In the months leading up to my due date, I worked at getting J a little more independent. Just a few of the things we worked on: dressing and undressing, what goes in the dirty clothes hamper (and what does NOT go in dirty clothes hampers!), and finally putting away his clean laundry.
I decided to place labels on his dresser drawers to help in this process. I created them in ppt, using clipart and Google Images to add pictures since J can’t truly read yet. Then, I printed them on cardstock and laminated them with clear contact paper. Finally, I placed them on the correct drawer. These have worked great. It made picking his clothes out in the morning and returning his clean laundry a fun and independent task.
**ETA: J did this well for 5+ months. Just a few days after writing this post, J had the dresser fall on him while getting his clothes out in the morning. I made 2 mistakes… 1) The dresser wasn’t anchored to the wall (it is now… it and all the other furniture in the house!). J wasn’t a climber so I just assumed we wouldn’t have a problem. Wrong. 2) I didn’t think to explain the step by step instructions of how to properly use a dresser. I have since taught him that you must close one drawer before opening another or the dresser becomes unstable. It never even occurred to me to teach that. Don’t make my same mistakes! Oh, and J ended up being fine, thank the Lord for His protection! **
Since it meant just a tiny bit more work, I went ahead and made labels for the nursery too. God must’ve known that these labels would be necessary. I ended up with an emergency c-section, got home to a 3 level house and not able to use the stairs but once a day.
These labels made it so easy for my husband to find things easily. Anyone else have a man that can be told exactly where the ketchup is but not be able to find it until you walk over and point it out to him? “Oh, you meant the top shelf.” – “Well that’s what I meant when I said ‘The ketchup is on the top shelf.'” I think it’s a universal falty circuit wire in the male population. My dad and brother do the same thing.
The labels worked wonders! Without them, he would’ve been in that nursery looking for the extra sheets or burp clothes forever, despite my instructions. I would’ve had to trek up there just to point them out. They worked so well, I almost wanted to put labels on all the other cabinets in the house. It sure could save a lot of repetitive instructions.
Click on the link below to open the pdf files of my labels. They include the generic things: shirts, pants, socks. etc; or swaddles, onesies, diapers, etc for the nursery.
(I don’t have any girls, so you won’t find girl attire on any of the labels.)