Sharing a Bathroom with Children and Teens

By Amy Kennedy, Professional Home Organiser from The Organising Bee

Sharing a bathroom with children or multiple people can be tricky. This definitely applies for young children and teenagers within the same family.

Simplifying the organisation and storage systems within a shared bathroom, can make it easier for your children to comfortably share the space and are more likely to keep it tidy without adult support.

Amy Kennedy, Professional Home Organiser from The Organising Bee explores different ways to maintain an organised bathroom when shared by children of different ages.

1.

GIVE EACH CHILD THEIR OWN UNIQUE COLOUR

If your children already have items which are all the same colour, you can easily add a coloured name label or even wrap coloured washi or electrical tape around the handle of a toothbrush or hairbrush.  In addition, you can also extend this colour coding into other areas, such as lunch boxes, drink bottles or swimming googles.

2.

CREATE A DEDICATED STORAGE SPACE FOR EACH CHILD’S ITEMS

Rather than throwing all of your children’s items together within the vanity, consider separating each child’s personal grooming items into their own zone or section. Furthermore, the older your child gets the more important this is to maintain the overall organisation of the bathroom. In addition, it also reduces the chances of little sister’s sticky fingers getting into big sister’s make-up or personal hygiene supplies.

Furthermore, depending on the amount of space available, you could nominate each child their own drawer or a separate basket. Whatever option you choose, it is important to ensure that it is super simple for the child to access. For this reason, I recommend against stacking baskets on top of each other.  In addition, look for plastic containers that are easy to keep clean and can withstand moisture. For example, the SmartStore and Sterilite Basket ranges are perfect for this.

4.

INSTALL SEPARATE HOOKS FOR EACH CHILD’S BELONGINGS

Dedicate hooks for each child to hang their own hand towels, shower caps or anything else that they use regularly. The Umbra Flex Gel-Lock Double Hooks are perfect for this. In addition, place these as close as possible to the child’s height.

5.

CONSIDER DISCRETE BATH TOY STORAGE

If you’ve got young children and teenagers sharing the bathroom, it’s important to make the bathroom feel less like an infant’s play space. This may be very important for a teenage girl who likes to invite her friends around to get ready before heading out. You could consider storing the toys in plastic baskets with adequate drainage holes (like the Howards Rectangular Plastic Basket) that can neatly slide under a wall hung vanity or be placed within the bath when not in use.  In addition, this is a neat way to ensure that the bathroom maintains a grown-up and mature feel, meeting the needs of both an older teenager and an infant.

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7.

PRE-PLAN A SCHEDULE OR ROSTER FOR BATHING & PERSONAL GROOMING

In addition, if you have multiple children needing to use the bathroom and they are all fighting for the space, it is definitely worth considering a schedule or roster for when each child has dedicated time to bath and groom.  A simple way to approach it is for the teenagers and or pre-teens to shower in the morning before getting ready for school or later in the evening when younger children or infants are asleep. Moreover, infants and younger children could bathe late afternoon or early evening depending on your preference and families schedule.