Quick Tip Tuesday: Personal Kiddie Care Kits

We recently managed to snag the flu bug, and instead of squashing it, it squashed us.  One of the kiddos brought it home and it slowly made its way through the family.  It got me thinking about some of our systems and how I could be better about reducing our risk of cross contaminating our yucky germs.

Of course there are many ways to prevent sharing the cold/flu; hand washing, sanitizing, scrubbing, cleaning... not snuggling the kiddo that is sick (oops)... but I really wanted to focus in on personal care.  Although it was quite awhile ago when I organized the boy's shared bathroom, I placed their toothbrushes and toothpaste in a single cup under the sink.

Something wasn't working....

It was our first time without vanity drawers, and we quickly realized we didn't account for a few things.  And then my boys decided that they didn't want to share toothpaste, in fact, they all liked different kinds.  Sigh.  And then they would fight over the toothbrushes and which one belonged to each of them.  They never even pick out the same toothbrush from the store, how hard can it be?  And you see how they just toss them back in the basket because the cup became filled with random tubes of paste and bottles of lotion?  It was time to take back the cabinet, while also preventing this mess from happening again, while also preventing their toothbrushes from being thrown haphazardly into a germ infested mess.  Yuk.

Three boys meant I needed three small containers.  But stacking would never work with these kids.  So back to drawers I went (I used these).

I labeled each drawer with my Silhouette (number stickers would work just as well), and then filled each drawer with their very own oral care belongings.

Each drawer has:

• Toothpaste
• Toothbrush
• Floss
• Chapstick

The boys also clean and clip their nails, but I didn't want to toss their nail clippers inside of the drawers.  So on a whim, I took some empty Q-Tip containers...

(You guys, save these always, they work for so many great things!)

I sliced the lids off and attached them as small pockets inside of the cabinet door with clear command strips.

This was just a random act of awesomeness and the light-bulb got brighter as I realized that these probably would have worked well for the toothbrushes all on their own.  But instead I tossed some cotton swabs and nail clippers inside each one.  But think of how else these could be used?  The opportunities are endless; makeup, razors, office supplies, small packets, stamps.... I want to make many more!

As I emptied everything out to clean up the shelves and tidy things up, I realized we had some duplicate bottles of lotions, mouthwash, toothbrushes, etc... I placed them all into the now empty basket, and stored them in a cabinet in the guest bathroom.  Now we have a back-up supply, but they are not cluttering the space we use daily.

Easy peasy and so much better!  And although this was just a super quick post (it has been nice heading back to the organizing basics), I ended up cleaning out the entire cabinet so here is a delightful before and after to end on.

Looking for more quick tips?  Check out the entire series here!