Labeling Rocks:The best stuff to label and why.

Here we are. It is almost the fall once again. Moms and Dads all over are buying new school supplies, lunchboxes, backpacks and school clothes. Everyone is excited until your child starts misplacing their new supplies around the house or losing it at school.

A surefire way to give your kid a “shot” at making sure their belongings make it back home is to LABEL everything. Labeling your stuff doesn’t guarantee it will come home but it will give it a great chance to be found, to be recognized by someone or to be returned. It also gives your child a sense of independence to be able to locate their item in a sea of other items in the lost and found by recognizing their own label. If you go to www.labeldaddy.com – you and your children can design your very own customized labels. The real beauty of these labels is they stick on to everything, so, no ironing or sewing! Label Daddy has just come out with an amazing “School Pack” that has 132 labels!! In this pack, there are 7 sizes of labels plus some really cool zipper pulls so you can now personalize anything that has a zipper. Also, these labels stay on in the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher. For the price of a replaced sweater, you can buy a pack of labels and be proactive about keeping your children’s stuff.

Labeling according to me: Important things to label and why:

Clothes. Especially the stuff that gets taken off at school: sweaters, sweatshirts, jackets and vests. These items get taken off and put in cubbies, on floors, on playgrounds and are never heard from again….It is also imperative to label clothing if you go to a school with uniforms and every child wears the same exact same thing. Lost and found can be a sea of navy blue sweaters (or whatever your school color is) and so daunting that you don’t even want to dig through all those lost items.

Backpacks and School Supplies. Similar aged kids like the same “type” of backpack. Some years it is a particular character that everyone is into, sometimes it is a favorite color or brand. I can’t tell you how funny it is on the first day of school to see my daughters walk off with their friends with their nice new backpacks and notice that many of them have the same EXACT same backpack. Of course, I can’t help but wonder how they will tell them apart. One year both my daughters came home at separate times with another child’s backpack. It was only figured out when we opened the bag to do homework. How frustrating! Most children also have the same pencil boxes, notebooks and school supplies and your label makes it clear exactly who owns it.

Lunchboxes, Thermoses, Tupperware, Water Bottles. My school, like many others nowadays, has tried to go green. That means trash free lunches: no water bottles, no paper bags, no plastic baggies, and no plastic utensils. This also means many reusable lunch items. Parents invest good money in these reusable items and want to see them come home. Once again, like the backpacks, a lot of children have the exact same ones! Aside from taping them to your child’s hands, labeling is the best way to keep your items. My big triumph this year is that both of my girls used the same 2 sigg bottles all year and due to labeling, we didn’t lose them! It’s the little things…
Also, Label Daddy carries allergy labels! You can personalize these brightly colored labels to say what your child is allergic to and place them on their lunchbox and all their lunch accessories so that others may be aware. Although my children are not allergic, many of their friends are and I have seen these labels used with much success. It is nice for any highly allergic child to have this as a safety precaution.

Sports Equipment. Most children play a sport….most sports require uniforms and equipment and everyone’s stuff is EXACTLY the same. A recipe for disaster. I thought I would have a panic attack on the day my daughter played in her very first soccer game. All the girls have the same uniforms, in the same size. They had the same cleats, the same balls and the same shin guards! At the end of the game, all the girls changed and the mothers were all patiently trying to figure out whose items were which child’s within the large pile. I picked my stuff out right away!

Personal items in the house. I have two daughters and they are 2 ½ years apart. They have a lot of the exact same stuff in our house (everything has to be equal, right?) Labeling some of their toys, toiletries and personal belongings have been a lifesaver for a mom who does not want to be a referee. Now, they can glance at the label and there is really no question about whose hairbrush it really is and they can solve it themselves. I have friends and customers with twins and triplets who have told me they use labels in different colors as a special organizing system within their homes to make sure the kids, parents and caregivers know which bottles, sippy cups and toys are theirs. They say it has been a life saver!

I will be honest, before I worked for Label Daddy, I didn’t label. I tried to use a sharpie on tags to write our initials until I realized many children have our initials. Also, sharpies wear off very quickly – very annoying. I tried the iron-on labels only to realize a couple of labels in that there was NO WAY I was going to iron a label on to everything we owned – forget that. I gave up. My children lost their stuff all the time, everywhere we went. One of my daughters actually lost so many sweaters in kindergarten that I actually started telling her she wasn’t allowed to take them off!! At some point, I figured my child losing her stuff was “just the way it is” – nothing you can do about it. Now that I am a tried and true labeler (and crazy about it), nothing leaves my house without a label. I actually have a pack of labels in a basket by the front door and when my kids leave for the day I check their bags and clothing and make sure that everything is labeled. If not, I grab my handy packet of labels and slap one on. I can’t tell you how many times parents or teachers have handed me items in carpool or at school because they had my label on them. Losing your stuff doesn’t have to be “just the way it is” – label the things you love and bring them home!

About Aimee:
Aimee Sesar lives in Los Angeles. She has been married to Josh for 12 years and is the mother of 2 fabulous daughters, Emma (10) and Chloe (7 1/2). Aimee works part time for Label Daddy and is really enjoying bringing these cool items to moms everywhere! Check us out at www.labeldaddy.com and type in buttonedup at checkout and you will get 10% off your purchase!