Are the laundry baskets overflowing at your house? Is it a struggle to get your child’s laundry done? Is there clothing all over their bedroom floor but you only see the few favorite things coming through the laundry?
These scenes are ones that I have been fighting the last couple of years. I knew we had to change something. I was tired of having SO much laundry to do. Laundry is something that always needed be done at our house, but was there a way to minimize some of it? I was tired of the boys’ bedroom looking like a miniature tornado had gone through it after they searched for something to wear. There had to be a better way.
I began looking into options. A family closet wouldn’t work for our house and, with only two boys at the time, seemed a little over the top. What about a minimalist wardrobe?
Minimalist wardrobes and capsule wardrobes seem to be the new thing. You may have already heard of the concept and thought about putting it into practice for yourself, but what about a minimalist wardrobe for children?
What do I keep for a child’s minimalist wardrobe?
I started going through the boys’ clothes. The first things saved were the favorites. Favorite pants and favorite tops were the base of our minimalist wardrobe. Here are the specifics on what I decided to keep:
Minimalist Children’s Wardrobe- Play Clothes
(These are clothes that are allowed to be ripped, stained, etc)
7 short sleeve tops
7 long sleeve tops
7 pair pants/jeans
7 pair pants/shorts
2-3 sweatshirts/sweaters
3-4 pair pajamas
Minimalist Children’s Wardrobe- Nice Clothes
(Church or other events)
3-4 short sleeve tops
3-4 long sleeve tops
3-4 pair pants/jeans
2 sweatshirts/sweaters
Acessories for a Minimalist Children’s Wardrobe
1 pair each play shoes/nice shoes/snow boots/mud boots/sandals
1 Winter Coat/Snowpants
2 Hats/Mittens/Gloves
1 pair swim shorts
Socks and Underwear (I personally think this number should be unlimited)
Things to think about as you create your child’s Minimalist Wardrobe
Here are some things to consider as you go about putting together a minimalist wardrobe for your child:
Does this color look good on my child? If not and it is in good condition either give it away, sell it, or donate it.
Does this piece bring joy to my child? These are the pieces that you will save first. The favorites.
What do I need for the weather in my area? If you live on the beach you probably aren’t going to want the winter coat, snowpants, and other winter weather items. You may want more shorts and beach appropriate wear.
How many do I need of each clothing item? You may find that you need less play clothes and more good/casual clothing.
Will this amount of clothing last my child until I get laundry done? If you only wash laundry on the weekends, you may want to have more clothing than if you wash every couple of days.
Teach your child that just because something is worn once it doesn’t necessarily need to be washed before another use. Jeans and pants can usually be worn at least two times before they need to be washed while shirts may need to go in the hamper after one use.
A couple of months after drastically reducing my children’s wardrobes I’m amazed at how much we were able to get rid of and that we don’t even miss. The laundry pile is smaller. All the clothes fit into two drawers per child. I made some money off the clothing we got rid of. Also, I don’t see clothes that aren’t worn in the laundry. I still get behind on laundry every once in a while, but now that is due to busyness NOT having too many clothes to wash.
Spring is the perfect time to revamp your child’s wardrobe! You are already getting out summer clothes already, why not give a minimalist wardrobe a try?
If you or your child has a minimalist wardrobe do you have any tips for those who want to start minimizing their own wardrobe?
This is an awesome idea! I would love to be able to do this, I just have to convince my Mother-in-law to stop buying stuff (been working on that one for the past four years lol).
Haha!! My mom and MIL are really good about making sure they are getting things we actually need if they are going to buy things, so that leaves just the Great Grandma for us. She just loves to get them things. 🙂 I think it is her love language though, so I try not to press the issue too much.
My teenager needs a minimalist wardrobe. She has downsized her wardrobe a bit, but we’re still talking a closet full. The worst part is that her laundry piles up for weeks, because she can wear a ton of stuff before she “has” to wash it. It might be time to put these tips into play!
Oh man! I had a ton of clothes as a teenager as well. It might be a harder age to implement this idea, because she wants to fit in and have what everyone else has, but maybe you could help her by decided what style she likes the best and then choosing pieces that will help her express her favorite style while eliminating others that she likes but doesn’t like enough. I would love to know what you come up with!
Such a great idea to do a children’s capsule. I keep thinking I really should. I like for my kids to know that the things that they have are important and blessings and by minimizing it I feel like they would appreciate their things more! I’ll have to go through their drawers. We have a BAZILLION clothes for them because of all the hand-me-downs we’ve gotten. My only set-back is the fact that we have 3 boys and they have a tendency to wear through things. Do you have boys? Have you come up against something like that?
Hi Kayla! Great questions! Sorry I didn’t respond sooner… 🙁 We have three boys as well. 5, 3 and 7 months. We don’t go through clothes super quickly yet, but having specific play clothes makes it much easier to narrow down the ones that we do stain up and get holes in. Since they are only play clothes when they finally need to be tossed I don’t feel bad replacing them with older {not as fashionable}, gently used clothing from Goodwill or a local consignment shop. If you shop your local Goodwill or consignment shop often you might even be able to figure out when they hold their special sale days and it will be even cheaper to replace the items. For jeans and shorts I just choose the replacements, but if we are looking for tops I give the boys options because I want them to like what they have. 🙂 Hope this helps!!
I wish I could do this! My son has so many clothes! I am always scared he is going to ruin some, so I always keep extras! This gives me motivation to possibly try something new!
Hi Kumiko!
Like I told Kayla above, it might depend on what catagory you are worried about. Maybe you need to have more clothes for your son then I have on this list, that’s fine! I think just going through his clothes with your son, maybe you will see areas that you can cut right away. Do that for a couple of months and then go through his clothes again, maybe you’ll find other things you are willing to get rid of.
Thanks for coming by!!
We have four kids at home, ages 5,5,6&13. One 5 yr old and our 6 yr old are boys, other two are girls. I always save back clothes from our 6 yr old for his brother. I am pulling out spring/ summer items now, our youngest girl has 20 summer dresses! Each one is cute, she loves dresses, but gets just as rough and dirty as our boys, so I usually only use dresses for church or shopping. We did away with dressers last year, so this is a challenge, but I also have too much laundry. Was happy to find your post. Are the amounts still working well for your children? I am going to use those as a guide, and maybe store some extras for a month or so. So excited to have less in their closet. Thank you!
Hi Tammy, I’m so glad that you found this helpful!! These amounts are still working well for us, though we have a couple more shirts/tops out right now as we are in between seasons. I hope this works well for you!! I would love to know if you keep more or less!