6 Ways to Clean Your Kid's Bedroom Once and For All

During the many long years I tried to get pregnant, we kept busy spending countless hours tackling home projects, redesigning all of our indoor and outdoor living spaces, and acquiring, well ... stuff. I can’t believe I’m going on record as admitting this, but not only did I organize my pantry closet alphabetically, I actually decorated for the seasons.

And then it happened—we adopted our first child with less than a week’s notice and suddenly my life was a total whirlwind. And after waiting six years for this miracle of parenthood to finally grace us, exactly one year later I delivered our second child. And in the blink of an eye, we had two more babies giving us a family of four kids in four short years.

I couldn't care less about seasonal home décor, I just wanted to have a clear path from the kitchen to the bathroom without tripping on all our new baby and toddler claptrap.

I thought we had a lot of stuff before we had our kids. Wow—was I ever wrong! Gone were the days of having a crisper drawer full of color-coded fruits and veggies. Now I was managing a plethora of diapers, formula, and a ton of baby paraphernalia. I couldn't care less about seasonal home décor, I just wanted to have a clear path from the kitchen to the bathroom without tripping on all our new baby and toddler claptrap.

I wouldn’t change the excitement of how our family finally came to be, but I would definitely change how many baby items we purchased during those first few years. In plain and simple terms, we went overboard, and ended up spending way too much time and money trying to manage our kids' clothing and other products.

Somehow I kept up with the dozens of loads of laundry each week and was able to weed through all their miscellaneous items at the end of the day, but once they became toddlers and pre-schoolers, trying to stay ahead of the tidy-up game seemed near impossible.

Twenty five years of parenting later, I’ve learned some smart and helpful ways to guide my eight kids in keeping their rooms as organized and clutter-free as possible. Here’s the scoop on six ways to help your children stay in control of their stuff, so they can enjoy their space and you can enjoy the serenity of a tidy home.

6 ways to help your child maintain a clutter-free bedroom

1. Regulate Trash

It sounds simple because it is—one of the quickest ways to declutter a space is to walk through the area with a trash bag in tow and start trashing the trash. Remove empty containers and boxes, plastic cups, broken toys, stained and tattered clothing and shoes, rolled up tissues, half-used juice boxes, ripped magazines, worn out backpacks...

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