Combining and Condensing: Baby Clothes Edition

Over the past few months we as a family have been condensing and ridding ourselves of the excess stuff that has accumulated just about everywhere we look.

The other day I decided to tackle the baby clothes pile. We regularly sort through toys  and remove excess toys from the bin, but the baby clothes get a little overwhelming. Every month or so I'm sorting new clothes in and out of their dressers since my girls are so little and my system my lovely system, falls dreadfully short. Here is just one example of how:

This photo is of all the clothes that my kiddo's grew out of that should have been in the hands of someone else in need, some of them over 1 year ago. There are actually six boxes under that pile!

When you look at that pile, you might think that my girls must be running around naked right now. Nope, in fact, they both have boxes of growing into clothes waiting for them still and dressers still annoyingly packed to the brim.

But today, I am laying out for you my system.

We are blessed to have several families giving us some amazing clothing and we hardly ever have to buy clothes for our girls. But if we were to keep everything we get right off the bat my girls would wear a new outfit every single day (some of them I really wouldn't like!) and still not make it through all the clothes before they grew out of that size.

So we start as soon as we get a new set of clothes, We go through all the clothes with our girls in mind, would I ever consider putting my child in this shirt? If no it goes in the blessing pile, if yes it goes in a box for them to grow into. When it comes to my kiddo's since they are born in different seasons I have to watch what I keep and save because chances are if I'm sorting their clothes they won't transfer over to the next kid!

I then go through the keep pile again and make sure that everything will be worn, and that it fits into the box, I only allow myself to keep 1 box of each size (sometimes less than that!) and it has to work for both girls! Once that is finished we determine where the blessing box is going. Sometimes, unfortunately, we can't find a family that needs them and in that case it goes to the nearest Salvation Army, but we do try first to see if there is a family that can use the clothing.

When I am dressing the girls and I find that clothes don't fit, they get tossed into a bag hanging in the closet to be sorted the same way as the new clothes. I re-evaluate every item once again so that we are not storing useless items. Since we plan on having more children, I keep clothing after the youngest as well albeit in much lesser quantities.



About every two months I do a massive dresser dump and I sort, clean up, and size up their dressers. anything that's too small goes into the evaluate bag all the stuff that fits gets neatly folded and returned to it's drawer and the box of clothes to be grown into next moves into the dresser and becomes the  box for the set of clothes coming out.

Does it seem like a lot of stuff and sorting? Yeah it does to me too!! That is why I've limited myself so much that 6 months of clothing they have grown out of literally fits in one box now! The more we go through things the more I am realizing how little of their clothing actually gets worn! Why do I hold onto sixty shirts when my daughters will wear the same five over and over?

Do you have a system for your kids clothing? Share it!

Like this post? Stay tuned more condense and combine articles are coming!

Baby Showers and Handmade Gifts

My husbands family has this thing it seems where every year there must be a new baby added (granted the last two years were my girls, but hey) so this means that in order for me to keep my sterling rep as a creative aunt, I make baby gifts. . . Blankets, toys, helpful items (maybe, hopefully?).

This time around it's my husbands little brothers first baby and it's a boy. This couple is quite a bit like us as they LOVE the outdoors and camping and all those things that might just leave this one in need of a really warm blanket. So we made a quilt-gan. Car seat sized.

I made a baby afgan and the face of a flannel quilt in baby colors and sewed them back to back for warmth. I could have also added a liner, but for the thickness and warmth the two layers had, I didn't see the need for another layer.

And then for good measure I made a stuffed turtle in the same fabrics to go with it using this tutorial (I eyeballed the pattern though)

What do you think?

What kind of baby projects do you make when attending baby showers?

My Diaper Routine

My little Helper Abba Zaba Ready To Show You Our Diaper System

Today seems like a good day for diaper posts. We have been cloth diapering our kiddo's since my 1st was about a month old. (We actually planned to cloth diaper from the beginning, but we got disposables at the baby shower and decided to use them.) With now two in diapers, we have a busy system to run! While my stash is relatively small, it does what we need it to do.

We run off of 36 infant sized diapers (mostly Bummis Organic Cotton Prefolds), 4 One size Rumparooz Covers (for the toddler) and 8 Newborn Rumparooz Covers and Snappi's. I also cut up and blanket edged flannel baby blankets into 2 huggies boxes worth of cloth wipes. (Which my insane butt actually folds up accordian style to come out of the box just like disposable wipes too.) We use a premade diaper wipe solution (poured over the wipes in the box, which last about a week) that essentially we just add water to. But once I am out of the premade I am considering making my own wipes solution. For diaper cream I also make a really awesome coconut oil based cream (Which I will tutorialize next time I make it.) that cleans up almost every diaper rash we've had within a few short hours, and I will continue to make it long after my girls are diaper free because it works quite similarly to neosporin in our house!

 This is the way I like the basket to look,
Diapers neatly folded, diaper cream and doublers in the close side, neatly stacked . . .

 And this is how our diaper basket normally looks, what can I say we have 2 in diapers.

To review our diapers, I have to say we absolutely love our diapering system, I really don't think we need to add anything more than what we have (except to replace what gets worn out) until we either have more babies or if we ever go back to needing the laundrymat.

I know that some people use all in one diapers and even pocket diapers for their cloth stash and I actually made some of my own before Noodle Doodle was born and I found that they got very little use. While they work great and yes disposable similar, they tended to get dirty and then take forever to dry, while the prefolds took half the time and the covers are mostly reusable, wipe out the inside, throw them back on over the new clean prefold. Unless I had a large stash of all in one diapers it really wouln't be worth it to me. (and all in one's are expensive!) however if I ever did want to use just all-in-one diapers, I would definately use Rumparooz All-In-One Diapers.

Our Rumparooz covers are the best! They have elasticized side gussets that catch almost every mess our kiddo's can dish out, they are very well made to be adjustable and the material stays leak proof longer than others I have tried. I love the hook and loop variety because it makes diaper changes almost as quick as disposables, however they do make a snap closure version and I've noticed that my toddler moves around really freely as compared to some other kids in cloth.The only thing I don't like about them is the logo patch in the back will sometimes leak overnight with heavy wetting.

The other part of our system is Bummis Organic Cotton Prefold's which I have to say soak well, clean up fairly nicely, and don't wear out as fast as others, we had to replace several prefolds from another brand because they started turning into strings in the wash. We do have extra soaker pads that I sometimes (when I remember) use at night time, but other than nights I haven't had a ton of problems with my Bummis prefolds.

And finally the Snappi. While these little gems aren't completely necessary, they keep the prefolds from slipping around a moving kiddo. They were made to replace diaper pins with something a little safer, and they do. It is a rubbery y shape with grippers on the ends that holds the diaper at the waist and then lifts up the rise (between the legs) to keep that diaper snugly in place. And now on to the locale.

My apartment, for all it's downsides has an awesome upside, an amazing bathroom counter. We decided that we wanted to make sure our girls were changed regularly in the bathroom for toilet training ease. When I saw this counter, I was actually kind of excited! Changing diapers on the floor in the last place was a little difficult! I have a diaper basket full of most of our diaper supplies on the counter with a "pillow" washcloth (which will more than likely be obsolete when our younger baby gets a little older and I don't feel so bad about sticking her on the counter without padding) our wipes live on the side next to the sink. Any diaper blowups and mess is easily cleaned up with a smooth surface and the sink and wash materials at the ready. Our bathroom also serves as a hiding for our laundry closet, where I hang the girls covers on the line. (which is normally their home, mostly because the girls use them before they make them into the basket most of the time)

The Diaper Zone

Covers (and socks) on the Line.

On another day I will share our diaper laundering system, but for now disinfecting is important and line drying covers really preserves their life!

So there  you have it, our diapering station extraordinaire! I hope you enjoyed your tour!

Stephanie