Oganizing Socks (for 3 children and more)

Anyone else like doing laundry? I didn't think so. I'm not a fan and am trying to find ways to organize clothing items so I can tell which child's pile they go into before I start folding. 

I have three boys under the age of 6. I changed my routine to organizing socks (you'll notice below I had a different routine for 2 kids). I started with buying socks that specifically said their size on the bottom. Target sells socks like these.  This was great for awhile, but I still wanted something faster. So the next idea was to buy different types of socks (I used this idea for underwear as well). So I buy several packs of the same exact style for each age group. For my eldest, I went with Hanes white and black socks (he needs it for his school uniform anyway). My middle child uses the Target socks with the size printed on the bottom. And my youngest has all the fun toddler socks. When I have to buy another size up, I will choose a different brand so I can quickly identify which sock goes with which child when I am organizing laundry.

With the underwear, my eldest uses minion style underwear from "Despicable Me." My middle child has the "superhero" style underwear. Any my youngest is still in diapers, but we are working on that. He will get the "Cars" style underwear. When my boys gets older, I will continue with this technique because it has saved me a lot of time. Too bad I can't do this with their clothes. I tend to buy what's on clearance and I don't think my boys want to wear all blue or all green everyday just so mom can have an easier time folding laundry. When they get older, they will start folding their own clothes. For sure.


This is when I had two children...
 I have a 2 year old and 8 month old at this time, which means two completely separate sock sizes.

But the socks are so small for each that I still have a hard time figuring out which sock belongs to which kids. So I have come up with a system that works for me and doesn’t involve too much extra work and saves me time when I’m putting clothes away.

Mesh bags (different colors would be even better). You can easily find them on Amazon. I throw the whole mesh bag into the washer and dryer to the socks stay together and do not get separated. It saves me a lot of time and hassle and makes it easier to put the socks into the proper drawers.