storing baby clothes

Am I the only one who found baby clothes super confusing at first?

For example, why are some brands 0-3 or 3-6 months, and others just state 3 months?

And does that mean they should wear it up to 3 months? Or that they should start wearing it at 3 months?

Why do some brands barely fit at the beginning of their intended time frame, while others drown the child far past their expiration month?

I couldn't figure out what the baby was supposed to sleep in. A onesie? Full length pajamas? Just a diaper under a swaddle?

Partially due to this confusion, I really struggled with my clothing storage systems this past year. Other challenges included living in a small apartment with limited storage space, moving to a new apartment, receiving tons of hand-me-downs from family and friends (thanks!), and not wanting to get rid of anything just in case.

Our first apartment was a one bedroom. That meant no nursery, no closet for baby clothes, and nowhere to store baby clothes that no longer fit. Basically, it forced us to get rid of a lot of our own clothes in order to make room for a few drawers of baby clothes.

We were so thankful to move into a two bedroom (although we could have made the one-bedroom work), but I have been exceptionally poor at managing the additional room and closet. I kept everything. I let chaos reign. We let our things expand to fit the extra space. Rookie mistake.

Not to mention we have not allowed ourselves to spend any additional money outside of essentials this past year, in order to pay for our upcoming trip to London! That meant no purchasing organizational buckets, cubes, baskets, or shelves.

This was the unfortunate and embarrassing result:


Thankfully we have finally paid for the trip, and I felt we could spend some extra cash on a shoe shelf and storage bins. With a bit of inspiration from A Bowl Full of Lemons, and armed with coupons on my Target Cartwheel app, we made the obligatory Target run to get our lives Pippa's closet in order.

I ruthlessly culled the masses and masses of clothes we had acquired as gifts and hand-me-downs. I kept only my favorites, threw away the onesies destroyed by spit-up and other various baby messes, and made a donation pile for the still functional clothes we simply have no space for.

Here is the finished result:


Thanks to the generosity of others, and not counting medical bills and formula, we have scarcely spent a dime on this baby - yet somehow you would think we had 10 kids running around from the amount of baby things we have!

And so we continue our purging and simplifying blitzkrieg through the apartment. Next stop, the kitchen!

Any good advice on storing baby/kid clothes in a small space?