Toddler Tip Thursday: Folding Bedclothes

I have a hard time calling what one wears to bed, “pajamas.” I didn’t grow up calling them that. I didn’t realize this was odd until I got to college. After months of telling my roommates I was “going to do my hygiene and put on my bedclothes,” they busted out laughing one night. They told me that no one says those things when talking about getting ready for bed.

Oh, well!

I am raising our girls to know both pajamas and bedclothes, but it does warm my heart when my little one says, “I don’t want to put on day clothes, Mama. I want to keep my bedclothes on.”

Regardless of what we mamas call them, keeping up with bedclothes can be a chore unto themselves. As kids get older, they get pajama sets. And keeping up with the tops and bottoms can be difficult. And the result of our struggles usually ends up with mismatched bedclothes (not that it is a horrible thing) which can lead to clothes with uneven wear and fading (again, not a MAJOR concern. But still!).

I have a little trick I use for folding bedclothes to keep them both together AND neat. The method I use makes good use of the limited space we have for our girls (remember our shared closet for our girls?).

Here’s what you do:

As you fold clothes make a stack of pajama shirts, fully unfolded, and front down. Also make a stack of pajama pants/shorts, folded in half, leg-wise and, for pants, in half again (top to bottom).
Get the matching top and bottom together and place the bottom (pants/shorts) over the shoulder portion of the back of the shirt.
Fold the back portion of the shirt in half over the pants/shorts.

Voila! Turn over and stack with other bedclothes sets.

If you have long-sleeve shirts in your pajama sets, all you have to do is add a step: fold the arms over the back of the shirt parallel to the bottom of the shirt. Here’s a quick look at it:

I call this tip Folding Kids Bedclothes like a GENIUS! because I have another tutorial called How to Hang Clothes Like a GENIUS!; not because I think of myself as a genius. My mother-in-law told me that these ideas for laundry are really smart, so I kind of took some liberties. It makes me feel really smart when I am able to come up with a solution to common household problems.

Do you have household problems you have found solutions for? Do you have a problem you are trying to solve? I would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment!