie pen, which I know from experience doesn't come off in the wash) or you could use a tube of fabric paint.  When you buy clothes for your oldest child put a single dot on the label, or on the inside of the neckband/waistband.  When you hand the clothes down to the next child, add another dot, and so on.  If you have four kids, the last child's clothes should have four dots on the labels.

Here's what it looks like:

Now stop for a moment and think about how easy it is to sort the laundry, even if someone who has never seen my kids clothes is helping (right now I'm thinking about my awesome mum and mother-in-law who are so helpful when they visit).  All they have to do is check the dots and they instantly know who it belongs to.  I've added dots to tops, skirts, trousers, leggings, underpants, socks … all their clothes.

This is so easy.  There's no need for labels to ironed or sewn into clothes and no writing names and then crossing them out. This trick is so clever and simple, that it's amazing I have never seen it before.  I can also say, from my very own experience, that it works.  It's only been a week since I implemented this, and already my laundry sorting is a piece of cake.  I hope this tip is as helpful for you as it has been for me.

I'd love to hear any feedback from you.