I'm drowning in baby/kids clothes! Help me figure this out.

[ilovemygirl]

I have an only child who is 4 y/o. We are currently ttc. I have saved ALL of her stuff since she was born. Several family members and friends had kids right before me so I have been blessed to get hand me downs ... lots of them. I've never really needed to buy anything but socks and underwear.

This is really the only thing left I have to organize and declutter. DH and I have gotten rid of everything from books to cookware to collectibles. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time getting rid of clothes I didn't even buy myself. I've been holding on to them in hopes of having another baby but it's still SO much more than we would ever need for another baby. 

Anyway, I NEED to deal with this. How many outfits should I save? I never go more than a week without doing laundry so I'm thinking maybe seven of each type of item in each size. So I would keep seven tops, seven bottoms, seven pj's, etc.  Does that make sense? Does that sound about right? What does everyone else do?

[SimpleLove]

I had the same exact issue as you and have finally recently (mostly) conquered it. I just had to get to a less sentimental place in my head. From there, I donated anything we didn't realistically need to keep (anything worn-out, stained, things like white onesies I'd rather spend $10 on someday than keep storing). If you have another child, you'll be able to get more hand-me-downs, as well as gifts.

I just have to tell you how good it feels to not have like 10 huge storage bins taking up our space now!

[Nicole730]

I've pared myself down to one tub for 0-6 months for each boy and girl stuff.  Then one bin for each size after that.  I still have too much and I know it, but it's super hard to part with.  We are planning on having 2 more children, so I feel as though it's worth it to save it.  Every time a friend gets pregnant, I pass along at least a bagful of clothes though.  For some reason it's easier to pass it along than donate it randomly. 

Do you have anyone you could pass along clothing to?  If you really are going down to the minimums, I would do at least 10 of each because sometimes kids go through more than one outfit a day, so you'd need some extras.  Plus, I always like to have a change of clothing for each kid in the car and in the diaper bag.

[ZakareyasMama]

I am also in a similar situation. I have one and plan on having more so I want to keep things for the future. However I had SO many gifts and hand-me-downs it was overwhelming.

This is what I did:
* go through everything and weed out whatever you don't like- everything that's not your style or stained (though if you are crafty some stained stuff could be dyed and given a new life). All of these things can be donated, trashed, sold or given to a friend depending on their state. I made about $50 selling stuff at a local consignment shop.

* do another look through (on a different day) and make sure you really love everything you kept and that you don't have multiples of the same thing like three pairs of blue pants that are basically the same size... I made sure to keep things that were more gender neutral as well

* get the jumbo ziploc bags and sort clothes to keep by type and size into bags. The clothes can be folded small and the air pushed out to make the package really flat. So I have for example one bag of newborn sized pants, one of newborn onesies, one of onesies slightly bigger than newborn... Etc. Etc. Then I stored them all in a plastic bin.

* also about having only 7 of each... If you have a baby that spits up a lot like I did... 7 can be what you use in one day... So I'd keep more like ten of each, just in case.

Good luck! Take before and afters to motivate yourself

[tincia]

I am in the process of doing this too. I also went through and picked out only my favourite items because u do get so many gifts and hand me downs. I know it seems counter productive to give away things that u may just end up rebuying but u likely won't end up needing that much. Also, if u know anyone having a baby that u can lend it to and then u have it out of your house, and will still have it when u need it.