Full on disclaimer: I wrote this a while ago! I am actually about to go through and repeat all of these steps again with my children’s clothes because it really worked and was amazingly glorious. Anyways.
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Every mother’s main dread. Laundry. It is the ultimate never ending task. Just when you think you’ve caught up, you remember that your whole family is wearing clothes at that exact moment. It can be so frustrating!
I was always stuck in this loop of washing and drying all the clothes, folding them and then leaving them in the baskets. We would pull our clean clothes out of the baskets and by the time I actually put them away, it was time to start all over again. It was so unrewarding. It never felt like we actually had clean clothes to wear and nobody knew where anything was. It was terrible and the laundry piles were always so mammoth. I couldn’t understand where all these clothes were coming from!
I finally realized, as I was folding my kids clothes, how many things they actually had in their wardrobe. I was able to go 2 weeks between washing their clothes before they ran out of stuff to wear. Two weeks worth of clothes for three kids, no wonder my laundry piles were towering! I had 4 FULL BASKETS of laundry just for my children. That was the moment I decided something needed to change.
At the time, my kids were 4, 2, and newborn. I got my older two children in on the decision making of what to keep and what to get rid of. I made it simple for them. I laid all of their shirts in front of each of them and asked them to show me their favorite and when they did I set it aside in the keep pile. I asked them the same question over and over until we had whittled their shirts down to 8. One for each day of the week, plus one extra. This also removed the fight over what to wear. You know everything they picked is their favorite so they should want to wear everything in their wardrobe! And if they still put up a fight, at least you have a leg to stand on!
At their ages, it is a miracle if they can wear bottoms twice before washing, so I opted to keep 6-8 bottoms as well. I try to keep their clothes fairly neutral so it is easy for them to grab and go and not have to think about what matches what. Each older child each has 8-10 pairs of underwear and socks along with one sweatshirt and one fleece.
My youngest was obviously too young to join in on telling me what clothes she wanted to keep or get rid of. When she was younger than one, I kept a lot more clothes than I would have for an older child. She had approximately 10-15 outfits because babies spit up and poop all over their clothes without much care! I kept things that were versatile and not to precious and really had to control my shopping for adorable baby girl clothes!
Now that my youngest is 3 (how did that happen??), she most definitely has an opinion on her clothes! It’ll be interesting going through her stuff with her because somehow she has accumulated around 25 dresses (all her favorite, obviously). I’ll keep you updated on that situation.
For my wardrobe, I honestly did not have a hard time deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I knew exactly what clothes made me feel good or were functional. I don’t have a set number of each item to keep, but it does need to serve a purpose and get worn often. If I haven’t worn something during the season it should have been warn, out it goes!
I have clothes for special occasions, but I’ve had the same few dresses for years and don’t buy new items for every new occasion I’m attending!
Here is the breakdown of my wardrobe; a stay-at-home mom.
SHIRTS
TSHIRTS
JEANS
SWEATERS
SWEATSHIRTS
LEGGINGS
WORKOUT CLOTHES
UNDERWEAR
SOCKS
BRAS
I let my husband do as he pleases with his wardrobe. He has gotten really good at occasionally purging his wardrobe and getting rid of the things he doesn’t wear anymore after some subtle nudging from me in the beginning.
Having fewer clothes means that you do laundry more often but there is LESS OF IT which is a game-changer. No more are their piles of daunting laundry that will take hours to fold and put away. You will have to keep on top of the seemingly unending inflow of clothing for your children. It can get out of control very quickly! I try to go through clothing seasonally, but sometimes fall behind (as I have done right now).
Nobody is perfect. Minimalism isn’t perfect. Don’t get frustrated! Just keep going because it’s so worth it!
