My husband is constantly urging me to go through our kids toys and sell or donate them. He hates having them all over the house and he especially hates it when he steps on one! I try to keep them as organized as possible. We have one super large tote I use for the large toys and then I have a wooden stand that has three deep shelves on it, which we use for books and then I use crates to sort toys into groups so it looks nice. We also have one of those toy bin sorters as well, but even with all of that it is difficult to keep things picked up an organized as they play throughout the day. My children are 3 1/2 and 16 months so they don't fully understand the concept of putting things away when they are done with them yet and we don't have the room to create a "toy room".
I already go through their toys before birthdays and christmas's but it seems like I am doing it more and more to keep the peace with my hubby. I love him and I do understand where he is coming from, however I feel like such a scrooge taking away their toys. Now, my kids do have plenty of toys and when I remove a few things they never seem to notice and so far they have never asked for the toys that I have found new homes for, but still I feel awful and am not sure what I will say when they do eventually start to remember that they use to have such and such a toy.
Is anyone else out their frustrated with their kids seemingly endless supply of toys? What do you do to keep the mess under control? Whether you don't mind having your house cluttered with toys or whether you side more with my hubby I'd love to hear some other familys advice or suggestions.
Thanks!
Like another post said switching totes out so there is different stuff at different times. First off it only gives a few choices at a time. Second it seems to make the kids interested in the toys longer then just a few weeks cause oh they got something new to play with. Good luck
A good thing you can also do is rotate toys. Put some toys in totes and put them in your basement or in a closet. When you bring them back out they think they are new. Until they are really old enough to understand opening presents at a b-day or christmas you can ask that relatives give money or clothes that they need............winter coat..........
My brother-in-law always comments on how many toys my kids have. For the most part it is cause the family buys them :) :)
Good luck
I keep one large plastic tub in the living room and rotate it once a week with three other tubs I keep in the garage. This way there are fewer toys out and its like they get new toys each week. I also donate unused toys every holiday/birthday to the nursery at church so we don't end up with tons of toys.
Hi M.,
I can totally relate. My husband is always stepping on/over our 18 month old sons toys. We have a drawer in the kitchen plus a few small things here and there. The living room is the main area but they are also outside in the front yard and back yard. And of course in the bathroom for bath time. I agree with my hubby and yours that they are everywhere but they keep him occupied and out of trouble (or stuff he shouldn't be in)so I just deal with it. Every now and then I do go through them (at night while he is in bed) and bag them up to be donated. He hasn't even noticed. In all honestly he would probably be fine with he same 5 or 6 toys that he always plays with but we still have an overload of toys. However, I do have my son help clean up before nap and bedtime. I just give him specific toys to pick up that way he's a man on a misson. He likes to be helpful and I let him know how much I need his help so he's evev more willing.
At the end of the day I guess that it just depends on what your breaking point is with all the toys around and if you can handle your hubby making comments here and there about the toys being everywhere. The way I look at is I am home all day and the toys keep my little one out of trouble. My hubby only has to deal with them when he gets home from work until bedtime (5 -7 hrs. tops) so I just tune him out when he says something. If I notice that there are too many than I do get rid of some....
Good luck!
~Kim
I run a daycare in our basement and we have a 2 year old son.
I taught Montessori and they had a great concept of cubicles with cubbies in them so that each type of toy is separated. I do this and it works GREAT! The children know to put the toys back in the plastic tub and into the cubby when they are done.
They range in age from 20 months to 4 years old and they all cooperate.
Just a suggestion
hello i have the same problem my girls have so many toy it just not right so what i did is packed up half of them and put them in a closet and ever other month i pull out the old one and put away the other one it keep my husband happy and make me feel better that i did not take a toys they might scereatley love and gave it away then you can even get rid of some of your bins your husband will be so happy and you will to
You know, I go through this with my hubby too. We(and when I say we I mean me) have gone through their toys finally. It is a much bigger relief to haev the toys gone through and to finally have some semblemce to my home is actually a relief. And it does help keep the peace with me and hubby. Now I hate to go through the toys and give them to charity or anything else but it does make me feel better to not have my home cluttered. I hope this has helped.
S.
I have had to the same situation happened to me. I have two girls 7 and 4. Sometimes it is not so much the fact that everything is everywhere, but with my husband, he felt his space was being invaded. I too, did the bin thing and still it did not help, until I moved out of my hubby's sight. Usually, I would let the girls play with the their toys, when it is near time for Daddy to come home, we have clean up time, signing the "clean up song" and putting things where they need to be and keeping Daddy's area clean and clear. It has helped tremendously. Also, in the evening, right before bed, I do a once over and accumulate the night toys, shoes, whatever and put them to the side to clean up for the next day, or (depending on how tired I am) for that moment. I bought a cubby of 9 holes from Target and placed tags with pictures on it to resemble the toys to go there and it has helped as well. Take care
Hi M. -
I definitely understand your predicament, even though my son is only 8 months old. Interestingly though, the roles in my house are reversed - my husband wants to hang on to everything and I want to keep the toy craziness from taking over the house. I saw a program on television once about teaching kids the importance of giving to others. On this program the "experts" talked about encouraging kids, starting at about age 2, to select one of their own toys to donate to a charity each time they are given a new toy. I really liked this idea because it keeps the toy clutter in your own house to a minimum but also teaches a lesson to the children along the way. I plan to do this with my son, and in the meantime plan to occasionally weed out the toys that he doesn't play with anymore or are not functioning correctly. This plan was something both my husband and I could agree on, perhaps because it was actually a plan and not just spur of the moment toy purge. I hope this helps - good luck!
M.,
I have a 4 year old and last summer his room got pretty out of hand. He went through a phase where he didn't want to clean up when he was finished with something and we had a million toys scattered all over his room. Afer me cleaning the mess several times we finally came up with the following system:
I went to Target and bought several different size storage containers (mostly the clear ones). I seperated his toys into "themes", for example: duplos in one box; legos in one box; wooden train set in one; hot wheels and car roads in one; bigger size cars; balls; you get the idea...
My son knows he is only allowed to have one "theme" out at a time and he is only allowed to have his toys in his room. I started teaching him when he was very young to clean up (we even sang the clean up song when he was younger - it helped motivate him and make it fun) There are days when his toys don't get cleaned up before bed, like if he is in the middle of building a cool track for the cars I will let him leave it out. Because some of the themes are pretty extensive (we have a 50 gallon tote of the small size legos! and he has well over 100 hot wheels at this time)it does get out of hand sometimes, but at least it is always contained to his room. We live in a small apartment so I would go crazy tripping over toys everywhere.
Also- for his past birthday, when everyone was asking what to get him I informed them of our theme system and almost all of his presents fell into one of our current themes.
So far this system seems to be working for us. His room stays very tidy-- much cleaner than I remember mine to be when I was a kid. We praise him often when he cleans his room. He even makes his own bed now. He is very proud of his clean room.
I hope this helps. Good Luck with your toy situation.
A.
I have tried putting toys in the garage and circulating toys so that there aren't to many in the house. That way they always get that new toy feeling when I bring the toys from the garage back inside the house. But my house is always a wreck I have 4 kids they are 5 and under. I will say my kids do I pretty good job of picking up their toys (when supervised) but that's only because I put them in preschool (starting at age 2) and they are use to the routine when I say clean your area.
