More sock strategies

[napless]

I generally buy just plain black socks for my children. (They are boys, aged 7 and 9). Before I figured this out, I had lots of angst about them running outside in their sock feet (which they feel compelled to do regularly, for some reason).

But how to tell whose are whose? They are close enough in size that I can't tell whose socks are whose just by looking at them.

It's easy to see whose are whose when I have both sizes right in front of me so I can compare them, though - so....when I am folding laundry and matching up socks, I fold each size differently. The larger pairs get bundled up into a ball, and the smaller ones just have their tops folded over. Everyone knows that Isaac's are the balls, and Ronan's are the others.

[mommathea]

I was going crazy with that also. 3 boys close in age. I decided that they could all wear the same size. I went through and got rid of all the socks that were to small for the middle boy.
The baby 15mo wears size 5-6 3yr old wears size 8, and 6yr old wears size 9-10 shoes. So they all have socks that the oldest can fit. The socks on the baby is a little big but with wearing shoes it doesn't really matter

[lajn]

I buy black socks for my older, and navy blue for my younger.

[Llyra]

Yeah, I go through the same thing with my girls. Plain white socks, in our case. What often happens is that they all wind up in the older one's drawer, and I just look there when I need socks for the younger. Once the younger one (she's 2) starts dressing herself, though, I'm going to have to buy two different styles of sock.

[Jackies Ladybug]

i do longer and shorter ankle cuffs.
i also only buy my husband one type of sock as well so now sorting is really easy. when i met him he had like 6 different brands of sock and had to have them all paired up. i changed that REAL quick!

[Drummer's Wife]

My 3 boys (ages 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5) can all wear the same size - as long as they are stretchy type socks, and not like hanes with the heel thing, yk? I'm wondering, though, if as they get older you have to buy the sport/athletic type of socks... the brands I buy don't seem to go that much bigger, so I"ll have to figure it out soon!

My intentions when I bought socks before school started, was to have a different solid color sock for each boy. One had brown, one grey, and the other tan. I bought plenty of each color, in slightly different sizes, so the system would work except that I still end up just grabbing whichever, for the most part, for any of the boys. They stretch to fit, so I wouldn't mind having all of the same color to make it even easier.

But yeah, I stopped buying white a while back. At one point I was buying all white, thinking it would be easy - but different levels of dingyness made me feel like they still didn't always match up right (didn't try bleach, though, as I don't buy it). Darker colors seems better for my boys.

I want to toss all the other various mis-matched socks of different colors/brands. No sense in risking them ending up back in the rotation and driving me nutso.