Thursday, March 7, 2013

Organizing Baby Things, Part 1



Babies come with a lot of stuff.


And they grow so fast - meaning almost as soon as you've organized one size of clothing, diapers, shoes, and hats suddenly overnight they have outgrown it and you are packing those things away and bringing out larger ones. It's a constant cycle.


And it's not only clothes! Babies go from swings and bouncy chairs to jolly jumpers and walkers. A highchair to a booster chair. Bottles to sippy cups, milk to solids . . . their first years seem to be a constant rotation of supplies and gear to meet their ever changing needs.


I thought I would do a series of posts sharing how I organize and store all of our baby things, and give you all of the little tips and tricks I have learned along the way!


Our first stop is Emma's dresser.





We opted for a long dresser instead of a changing table. I am still so grateful that we made that decision when buying our furniture during my first pregnancy four years ago: it has served us so well! A changing table is so limited in its use - before you know it, your toddler has become potty trained and suddenly your changing table has become a useless piece of expensive furniture and you now need to find a new place to store all of the things you had once stashed on its shelves.


Not so with a dresser. This piece can grow with Emma for the rest of her years growing up, or it can be repurposed somewhere else in our home down the line. It would make a great tv stand in our family room, or a buffet style server in the dining room. It could even function in the entryway as a place to store hats and scarves and drop our keys.


We topped the dresser with an inexpensive changing pad, and all of our diaper changing supplies are kept in the top left drawer so we can easily access everything we need without having a lot of clutter all over the top.



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This drawer holds all of her diapers ( we use disposables until she can fit into our cloth diapers, more on that later) and anything else she might need during a diaper change or getting ready for the day. I keep Vaseline, a pair of baby nail scissors, baby lotions and diaper cream along with a pack of Scentsy Newborn Nursery wax that I use in her Scentsy warmer - it smells just like baby powder! There is also a stack of baby wash cloths that I get wet and use in place of disposable baby wipes. Much softer on her sensitive little tushie and cheap too!





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The other top drawer holds all of her onesies on the far right. In the middle I have all of the hats that currently fit her at the back, and a stack of bibs at the front. It's never too early for bibs - I've learned they work great to protect her clothes from all of the dribbles and spills during feedings so I spend less time scrubbing out stains from around the neck of all of her outfits. On the left are some teeny tiny tights at the back, and in the front I cut down an instant oatmeal box to contain her tiny baby socks. Maybe not the prettiest storage solution, but I love cutting down empty food boxes to create my own drawer organizers because it's free and I am usually the only person to see the inside of my drawers anyway!






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Below her diapers I store all of her clothes, which right now consists of about a dozen newborn size sleepers and two teeny tiny newborn dresses that she wears to church on Sundays. I cannot wait until she grows big enough for pants!!! 






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Underneath her clothes are the receiving blankets. A whole drawer full of receiving blankets? Yes ma'am! These puppies are essential to me, especially during the first few months. I use them to swaddle her when she sleeps, to tuck around her in the carseat when we go out and a heavy blanket would be too warm, to drape over the carseat to keep the sun out, to lay down on the change pad to protect my white covers when I know she's had a big blowout. They make the perfect nursing covers too!






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On the right side, I keep our cloth diapers. Emma is still so small that these diapers go up to her armpits, so we are using disposables until she grows a little more. I have a mix of Fuzzibunz and Bumgenius and I cannot say enough about how much we love our cloth diapers; I will do a post in the future all about them.






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Below that is a drawer full of blankets. I also keep her crib sheets and spare change pad covers at the back.


Stay tuned for more posts on organizing all of that baby gear! Up next - the diaper bag!


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