Getting Your Child's Room Organized

Organizing your child's room is often the biggest challenge you can face when it comes to the home. You'll need to get the children involved if you really want this to work, and give them training that will allow them to keep the room organized and tidy themselves.  This will take the job off your hands and give your children some responsibility.

Begin by sitting in the room with your child and looking around at everything to take a real inventory.  Get boxes or bins (plastic bins work best) and have your child help you go through everything to sort, make a fun game out of it.  Store toys in specifically labeled bins, like toys with broken or missing pieces and outdated or out of season clothing.  See who can get their items sorted quickest so fun and keep it up until everything is put into it's proper box.  You'll be surprised how quickly time passes when you make it into a 'play' activity.

Now it's time to start sorting through the toys.  Go through the box of toys that are broken or missing to start with to see what you can salvage from these toys and if you should.  Decide if you will save any toys until you find the missing pieces, or if you will throw it in the garbage. You'll need to make a decision on the broken toys as well, will you be able to fix them?

Now go through the bin you've sorted the toys that your child is too old for into.  If there are any younger siblings or relatives in the family maybe you would like to pass the toys that are in good shape down to a younger child. If there isn't anyone to give them to, ask your child is he would like to donate them to a local charity.  You’ll be surprised at how generous kids can really be if given the opportunity. 

Now it's time to go through the box with all the favortie toys.  You'll need to help your child give these toys a good home either in their room or the Playroom.

Do you have enough storage room for all your child's favorite toys?  We've talked about using plastic bins, but you can also use the plastic units with draws in them.  These are very handy for organizing toys.  Some come with wheels, and can be easily stored in a closet and brought out when the child wants to play.  A big mess saver is to set and stick to a rule that your child can bring out only one toy at a time, this will mean he'll have to put each toy away as another is taken out..

Now it's time to go through your child's clothes.  Since your child is growing so quickly, it's a good ideal to clean out the closet frequently, like once a month.  You'll need to do the same thing here as we did in toys - decide what to do with the old toys that are still in good shape.

A great storage solution for out of season but still wearable clothes is a drawer or plastic bin that can slide under your child's bed.  Then as the seasons change simply pull out the bin and switch the clothes.  When you take the clothes out, make sure you check to make sure everything fits before you put it away.  Another way to save time and clutter is to have a special place where children can put clothing that they don't fit into anymore.

Once the room has been organized, teach the child to keep up with it on their own, with a routine every day of putting things where they belong.