The good: Through that nesting instinct and the generosity of friends and family, you’ve collected a bounty of adorable baby clothes, toys, and supplies.
The not-so-good: You’ve got no idea where you’re going to put everything when it comes to organizing a nursery closet.
Don’t worry! We’ve got the inside track on how to make even the smallest closet into an efficient baby-storage super star. Just follow these three simple tips for organizing your baby’s closet, and you’ll be meeting your nursery storage goals in no time!
1 - Maximize Your Space
If you’ve got an empty, or single-hanging-rod closet to work with, your first step is getting clever about space use. Here are our favorite baby closet ideas and tricks:
- Hang an extra rod (or several)! Baby clothes are short, and don’t need much hanging space. Maximize your closet’s vertical space by adding a row or two of additional hanging.
- Add shelves for storage. This is a great nursery storage idea! You can never have too much storage.
- Make sure your top shelf is usable. The top shelf of a closet is valuable storage space, but can be hard to reach. Invest in a few lightweight bins that look tidy and are easy to pull down to make sure things stay accessible and don't get lost in your top-shelf corners.
- Add small bins and boxes to shelves. Baby accessories and baby items are TINY. Small storage boxes, drawer organizers or draw dividers, or even repurposed shoe boxes can help you keep toys, tiny socks, headbands, lotions, etc in line. A closet organizer can be helpful too in a baby nursery.
- Use your door space. If you’ve got closet doors that open into the room, you can put door backs to work with hanging organizers to store shoes, hats, or extra diaper bags. The back of the door is a GREAT location for the ready-to-go station we’ll tell you all about in tip #3.
- Display accessories and keepsakes. They won't be a baby forever. Put those accessories on display!
2 - Organize Baby Clothes by Size
Right now, you’ve probably got piles of new clothes and hand-me-downs that range from newborn to toddler. You may be overwhelmed with nursery organization ideas. Obviously, babies won’t be wearing all of them right away, so you want them to be ready when you need them and out of the way when you don’t!
- Start by washing and removing the tags from everything – trust us, you won’t want to bother with this once the baby has arrived. From there, fill the “active” space in your closet – the hanging rods and low shelf bins – with Newborn and 0-3 items.
- Remember those bins you got for the top shelf? They’re for your clean, folded, surplus clothes.
- Label one bin 6-12 months, and another 12+ months, and fill them with all the extras you won’t need just yet. When the baby is ready to move up in sizes, you can quickly and easily cycle the newborn clothes into the bins for storage and swap the larger clothes into rotation.
3 - Create a Ready-To-Go Station
Because getting out the door with a baby can be one of the most stressful and daunting tasks for new parents, this might be our favorite time-and-anxiety saving tip!
- Designate a spot in your closet as the “Ready-To-Go” station. It should have a space for your diaper bag purse or diaper backpack (we LOVE the Be Right Back for this purpose – it’s small size is a great space-saver, but it’s got plenty of storage for everything you need) as well as a bin or two for backup stock.
- Keep extra packs of wipes, diaper cream, back up bottles or pacifiers, spare onesies, and diapers in your backup bins or in a small backpack.
- When you return home from a day out, empty dirty supplies from the diaper bag, grab fresh supplies from your back-up bins, and hang your bag fully loaded and ready to go for the next day, no stress or scrambling needed.
Don’t forget to plan ahead
- Keep an empty storage bin in your baby’s closet so as soon as they grow out of their clothing it can be put right into the bin.
- Clear storage holders may be a great option so you can easily see and find what you put in there if needed.
- You can even label the storage bin for organizational purposes.
Having an organized nursery closet that functions well is a huge asset for that first year of parenting, and setting yourself up for success is as easy as 1-2-3! We’d love to see photos of your Ready-To-Go stations featuring your favorite JuJuBe bag – don’t forget to tag us! Happy organizing!
