Winter time can be a tough time for everyone - including your house. There’s snow and slush being tracked everywhere, the temperatures can wreak havoc on your heating bill, and everyone is suddenly wearing a lot more layers than they used to. While there’s only so much you can do about the weather, there’s plenty of things you can do about the organization challenges that come with everyone’s winter wardrobes. Particularly when it comes to kids, there can be few things more frustrating in the morning than a misplaced hat, or a solitary glove without its partner. Even if your children are the type that look forward to a winter wonderland, keeping track of all their winter clothes and accessories can be a chore on par with shoveling the driveway sometimes. If this is starting to sound a bit familiar - we’ve got some tips to help!

Organizing Kids’ Winter Accessories

Start from the (boots) up Even at the sizes kids usually wear, one of the fastest ways to clutter up an entryway is to have a bunch of winter boots lying everywhere. Space permitting, a great way to solve this problem is to set up an entryway bench. These benches combine a place to sit and a place to keep your shoes, allowing you to clean up the mess caused by winter shoes lying everywhere, and making it a little easier for your kids to get ready in the morning. If the space of your entryway doesn’t allow for a bench, try to set up a rug or a floor mat near the door, and get your kids in the habit of leaving your boots there. This will stop them from tracking snow into the house, and will make it a little easier to remember where their boots are supposed to go. Make sure everything is at their height Certainly, you remember how frustrating it could be as a kid to not be able to reach something you need without the help of your parents. This goes double when your kids need to get ready for school, or just for a big day of sledding, and can lead to a lot of grumpy moods and late arrivals. Whenever you hang up coat hooks for your kids, make sure they’re at an age-appropriate height. If your kids feel like they can get ready on their own, it will make them feel more excited about getting ready for school - and it will help them remember where to put their coat when they come back inside! Create a ‘drying space’ All the coat hooks in the world won’t stop your kids’ clothes from getting a little...snowy and wet out there. A great way to help their winter clothes dry out and get ready for use again is to create a drying rack! Find a space where they’re safe to dry out, such as a laundry room, and hang up a drying rack that you can hang your kids’ wet clothes off of. Twine could be used to create a clothesline, or you could use closet rails to create a longer rack that coats, scarves, and gloves could hang off until they’re dry for use again. Give everyone their own space Finally, one of the easiest ways to help your kids get organized is to give everything its own space. By using colored plastic storage bins or even kids home lockers to help everyone have their very own space for keeping hats and gloves, your kids can better remember which space is theirs, and stay in the habit of actually putting things away when they’re done! While you can’t do much about how cold and snowy it gets, these tips might keep your house a little better organized through the cold months!