Are you in the market for some organizing products for your children’s playroom? (You did a major sort of their space first, right? Good.) Here’s a few tips for using kid-oriented organizing products:
1. Use pull-out bins instead of drawers. Drawers are often too heavy for little hands to push in and pull out. Plus, they can smash fingers. Ouch! Pull-out bins function the same way as drawers, but they are made of lightweight material so there is minimal risk of injury if they are pulled out too far.
2. Keep the use of bins, boxes and baskets to a minimum. Don’t sort toys into lots of fussy, overly specific categories. For example, if you have a bin for big trucks, another for medium-sized trucks and yet another one for small trucks, I can almost guarantee you your children will never put them back that way. It’s too complicated! Keep it simple by sorting toys into broad categories.
3. Be sure to label all those bins, baskets and boxes. I know it sounds overly rigid and perfectionistic, but I can assure you that unless you are organizing just your own things, other people will not remember the way you organized things. And if they don’t remember, they won’t put them back in the right spots. So use a label maker or write on labels with a Sharpie pen. For children too young to read, put a picture of the bin’s contents in place of a label.
4. If you get a bookcase, don’t store anything on the highest shelves that your children might actually want to get. The last thing you want is your child scaling the bookcase shelves to reach a story book. Consider using low shelves no taller than your child’s reach and strap it to the wall to prevent it from falling on your child.
Organizing products can be really helpful in a child’s space. Just be sure to buy wisely.
Image of pull-out bins from the Trofast line at Ikea. Hideous colors? Yes. Using it may smash fingers or break a foot if pulled out too far? No.
