12.11.15

kid's capsule wardrobes!

After falling in love with minimalism and capsule wardrobes this summer, I'm kind of a run away train. What else can I minimize in my house? What else needs to be capsulized? My kitchen? check. I gave away around 15% of my kitchen gear recently. I don't miss what I gave away, and I find the whole kitchen is easier to clean, organize, and put away when you only have the things you use regularly. Heck, I even took on my tea and coffee basket which definitely had a hot cranberry cider mix from EIGHT YEARS AGO and countless teas that had expired. Gulp.

So, the kids were an obvious next choice, and earlier this Fall I made them capsule wardrobes. I purge their toys and belongings regularly and feel good about their limited but meaningful toys and books. Having three of them in the same room necessitates this, but there was more I could do. Clothes were the biggest thing I hadn't tackled and with a new season (more clothes!) and all three birthdays approaching (more clothes!) it was time.

You can read more about capsule wardrobes from the blog Un-Fancy, but she doesn't have children so she's never been able to really discuss the challenges of doing a capsule wardrobe for kids. What she did address was capsule wardrobes for people in need of two completely different wardrobes, say women with a job that requires business attire during the work day, but then casual clothes on evenings and weekends. The answer Un-Fancy gives is to make two capsule wardrobes - one for each type of dress - but to still be as targeted in limiting the number of pieces in each.  So this is what I did with my kids.

The main challenge when trying to limit your kids clothes is that they get dirty all.the.time. So they need play clothes a plenty. Secondly, they are growing all.the.time. With clothes frequently getting ruined by paint and playground love and my kids just getting lankier and lankier, I've opted not to invest in quality clothing for them. Aside from the odd special piece - maybe one nice sweater or a special dress - I buy cheap clothes for them. I do, however, invest in shoes and outerwear (more on that when I write on saving money with kids).


So I emptied every drawer and their entire closet, and decided on some numbers that were realistic for us. Then for some categories I kept that number for pay clothes and also that number for dressier clothes. I gave away a lot. I sold some to a local consignment shop (Tralala, if you're interested!), I'd say their wardrobes, which were already small, were slimmed down by 30%. Here are the numbers I decided on for my older two.

boy, age 4, summer + winter

4 tanks
8 T shirts (4 nice, 4 play)
8 long sleeve T shirts (4 nice, 4 play)
1 hoodie
2 nice sweaters
3 dress shirts
///
6 shorts
4 jeans
2 sweatpants
///
4 pjs (2 warm, 2 cold)
2 bathing suits + swim shirts

girl, age 5, summer + winter

6 tanks (3 nice, 3 play)
8 T shirts (4 nice, 4 play)
8 long sleeve T shirts (4 nice, 4 play)

1 hoodie
2 nice sweaters
2 cardigans
8 dresses (3 nice, 3 play + 2 warm)
///
3 jeans
4 leggings
2 skirts
4 shorts
2 rompers
///
4 pjs (2 cold, 2 warm)
2 bathing suits + swim shirts

Things to consider: 

Climate: If you live in a place with more homogenous temperatures all year, you can have a much smaller capsule wardrobe. We don't have that in Canada, so it meant adding some warmer dresses for my girl and warmer pjs for the winter months for both kids.

Potty training: If one of your little ones isn't quite accident free, you'll need more shorts and pants in the capsule. Maybe more pjs too.

Kid's taste: I loved doing this because even though we were limiting their clothes by a lot, the kids still had a lot of say. That's also the beauty of dividing capsules by nice and play clothes. I let my kids pick the "play" items unreservedly, but I was still happy with the end result because I chose their "nice" options. If you have a more girly girl, you may have more skirts and dresses than my girl. Factor that in when you choose your numbers.

1 comment:

  1. How often do you do the laundry with this wardrobe?

    ReplyDelete