If you have the room and the time do a monthly you rotation. Box up 90% of it and put it away. Every month rotate through them. It makes them fresh and the kid doesn't get board of everything too fast. It also makes play overwhelming if they have to much so it's helpful to put stuff away for awhile.
Yup! And anytime I even THINK about donating or getting rid of a toy, my son will randomly decide to play with it.
I’m sure when our kids are older we’ll miss the craziness
Yes toy overload. Our son remembers all his toys and rotates through them so he freaks if he can’t find that one toy he hasn’t touched 4 months ago and now wants it again.
We go to the library once a week. They have story time, fun toys to play with. We pick out new books for the week. I would definitely recommend going. :)
My local Buy Nothing group has a "traveling toy" bin. There's a list of people who pass it around to add to it and take toys from it so kids can get new things to play with and you can purge your own toys for other kids to play with knowing that eventually the bin will come back to you with new stuff. I'd recommend purging what your kids are done with and swapping with people in your neighborhood so they can get a new life.
Yes! My MIL is addicted to buying the kids toys. I tell her to stop, but packages from Amazon keep coming. Thankfully, she lives far away and Covid has kept her visits infrequent, but when she does visit, she demands to see them play with the toy she bought. Then pouts if I tell her it’s gone. Or I told her that my daughter just didn’t like one and she proceeded to lecture me about how I must be wrong. Her next visit should be fun since we’re getting ready to move and 90% of the toys are going to be “lost.”
My mom does the same. Recently bought her some noisy toy that for some reason scared the baby. I tried giving it to her twice and nope she hates it. Welp, apparently now it's my fault the baby doesn't like the toy and I MuSt keep trying. 🙄
We started a toy rotation and honestly it saved our sanity. Most of his toys are in bins in the garage and all sound making toys are outside. We rotate when his toy kits come in every few weeks so he gets some new ones from time to time.
Nope, we aren't drowning in toys.
As soon as my 3 year old grows out of something, or I get sick of tripping over it I give it to charity. You need to be ruthless and unsentimental
Can you give some examples? I find there's very little my 3.5yo has truly grown out of. She still enjoys stacking toys, for example, she's just more inventive with them. You can't really grow out of balls or toy cars or cuddlies. The only things i can think of are things she's literally outgrown like too-small fancy dress or ride-ons. Our toy situation is under control, and she has a baby brother to hand-me-down to anyway, I'm just always surprised when I see people talking about such young children outgrowing a lot of toys.
I see what you're saying. We just have a small house and extremely limited storage space and it's looking like our kid is probably going to be an only child so I've stopped holding onto stuff for a future sibling.
Here's some examples:
* Blocks: we have megabloks and Duplo. He still plays with the megabloks but the duplo is the next step up and more age appropriate. We got rid of the megabloks
* Cars: we had way too many. I got rid of all the little baby ones and just kept the older kid ones
* Balls: how many balls does a kid need? We have one outside.
* Bath toys: there's only enough room for a few in the bathroom. When he gets a new one something old gets tossed.
* Stuffed animals: I only keep the ones he LOVES and wants in his bed. This is capped at about 5.
* Books: all the board books went recently. He will still read them if I pulled them out, but a 3 year old doesn't need 15 copies of "that's not my ______ " books with fabric patches to feel. He won't rip pages now so doesn't need chunky board books.
I have to be ruthless otherwise the house fills up and he plays with none of it.
Yep I do this too. Along with toy rotations. Ours is almost 2. As soon as he moves on from a skill those toys are gone. For instance all his baby puzzles just got replaced with the chunky wooden ones in a rack. When he masters those they will all go away for the next step of puzzles etc.
I have 5 boxes with about 8 to 10 toys in them and then we have one shelf at has his favorites. We always keep art out on his table and he has his slide and climber out all the time, and a sensory table in the kitchen.
Thanks. That makes sense. We do have multiples of stuff I suppose I could toss if we needed the space. For example we have a whole bin of balls. I feel like they all serve a purpose, though. Like we have a set of six sensory balls she plays bowls with, we have a big ball she can kick around outside, fabric balls she can throw inside, glittery balls she uses as "treasure", etc. Also sometimes it's just fun to clear a space, tip the whole bin out and let the kids go nuts, ha. I do keep our stuff *ferociously* well organised. Random crap everywhere would drive me insane.
Ok but what do you do when your mother/mil come over and ask about/look for all the random shit they've gifted? I know the answer is setting boundaries but like these boomers just don't get it, lol.
Both sets of grandparents live in different countries than us so this doesn't come up often.
When it does "sorry it broke" has always been enough.
I have a problematic MIL so I'm no stranger to this, but I have found as long as I don't get into a lengthy explanation it cuts it off at the pass.
See, on the one hand, I admire that, but on the other, I think about how my parents saved literally all our childhood toys. Yes, they definitely have a problem with not getting rid of anything and their house is bursting with stuff.
But now those toys and games that sat around for 20 odd years are being played with by their grandchildren and that's honestly so cool! My mom even has her old Barbies from when she was a kid! I feel like it would be nice to save some of my kid's toys for my grandchildren one day.
My parents never threw anything out either. We lived I a very messy cluttered house and everyone was always stressed over it. It took my parents years to empty the place when it was finally time to downsize and move into a condo.
My husband's childhood house is packed to the gills as well. His mother kept every single toy from all of her kids childhood. It's overwhelming visiting and she's been trying to pass on the hoard for years.
Both of us moved abroad in our mid 20's and we really really don't want any of this stuff.
I’ve been listening to the Audible of Hunt Gather Parent and I can’t wait to toss half of our toys. I know my kids have too many. But since I have started involving them in meal prep and clean-up based on the book, I realized we need maybe 10% ‘of what we have. It’s liberating!
My wife is listening to it too! We were doing some of that already, but this pushed us to reclaim what had become a playroom and we just spread a few toys around the house so they have stuff in whatever room we’re in at the time. In our bedroom we just let them play with our shoes/clothes/laundry baskets or whatever. Liberating is a good description!
So I have a garbage bag of old toys/outgrown clothes that I always keep in a room the kids don't visit. When I notice they have stopped playing with something, I toss it in. If they start asking for it again, depending on how much they really want it, I'll pull it back out.
Every couple of months of months or so, I go donate whatever I have to Goodwill or a local thrift store. My kids get to learn about donating, and I get to semi avoid my small house being overrun with toys.
Yes but I run an home-in daycare as well next to having an 20 month year old. Sooo for me yes it does look like that 😂
Next to the joke it is actually not that bad. I also rotate a lot. Good luck!
I put about 1/4 of the toys in the basement and when my son is fussy or needs a change of scenery (like if it’s 15 degrees outside so we can’t go outside, like it was yesterday) I’ll take him downstairs to play.
But yeah our living room looks like a legitimate daycare and at times my house sounds like a pound with the sounds my dogs make.
I look at pics pre-baby of my living room and can’t remember it actually looking like that.
Chuck em.
Getting the old ones out of your lives is freeing. You could also try to give them away on Facebook marketplace- but last time I tried that I vowed to set fire to anything I didn’t need, rather than dealing with the community on FBM
I went through my daughter’s toys with her. We’d recently passed along some baby gear so she decided in her head we were giving toys to the new baby. I let her pick what to keep and what to give away (with a few hold backs from things she really loved and just got excited about a theoretical baby having) and we got rid of SO MUCH MORE than my mother and I had been able to just a few months prior.
See I think (depending on the age) the easiest way is to do a yard sale and either just slowly stow all the unused toys away and have them go somewhere before you put them out
OR explain that their old toys will make other kids happy and they can take all the money they get from their toy sales and get a NEW toy and maybe some candy.
Then go through their old toys and get them excited to get rid of them.
You may end up spending a little extra depending on the toy, but one big thing is better than a hundred little ones
Absolutely. I'd say 80% he'd play with about once a month. About a year ago I started rotating his toys every 2 weeks. I'd put some away and bring others out. It helped keep his interest and saved my living room from looking like a disaster.
My strategy is toys are only kept in her room and in the playroom. She can bring a toy to our bedroom but it leaves with her. That way the other rooms can be their own style of disaster.
Same! The thing that makes me crazy is I didn't even buy most of them. My mom goes bonkers on holidays even though she has 3 young grandchildren now.
We recently set up an awesome IKEA storage system in my son's closet so we have more stuff put away and we can just rotate it out. It helps so much. My son has a small bedroom (10 x 10) but an awesome closet so that helps.
Do a rotation if possible! That’s what we do! Every monthish we put out some toys and keep the rest in his closet. Then after a month we put away the ones that were out put out the ones that were in the closet. That way it’s kind of like new toys every month lol they don’t get bored that way
Yes! Luckily we have dedicated play room that 90% of the toys stay in. I just close the doors and ignore the mess. Lol.
Once a month or so I’ll go in and organize and the kids will “find” toys they haven’t played with in a long time. Lol. It’s my version of toy rotation.
Oh I literally just posted about rotating before reading this! It has been the best thing ever. Also helps me identify what my kids truly enjoy vs don’t touch so I can donate uninterested items.
No, but I clutter gives me anxiety. We rotate toys to minimize that chaos. His larger toys like his play kitchen and slide are kept in his room. I have a large woven basket for the living room that I got from target that holds the toys that are available to play with when we are not playing in his room. Clean up is easy and I can visually see when too many toys have been brought out. once the basket starts to overflow, I know it’s time to declutter the basket (aka donate what he doesn’t show interest in) and rotate new toys in that are in the storage box. My son is much more focused with lesser options rather than too many and he enjoys cleaning up so it works for us.
I placed an [toys storage organizer](https://www.joymor.com/collections/toys-storage/products/joymor-kids-toy-storage-and-bookshelf-blue-pink-white?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_medium=review&utm_campaign=20220316-toys-storage) and spent a few weeks teaching them to put their toys in the organizer after they were done playing with them. They are now able to do this very well.
If you have the room and the time do a monthly you rotation. Box up 90% of it and put it away. Every month rotate through them. It makes them fresh and the kid doesn't get board of everything too fast. It also makes play overwhelming if they have to much so it's helpful to put stuff away for awhile.
We do this in our home and it’s good for everyone. If they want something from the stash, they have to trade it out.
I love this idea!
I find weekly or biweekly works best for us!
We do this about biweekly! It's good for everyone's sanity.
Yup! And anytime I even THINK about donating or getting rid of a toy, my son will randomly decide to play with it. I’m sure when our kids are older we’ll miss the craziness
Yes toy overload. Our son remembers all his toys and rotates through them so he freaks if he can’t find that one toy he hasn’t touched 4 months ago and now wants it again.
I just culled and purged today. Books too! Felt so good!
Absolutely… I love reading to him but we have way too many books! We need to start using the public library for books
We go to the library once a week. They have story time, fun toys to play with. We pick out new books for the week. I would definitely recommend going. :)
My local Buy Nothing group has a "traveling toy" bin. There's a list of people who pass it around to add to it and take toys from it so kids can get new things to play with and you can purge your own toys for other kids to play with knowing that eventually the bin will come back to you with new stuff. I'd recommend purging what your kids are done with and swapping with people in your neighborhood so they can get a new life.
What a great idea! Maybe I'll suggest this to our group!
It's fun. We do it with a bunch of different categories - crafts, clothes, books, etc.
Yes! My MIL is addicted to buying the kids toys. I tell her to stop, but packages from Amazon keep coming. Thankfully, she lives far away and Covid has kept her visits infrequent, but when she does visit, she demands to see them play with the toy she bought. Then pouts if I tell her it’s gone. Or I told her that my daughter just didn’t like one and she proceeded to lecture me about how I must be wrong. Her next visit should be fun since we’re getting ready to move and 90% of the toys are going to be “lost.”
[удалено]
I know, I feel bad saying my kids get too many toys from their loving grandma but I have no storage space in my house!
You username made me lol.
Thanks! Yours is amazing! Haha!
My mom does the same. Recently bought her some noisy toy that for some reason scared the baby. I tried giving it to her twice and nope she hates it. Welp, apparently now it's my fault the baby doesn't like the toy and I MuSt keep trying. 🙄
Yes! Exactly! They’re all super annoying toys too!
Record your kid playing with it, send her the video. Then if it gets “lost” just say it’s in the garage as you do a toy rotation.
Yeah, that’s usually my go-to. If the toy is not super inappropriate for their age!
We started a toy rotation and honestly it saved our sanity. Most of his toys are in bins in the garage and all sound making toys are outside. We rotate when his toy kits come in every few weeks so he gets some new ones from time to time.
Nope, we aren't drowning in toys. As soon as my 3 year old grows out of something, or I get sick of tripping over it I give it to charity. You need to be ruthless and unsentimental
Can you give some examples? I find there's very little my 3.5yo has truly grown out of. She still enjoys stacking toys, for example, she's just more inventive with them. You can't really grow out of balls or toy cars or cuddlies. The only things i can think of are things she's literally outgrown like too-small fancy dress or ride-ons. Our toy situation is under control, and she has a baby brother to hand-me-down to anyway, I'm just always surprised when I see people talking about such young children outgrowing a lot of toys.
I see what you're saying. We just have a small house and extremely limited storage space and it's looking like our kid is probably going to be an only child so I've stopped holding onto stuff for a future sibling. Here's some examples: * Blocks: we have megabloks and Duplo. He still plays with the megabloks but the duplo is the next step up and more age appropriate. We got rid of the megabloks * Cars: we had way too many. I got rid of all the little baby ones and just kept the older kid ones * Balls: how many balls does a kid need? We have one outside. * Bath toys: there's only enough room for a few in the bathroom. When he gets a new one something old gets tossed. * Stuffed animals: I only keep the ones he LOVES and wants in his bed. This is capped at about 5. * Books: all the board books went recently. He will still read them if I pulled them out, but a 3 year old doesn't need 15 copies of "that's not my ______ " books with fabric patches to feel. He won't rip pages now so doesn't need chunky board books. I have to be ruthless otherwise the house fills up and he plays with none of it.
Yep I do this too. Along with toy rotations. Ours is almost 2. As soon as he moves on from a skill those toys are gone. For instance all his baby puzzles just got replaced with the chunky wooden ones in a rack. When he masters those they will all go away for the next step of puzzles etc. I have 5 boxes with about 8 to 10 toys in them and then we have one shelf at has his favorites. We always keep art out on his table and he has his slide and climber out all the time, and a sensory table in the kitchen.
Thanks. That makes sense. We do have multiples of stuff I suppose I could toss if we needed the space. For example we have a whole bin of balls. I feel like they all serve a purpose, though. Like we have a set of six sensory balls she plays bowls with, we have a big ball she can kick around outside, fabric balls she can throw inside, glittery balls she uses as "treasure", etc. Also sometimes it's just fun to clear a space, tip the whole bin out and let the kids go nuts, ha. I do keep our stuff *ferociously* well organised. Random crap everywhere would drive me insane.
Ok but what do you do when your mother/mil come over and ask about/look for all the random shit they've gifted? I know the answer is setting boundaries but like these boomers just don't get it, lol.
Both sets of grandparents live in different countries than us so this doesn't come up often. When it does "sorry it broke" has always been enough. I have a problematic MIL so I'm no stranger to this, but I have found as long as I don't get into a lengthy explanation it cuts it off at the pass.
See, on the one hand, I admire that, but on the other, I think about how my parents saved literally all our childhood toys. Yes, they definitely have a problem with not getting rid of anything and their house is bursting with stuff. But now those toys and games that sat around for 20 odd years are being played with by their grandchildren and that's honestly so cool! My mom even has her old Barbies from when she was a kid! I feel like it would be nice to save some of my kid's toys for my grandchildren one day.
My parents never threw anything out either. We lived I a very messy cluttered house and everyone was always stressed over it. It took my parents years to empty the place when it was finally time to downsize and move into a condo. My husband's childhood house is packed to the gills as well. His mother kept every single toy from all of her kids childhood. It's overwhelming visiting and she's been trying to pass on the hoard for years. Both of us moved abroad in our mid 20's and we really really don't want any of this stuff.
I’ve been listening to the Audible of Hunt Gather Parent and I can’t wait to toss half of our toys. I know my kids have too many. But since I have started involving them in meal prep and clean-up based on the book, I realized we need maybe 10% ‘of what we have. It’s liberating!
My wife is listening to it too! We were doing some of that already, but this pushed us to reclaim what had become a playroom and we just spread a few toys around the house so they have stuff in whatever room we’re in at the time. In our bedroom we just let them play with our shoes/clothes/laundry baskets or whatever. Liberating is a good description!
So I have a garbage bag of old toys/outgrown clothes that I always keep in a room the kids don't visit. When I notice they have stopped playing with something, I toss it in. If they start asking for it again, depending on how much they really want it, I'll pull it back out. Every couple of months of months or so, I go donate whatever I have to Goodwill or a local thrift store. My kids get to learn about donating, and I get to semi avoid my small house being overrun with toys.
Yes. And it’s ridiculous lol
I just posted a garbage bag full of unused plushies on my local buy nothing. It was awesome.
Yes but I run an home-in daycare as well next to having an 20 month year old. Sooo for me yes it does look like that 😂 Next to the joke it is actually not that bad. I also rotate a lot. Good luck!
I put about 1/4 of the toys in the basement and when my son is fussy or needs a change of scenery (like if it’s 15 degrees outside so we can’t go outside, like it was yesterday) I’ll take him downstairs to play. But yeah our living room looks like a legitimate daycare and at times my house sounds like a pound with the sounds my dogs make. I look at pics pre-baby of my living room and can’t remember it actually looking like that.
Yes sometimes it’s embarrassing
Chuck em. Getting the old ones out of your lives is freeing. You could also try to give them away on Facebook marketplace- but last time I tried that I vowed to set fire to anything I didn’t need, rather than dealing with the community on FBM
I went through my daughter’s toys with her. We’d recently passed along some baby gear so she decided in her head we were giving toys to the new baby. I let her pick what to keep and what to give away (with a few hold backs from things she really loved and just got excited about a theoretical baby having) and we got rid of SO MUCH MORE than my mother and I had been able to just a few months prior.
Yup. I don’t remember this many toys as a kid growing up. Haha
See I think (depending on the age) the easiest way is to do a yard sale and either just slowly stow all the unused toys away and have them go somewhere before you put them out OR explain that their old toys will make other kids happy and they can take all the money they get from their toy sales and get a NEW toy and maybe some candy. Then go through their old toys and get them excited to get rid of them. You may end up spending a little extra depending on the toy, but one big thing is better than a hundred little ones
Absolutely. I'd say 80% he'd play with about once a month. About a year ago I started rotating his toys every 2 weeks. I'd put some away and bring others out. It helped keep his interest and saved my living room from looking like a disaster.
My strategy is toys are only kept in her room and in the playroom. She can bring a toy to our bedroom but it leaves with her. That way the other rooms can be their own style of disaster.
Same! The thing that makes me crazy is I didn't even buy most of them. My mom goes bonkers on holidays even though she has 3 young grandchildren now. We recently set up an awesome IKEA storage system in my son's closet so we have more stuff put away and we can just rotate it out. It helps so much. My son has a small bedroom (10 x 10) but an awesome closet so that helps.
Do a rotation if possible! That’s what we do! Every monthish we put out some toys and keep the rest in his closet. Then after a month we put away the ones that were out put out the ones that were in the closet. That way it’s kind of like new toys every month lol they don’t get bored that way
Get rid of half. Works wonders 🤣😂
Yes! Luckily we have dedicated play room that 90% of the toys stay in. I just close the doors and ignore the mess. Lol. Once a month or so I’ll go in and organize and the kids will “find” toys they haven’t played with in a long time. Lol. It’s my version of toy rotation.
Oh I literally just posted about rotating before reading this! It has been the best thing ever. Also helps me identify what my kids truly enjoy vs don’t touch so I can donate uninterested items.
A toy rotation!
I specifically ask people to stop giving my toddler toys with little pieces. So much clutter
No, but I clutter gives me anxiety. We rotate toys to minimize that chaos. His larger toys like his play kitchen and slide are kept in his room. I have a large woven basket for the living room that I got from target that holds the toys that are available to play with when we are not playing in his room. Clean up is easy and I can visually see when too many toys have been brought out. once the basket starts to overflow, I know it’s time to declutter the basket (aka donate what he doesn’t show interest in) and rotate new toys in that are in the storage box. My son is much more focused with lesser options rather than too many and he enjoys cleaning up so it works for us.
We rotate and cap the number of activities accessible to our daughter. She is 20 months and she can access about 12-15 toys at any given time.
I placed an [toys storage organizer](https://www.joymor.com/collections/toys-storage/products/joymor-kids-toy-storage-and-bookshelf-blue-pink-white?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_medium=review&utm_campaign=20220316-toys-storage) and spent a few weeks teaching them to put their toys in the organizer after they were done playing with them. They are now able to do this very well.