Large Family Organization: 7 Tips to Make Your Life Easier

You are the head of a large family and you know that a good family organization is essential to live serenely and take full advantage of your children’s free time. It is easy to get overwhelmed and managing a family of 3 or more children becomes a living nightmare. Here are my tips for organizing a large family at its best. No more daily stress! Follow this guide and breathe.

Optimizing space for a simplified large family organization

It all starts with the organization of the house for large families. And that starts with optimizing space. Living spaces need to be tidy and practical. If there are two spaces to think about, they are the entrance and the bathroom.

The entrance: a strategic and essential place

The more your entrance is designed to save time and order, the less you will have to remind your loved ones to put away the shoes that are lying around, to pick up the coat that was thrown on the floor when they came in. This living space therefore needs to be adapted to make life easier for the whole family, young and old. Storage spaces dedicated to shoes and coats are essential.

“Everyone has their own storage space. That’s our motto. We have 3 children and when we come home, our children find their own box where they store their shoes. You will save a lot of time and your children will be happy to have their own space to store their things.

The bathroom becomes a place to relax again

I still see our bathroom with towels hanging everywhere, toothbrushes mixed up and endless arguments when brushing teeth. It’s over!

We have opted for a similar organization at the entrance. Now, each child has his or her own space to hang and dry their towel. Toothbrushes are each stored in a cup in a specific spot in our bathroom cabinet drawer. No more arguments or lack of hygiene.

Determine a space to hang each towel and never change them again. Buy a different cup for each child and make room in your drawers for them to store their own materials.

We have two drawers dedicated to hygiene and hair products. Since we have a daughter and two boys, we decided to leave one drawer for our daughter’s stuff. She keeps all her accessories and products there. The boys share the other drawer and it works for them.

Large family organization with color codes

Color coding is life! One of the tips for organizing large families. Each child has their own colored towel and we never change them. You’ll tell me that they already have their own space in the bathroom, but you know as well as I do, a mistake is quickly made and it’s a tragedy. So we decided to add a color code. No more confusion. We do the same for the bottles placed in the fridge.

To go further, it is possible to buy colored baskets to put the things found in the house and ask the children to put them away.

Large families use this color code for everything in the house: chairs, closets, etc. Organize your children’s needs to find their way around. This technique is very practical and it also makes the house more cheerful. Get started.

Anticipation to the max

Have peace of mind by anticipating as much as possible. Managing the daily life of a large family requires you to anticipate as much as possible the tasks to be done and the imperatives. Beware, you will not be safe from unforeseen events and surprises of all kinds. But the more you anticipate, the less these unexpected events will impact your daily life. To avoid being an overwhelmed mother, anticipate!

• Rule number 1: to avoid being overwhelmed and stressed in the morning: prepare your children’s things so that they are as independent as possible when they wake up. Since they were little, we have been preparing their clothes with them every night. It has become a habit. This way, they get ready in the morning without our help (except for the smallest, depending on the clothes). A headache that was previously unpleasant to manage in the morning in addition to other preparations, the choice of clothes is anticipated for a newfound serenity.
• Rule number 2: set the breakfast table before going to bed. Bowls, glasses, spoons will have found their place before all your children ask you to prepare breakfast (if they are not old enough to do it alone). As for us, we limit this preparation to cutlery and bowls, as we have a particularly greedy dog 😋.
• Rule number 3: refer to your schedule posted on the fridge or whatever so you don’t forget anything. We’ll see it later in this article, but a schedule is essential to anticipate and help with the large family organization.

Organizing a large family meal: weekly shopping and menus

Planning your shopping for the week allows you to buy only the essential products, to be able to put everything away and to make real savings. The weekly shopping is done at the same time as the weekly menu. This is one of the essential points for a good daily organization of a large family.

Weekly menus

Write your weekly menus and post them on your fridge or in a visible place. This will allow you to vary your meals and foods, and therefore your intake. You will eat more balanced meals and you will no longer find yourself in front of your fridge not knowing what to make for dinner. You will avoid prepared meals that are bad for your health and your wallet. Homemade food will make sense. Favour family dishes that you can prepare in large quantities. This will allow you to serve the leftovers another time in the week.

You can also opt for the new trend, batch cooking. This means preparing several meals at the same time for the week. Save time and money!

The Drive, our savior

No more trips to the supermarket and a monumental waste of time. Opt for the Drive! Online shopping has saved us time. It is even essential for families with many children since not everything would fit in a shopping cart.

After writing your menu and shopping list, you can do your shopping online after the kids go to bed or whenever you have free time. With proper organization, it will take you about half an hour. Frequently purchased products are just a click away, another huge time saver. Once a week, I do this task and finally shopping is no longer an ordeal. An additional advantage is the control of the budget.

Sharing tasks and helping each other

Living in a large family undoubtedly develops autonomy and mutual aid. With 1 or 2 children, you had enough hands and arms to meet expectations and needs. But when you have 3 or more children, learning to be independent is inevitable.

Make your children responsible

We are not fans of sharing chores and constantly asking our children to live their childhood to the fullest. But we must admit that we need them to do certain tasks: setting and clearing the table, tidying the rooms, watering the vegetable garden… This allows us to move on with our non-transferable obligations and to have more free time with them.

We have not instituted a schedule for these “services”. This may come in time. The children know that they must set the table before each meal and clean their room once a week. Something that is more or less successful depending on the age and temperament of each child 😅.

The main thing is that they participate in the family life by rendering services. This accountability is built according to the age and abilities of each child. Be careful, it is not about replacing the adults and doing everything in their place. It is about participating in family life. We also share certain tasks with the father. When he cooks, I take care of the shower for the little one, and vice versa…

Teach your children to help each other

The principle of mutual aid is at the heart of the large family. Learning to live together is essential, especially when you have several children. Understanding others and showing concern for them can be learned. It is through your behavior that your children will grow up to be empathetic adults. Individualism is banned in large families. Children and parents are united.

The elders can then pass on their knowledge. Frequent adjustment will be important to keep a good balance in your large family.

Writing an essential to-do list

A to-do list, but what for? If you’re asking yourself this question, it’s because you haven’t tasted the sweet power of this fabulous list. The ideal companion for not forgetting anything and anticipating as much as possible, the to-do list will accompany you on a daily basis and will make your life easier. It’s undeniable.

Investing in a family organization diary

To-do list fans are often looking for the right family organizer. Well, I found it! It’s great, collects everything you could possibly need and it’s pretty. Which doesn’t detract from anything. Come on, I won’t drag out the suspense any longer. Just click on the link.
My little life organizer

You can write down all the essentials that you might forget: medical appointments, meetings, children’s activities, evenings with friends… There are even detachable lists to write down your shopping. The must have for a daily family organization.
So are these tips useful to you? Try them and share them with others. I am convinced that an organized mom makes a happy family!