5 Quick Tips for Organizing Your Child’s Bedroom

With the holidays approaching, now is the time to go through and do a quick purge of your children’s bedrooms! Change over and store the seasonal clothing while you do a quick sort of existing toys to make room for the inevitable influx of new toys and playthings that tend to arrive in the coming months. Here are 5 quick tips for organizing your child’s bedroom:

1. Pull Everything Out and Sort Like with Like.

In a bedroom where real kids actually play, stuff gets mixed up and left in random places. By dumping out the bins, cleaning out cubbies and sweeping under the bed you’ll find those missing bits and pieces that kids spend valuable play time searching for. Sort into piles that make sense. Art supplies, craft papers, costume jewelery etc. This means a huge mess at the start, but the calm that comes after it is all sorted means hours of peaceful play time.

2.  Label Everything in Small Bins.

Once everything is reunited and sorted into piles, find bins that fit the spaces. Teachers know that small bins are better than the traditional toy box because they mean less is dumped out, which leaves more room to play! Labels can be simple peel and stick from the dollar store, or photographs of the contents adhered to the front. It is easy to adhere these types of labels with a bit of clear hot glue. It peels right off canvas and wicker surfaces if you change your mind later.

3. Decrease visual noise.

Bedrooms need to be a place of rest and relaxation for children. Clutter is visually noisy and has been shown to decrease overall quality of sleep when found in bedrooms.

In my experience, bookshelves have the unfortunate reputation as clutter catchers. The best way to avoid the clutter is to have baskets on the shelves that can “catch” those bits that get tossed on a shelf on the way out the door. Bins or baskets can also be used to hold soft sided books that tend to slip off shelves as well as board books that little hands are not able to shelve.

Tall bookshelves, like this one, are not accessible to small children, so use the top shelves as display space and don’t forget to anchor the shelving unit to the wall! Display beautiful books like art and use favourite decor items as book ends. Put away the excess arts and crafts and rotate the display every month!

4. Create storage in unexpected places:

Don’t overlook the potential for under bed storage of toys and bedding. Find baskets that fit the space, label, and tuck them away. There is also often an opportunity for book storage in the space behind the bedroom door. Installing a vertical library provides storage for books while having the covers facing out for easy selection.

5. Make Room to Play.

Now that you have a tidy and clutter free bedroom for your child, don’t forget to create an imaginative play space or two

that makes the room a special retreat for your child! Supplies and costumes for stage play can be tucked behind a gauze curtain, soft sided bins keep the large costume pieces together and easy to find. Anything you can do to encourage and support imaginative free play is essential for your young children because of its role in creating self-regulated learners. And one last tip:  Keep a “lost and found” bin on every level of your house to deposit those random bits and pieces in as you go about your day. The play mobile you found in the fridge? Drop it in the basket. When your child is desperate for a piece, or a glove or their yo-yo… tell them to check the lost and found!

If you are looking for more organization inspiration, don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest for more ideas!