One of the most difficult tasks in actually getting ready to travel…whether for a weekend or 2 weeks…is creating a system to effectively and efficiently pack all that stuff!

More than 10 years ago, I came up with a system to do all that, especially when packing for my kids.  The only investment you need is a bunch of gallon size ziplock bags….

Here is the plan….

1.  Figure out how many days worth of clothes you need.  Then grab shirts, pants, undies and socks for your boys.  For your girls get shirts, pants, undies, socks and accessories (rubber bands, headbands, bows, barrettes, etc) for each day.

2.  I then lay out plies on my bed…one for each day.  For Skywalkah, for our vacation in June, it looked like this….

I have each outfit around the edge of the bed with a pile of socks and a pile of undies in the center.  I also have a separate pile for pjs and swimsuits.

3.  Then I grab a ziplock bag, a pile of clothes and a pair of undies and socks and slide it in the bag like this….

One hint…do not zip the bag closed.  It makes the next step easier.

4.  Once every pile of clothes is in a bag, I stand the opened bags up in a suitcase like this….

From trial and error, I have learned that standing the bags up saves more space and works better on the unpacking end than laying the bags flat.

5.  Lastly, I take swimsuits and pjs and put them in other pockets in the suitcase.  There have been times when I used a suitcase that didn’t have other pockets.  In those times I would have made a ziplock of swim attire and a ziplock of pjs.  Extra shoes can just go anywhere you have extra space.

6.  Zip up the suitcase and you are ready to go!

So…what is the benefit of packing your child’s clothes like this?  There are several….

1.  If someone else (spouse, grandparent, other family member or friend) will be getting your child dressed, they have everything they need in order to have a complete outfit that matches.

2.  The child can dress themselves without destroying everything in the suitcase.  Just tell them to grab a bag and get dressed.

3.  If you are staying at a hotel for a few days or more, you can take the bags and place them in drawers.  Then, you don’t have to worry how clean the drawers are.

4.  If you have extremely messy clothes, you have a place to put them so that the clean clothes stay clean.

5.  It also works great when you send your child to camp.  I always had an idea of what they did and didn’t wear.  Sometimes more bags came back with clothes still in them than empty.  That’s a totally different issue, though!  🙂

Emily loved this system so much that when her clothes wouldn’t fit into a gallon size bag, I “splurged” on bigger bags to encourage her organization!

In complete honesty, I started this system so that I could make sure that Emily and JoeJack matched everyday.  I needed to make sure that they looked good for photos.  (Does that surprise anyone that I would do that….yeah, probably not).  I would label the outside of the bag with a day of the week.  That way we would just grab all the “Tuesdays” and get everyone dressed.  Then when skywalkah joined us, I did the same for him.  This photo was taken in Washington DC in May, 2006.  The kids had to wear red, white and blue!  What can I say?????

In separate posts, I will discuss how I pack Sweetums and my clothes and how to organize suitcases depending on the type of trip you are taking.  🙂

Do you have a great tip for packing suitcases for your kids?