Keeping Track of Clothes Among Children

How do you keep track of which clothes belong to which child?  And why would you need to keep track?

A few reasons to consider:
– If you have children of the same gender close in age, it can be really hard to tell clothes apart without searching out the size in each article of clothing.
– If anyone else puts laundry away besides the mama, they aren’t likely to know which clothes belong to which child.

We use the Dot System at our house.

(Just for the record, I didn’t think up this fabulous system.  I read it online years ago when I had my first baby.  I’m sorry I can’t give the source credit, but I truly don’t remember where exactly I found this little gem of an idea.)

There are many ‘systems’ out there to easily tell which clothes belong to which child.  One is the ‘color-coded’ system in which each child has a different color assigned to them.  For example, your oldest boy has blue as his color and in the label of all of his clothes is a blue Sharpie line.  Your other son is assigned red and in the label of his clothes is a red Sharpie line.  It’s easy to tell at-a-glance which pants belong to which boy.

Another method is the ‘initial’ system.  Each child gets their first initial written on the inside labels.  Obviously this only works if each child has a different first initial. 😉

My two youngest girls are currently 3 1/2 years old and 18 months.  At a glance, it is often hard to tell some of their items apart.  4T underwear and 2T underwear amazingly look as if they are the same size.  And little girl tights?  The sizes are practically impossible to tell apart just at a quick look.

So how does the Dot System work? It is oh so easy.  The only material required is a Sharpie or other permanent marker.

I’m going to use little girl tights in this example:

1) My oldest girl Clara has only 1 dot on all of the seams or labels in her tights.
I can quickly look at the seam and see a pair of tights with only one dot.  In less than two seconds, I know that those are Clara’s.

2)  When Clara outgrows those tights and they are the right size for Sadie (the baby girl), they earn a second dot.
So all tights that have 2 dots are Sadie’s.  Again, with just a quick glance at the seam, I can see which tights are Sadie’s.

3)  If this little one due in a few weeks is a girl, she will have 3 dots.
When she is big enough to wear tights, all of hers will have 3 dots in the seam.

(Yes, I realize it is wishful thinking to expect little girl tights to make it through 3 girls.  I’m just using tights as an example.)

By using the Dot System, mama can easily see which tights go to which girl.  And even better than that, Daddy can see which tights go to which girl (and he doesn’t have to ask me).  It’s a fabulous system, really it is.  All of the guesswork is taken out of it!

So keep a Sharpie in your laundry room basket and one in each of the kids’ rooms (out of reach, of course).  It literally takes maybe 3 seconds to draw a dot on the items that are harder to sort out, so you’ll have this project done in no time.

This is just another easy way to streamline your laundry routine!

Do you have a system to keep track of which clothes belong to which child?  Share it in the comments!  What works for one family may or may not work for another, so it’s always nice to have a lot of ideas to choose from.

I am pleased to link this post to WFMW over at We are THAT Family.