Makeover Your Medicine Cabinet

Last updated on March 6th, 2024

Medicine Cabinet Makeover

Having a fully stocked and organized medicine cabinet is essential for every household. You want to be prepared at any given moment for illness to strike.

There is nothing worse than having to rummage through a million different bottles and boxes of medicine, only to find they are all gross, expired, or that you are completely out of something essential. Nobody wants to run to the drugstore in the middle of the night when you or your family member is sick.

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Why Should You Organize and Stock Your Medicine Cabinet?

There are so many reasons it is helpful (and honestly, necessary) to stock and organize your medicine cabinet properly.

• never run out of essential products when you need them
• easily take stock of items when creating shopping lists
• all family members or babysitters can easily find necessary products during a crisis
• never run into expired products
• looks neat and tidy
• reduce mess from spills (contains the mess if it happens)
• quickly find what you need during a crisis and treat faster

Products Needed for Medicine Cabinet Organization

• label maker
• plastic containers
• plastic bins

How To Organize Your Medicine Cabinet

For your medicine cabinet, you first need to empty your entire medicine storage area out. Remove everything from the space you’re working with and clean it well. You don’t want to put your newly organized products on a grimy or sticky closet shelf.

RELATED: Check out my Kitchen Pantry Organization Post. It explains the five easy steps to take when organizing ANY area of your home and includes my beautiful pantry makeover.

Next, throw away anything gross or expired. I’d throw out anything with only a teeny bit left in it too – because that isn’t going to be helpful for treating a wound or illness, as most ailments aren’t remedied after just one treatment.

If you have things that don’t work – throw those out too – such as broken or inaccurate thermometers. Stuff like that. There is no sense in keeping items that are broken or unreliable during a crisis.

After you’ve cleaned your medicine cabinet shelves, thrown out expired, broken, or gross items, it’s time to sort. I like to separate my items by ailment and by who the product was designed for. For example, I’ll make a pile of children/infant medicine and a pile of adult medicine. Then I’ll divide those piles further into ailment: GI, cold/flu, allergy, etc.

Once you separate your items into groups that make sense, you can determine how many plastic containers you’ll need to purchase. I’m loving these plastic containers for my own medicine cabinet. I like that they are small and stackable.

You can then fill the plastic containers with your items once you purchase them. You might find that certain items don’t fit and that’s okay! I like to use bigger plastic bins for items that are more bulky such as the big bottles of adult cough syrup, big cans of sunscreen, bug spray, and the million bags of cough drops we always have.

My Medicine Cabinet Containers

Everyone’s family will have different medicinal and first aid needs (especially dependent on children’s ages), but here are the groups of containers that I put together for my family in the season we are in right now.

For reference, in my house, there are two adults (one of which is me, who is pregnant and likely will be pregnant again in the future), a 2.5 year old, and we will soon have a newborn. If you’ve got school-aged children, teenagers or you’re empty nesters, your cabinet will look much different than mine, so just use this as an example.

• Children’s Tylenol/Motrin
• Infant Tylenol/Motrin
• Baby Cough & Cold
• Nasal Congestion Remedies
• Nose Frida

• Ear & Temporal Thermometers
• Rectal Thermometers
• Petroleum Jelly
• Band-Aids
• Neosporin, Cortisone, Anti-Fungal

• Adult NSAIDS
• Eye Drops & Allergy
• Gas Relief
• Feminine Health
• Pregnancy Nausea

• Adult Pain Relief
• Adult Sunscreen
• Baby Sunscreen
• Travel Hand Sanitizer
• Tape Measure / Pill Splitter

Okay, so as you can see I’ve got 20 small containers. I have mine stacked in 4 rows with 5 containers in each row. My stacks are, for the most part, things that kind of ‘go together’.

My first row is infant and child fever/cold stuff. The second row is thermometers and first aid supplies. The third row is adult items. The fourth row is kind of more miscellaneous.

For example, in one of my containers within this row, I’ve got travel hand sanitizers – kind of random, I know. I find it helpful to store the travel hand sanitizers in a bin because they are so tiny, easy to lose, and seem to spill easily.

I chose to label my containers very accurately for the most part vs. general descriptions. As in: “Infant Tylenol” instead of “Infant Pain Relief / Fever Reducers”. This way it’s extremely clear to anyone looking for Tylenol (ahem, my husband) and they won’t come back empty handed when you ask to get the item.

What To Stock In Your Home Medicine Cabinet

Here is a pretty detailed list of what I like to keep stocked in my medicine cabinet. Again, I’m in the season of life of pregnancies, newborns, and toddlers, so my medicine cabinet essentials are based upon that.

Baby + Children Medicine Cabinet Essentials

• Pain and/or Fever Reducers:
  • Infant Tylenol
  • Infant Motrin
  • Children’s Tylenol
  • Children’s Motrin
• Cough + Cold
  • Zarbee’s Baby Cough Syrup + Mucous
  • Zarbee’s Baby Soothing Chest Rub
  • Nasal Saline Spray (one for each kid! Don’t share bottles)
  • Boogie Wipes
  • Nose Frida + Replacement Filters
  • Aquaphor (so helpful for a raw nose!)
  • Cool Mist Humidifier + Distilled Water Jug
  • Tissues
• Allergy + Eye:
  • Children’s Liquid Benadryl
  • Eye Flush
  • Tissues
• Gastrointestinal
  • Gripe Water
  • Gas Relief Drops
  • Diaper Rash Cream
• Preventing Dehydration
  • Pedialyte
• Outdoors
  • Baby Sunscreen
    • Bottle
    • Stick
    • Spray
  • Masks

Both Children + Adult Medicine Cabinet Essentials

• Supplies
  • Ear Thermometer
  • Temporal Thermometer
  • Rectal Thermometer (infants only)
  • Probe Covers for Ear + Rectal Thermometers
  • Petroleum Jelly (for rectal thermometer use)
  • Tape Measure
  • Tweezers
  • Nail Trimmers
  • Q-Tips
• First Aid
  • Band-Aids (assortment of sizes. Get fun kid ones!)
  • Alcohol Wipes
  • Gauze + Tape
  • Ice Packs
  • Travel First Aid Kit for Car and Diaper Bag
• Ointments
  • Neosporin (antibiotic ointment)
  • Hydrocortisone Cream (steroidal ointment)
  • Anti-Fungal Cream

Adult Medicine Cabinet Essentials:

• Pain and/or Fever Reducer:
  • Tylenol
  • Aleve
  • Excedrin
  • Aspirin
  • Prescription Pain Medications
• Cough + Cold
  • Dayquil Cough Syrup + Liquid Gels
  • Nyquil Cough Syrup + Liquid Gels
  • Nasal Saline Spray (one for each adult! Don’t share bottles)
  • Sudafed
  • Mucinex
  • Cough Drops
  • Tissues
• Allergy + Eye Care
  • Eye Drops
  • Contact Solution
  • Zyrtec
  • Claritin
  • Benadryl Tablets
  • Tissues
• Gastrointestinal
  • Gas-X Tabs
  • Miralax
• Preventing Dehydration
  • Gatorade
• Feminine Health
  • Monostat Treatment (always helpful to keep an unopened box stocked!)
  • Postpartum Healing Supplies
• Pregnancy Nausea
  • Vitamin B6
  • Unisom
  • Preggy Pops
• Outdoor:
  • Adult Sunscreen:
    • Spray
    • Bottle
    • Stick
    • Face
  • Travel Hand Sanitizers
  • Bug Spray
  • Masks

I don’t keep every single one of these items in one place. For example, Pedialyte and Gatorade are kept in my back-up basement pantry. Tissues are kept in my linen closet. Ice packs are stored in my freezer, obviously. And so on. But they are still items that I consider ‘Medicine Cabinet’ essentials.

How To Keep Medicine Cabinet Items Stocked At All Times

As I mentioned, it’s one thing to be organized, and another to be fully stocked at all times. In order to stay stocked year round and maintain expiration dates, I do two things:

1. I follow my Home Inventory System Rule
2. I go through my medicine cabinet quarterly

As far as my home inventory system rule is concerned, you can read this post here to get the full details. In short, anytime something is nearly used up, it is replaced. This is extremely simple to do with online shopping apps. Use up 3/4 of your Dayquil Cough Syrup? Whip out your phone and add it to your online Target shopping cart.

I don’t keep duplicates of medicine cabinet essentials like I do toiletries, because we just don’t go through medicinal items that quickly.

And as far as expiration dates are concerned, go through your items quarterly. I don’t write down everything on a list and keep track of things that way – that is way too much work.

Simply jot down “Check Medicine Cabinet” in your planner 4 times a year. I do this when I buy a new planner for the new year. Simply just choose a weekend day every 3 months and ‘schedule’ this quarterly check. It’s that simple! Anything that is expired or expiring soon, replace at that time.

Enjoy Your New Space

The first time you run into a pesky cold or GI bug, you’ll be so happy that your medicine cabinet is fully stocked and that you are armed and ready to get through the illness. No more running to the store for Pedialyte or Dayquil at a moment’s notice. For me, being prepared for an illness boosts my confidence for treating it and getting through it smoothly.

If you enjoyed this organization post, be sure to check out these other organization ideas. I know you’ll love them!