Sharing a Bathroom with Children and Teens

By Amy Kennedy, Professional Home Organiser from The Organising Bee

Sharing a bathroom with multiple people can be tricky at the best of times.  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.  You can also extend this colour coding into other areas, such as lunch boxes, drink bottles, swimming googles… anything really.

2.

CREATE A DEDICATED STORAGE SPACE FOR EACH CHILD’S ITEMS

Rather than co-mingling all of your children’s items together within the vanity, consider separating each child’s personal grooming items into their own zone or section. The older your child gets the more important this is to maintain the overall organisation of the bathroom and their independence. It also reduces the chances of little sister’s sticky fingers getting into big sister’s make-up or personal hygiene supplies. Depending on the amount of space available, you could nominate each child their own drawer or have a separate basket which you can store within the vanity cupboard or on a separate shelving unit. Whatever option you choose, it is important to ensure that it is super simple for the child to access and if using a basket, they can easily remove it from the cupboard without your assistance.  For this reason, I recommend against stacking baskets on top of each other.  Look for plastic containers that easy to keep clean and can withstand moisture, like the SmartStore or Sterilite Basket ranges.

4.

INSTALL SEPARATE HOOKS FOR EACH CHILD’S BELONGINGS

Dedicated hooks for each child to hang their own face washer, hand towels and shower cap (if they use them) and anything else that they use regularly is highly convenient for most children. Place hooks, like the Umbra Flex Gel-Lock Double Hook (1-3 hooks per child) as close as possible to where the child will be using them at a height in which each child can reach – discreetly on the side of the vanity, near the bath or in the shower.

5.

CONSIDER DISCRETE BATH TOY STORAGE

If you’ve got young children and teenagers sharing the bathroom, a way to make the bathroom feel less like an infant’s play space (which may be 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.  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

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. Infants and younger children could bathe late afternoon or early evening depending on your preference and families schedule.