Toy Clutter

[springmama]

I have serious issues here and I'm trying to work all of this out. We have lots of toys and I need to figure out how to organize them best.

 

 

We have a huge basement with our entertainment center, school area and room for toys.

 

We also have room for toys in their rooms.

 

I don't want toys everywhere because having three rooms of toys makes me want to cry. Too much to manage.

 

Keeping them in the basement means I can work with one child while keeping an eye on the other two, but then the school area gets cluttered.

 

Keeping toys in their room means I end up with two rooms of clutter and that makes my head hurt. Of course if the mess is in their rooms, I can shut the door and ignore it.

 

ETA- what do you consider must haves for each kid? I'm tempted to just throw it all away.

[lisamarie]

Go through it and box up half of it. Leave out the stuff they play with most. Put the boxes in storage for a few months and see if they ever ask for anything again. If not you can either donate it or else rotate it with their other stuff.

 

Things I have opted to save from being donated:

Building things--blocks, legos, K'nex, etc

Doll house and accessories

Pretend play stuff--stroller, dress up clothes, play kitchen with food, shopping cart, etc.

Puzzles

 

And a few other random things. I actually hate toys. They are messy and seem to breed like rabbits. Every time the toys seem to be overwhelming, when the kids can't seem to keep them picked up, I go through them with 2 bags--1 for trash, 1 for donating. I make the kids decide what to get rid of and I also weed out a few things myself. I much prefer the kids keep to a few themes when they get gifts--polly pockets, my little ponies, etc. Pick 1-2 themes and stick with it so you can box it all up together rather than have a whole bunch of different sets lying around that don't go together. Once they outgrow it, pass it on and find a new theme.

[Mejane]

Here's a recent thread on this very subject.

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=183715&highlight=toys

[Sue G in PA]

:iagree: I have begun to loathe toys. Not ALL toys, but most. We had a MAJOR clean-up and declutter of our basement toy area and trashed/donated over 1/2. We saved: Little People sets, Duplos, legos, Knex, Thomas, Magnetix, a case of matchbox cars (all others were donated), etc. My kids all have toys in their rooms as well but it is mostly lego, Knex, cars/truck for the boys. My dd4 and ds2 also have toys in their room (all their toys are in their room b/c their room is on the main floor, not the basement). It is mostly books, puzzles, some stuffed animals (I loathe them, too), Trio blocks, and cars/trucks. It is manageable now and doesn't give me quite the headache it used to :) There is still more I have to donate and box up. During the school year, they don't play with many toys anyway.

 

If I had the money, I'd love to buy a nicer storage system from Ikea or Target to make the area look more homey. Right now we have Rubbermaid totes and an old Ikea Trofast set with colored bins (that are cracked and broken). Oh well...HTH. Key is DECLUTTER!

[Wheres Toto]

We have way too many toys, IMO. Right now we have three 6 foot high plastic cabinets in the kids room - 1 with school/craft supplies and 2 with toys. They have zip-strip type straps locking them so the kids can't get into them. I bring out 4-5 different toys at a time and new ones don't come out until they go back. Right now its Mr & Mrs. Potatohead, a Little People zoo train, Melissa & Doug wood food and books. Books are always out and I usually have one type of building blocks out at a time and only one other thing with a million pieces.

 

Right now we have very limited storage options - no basement, no attic, no usable garage - but once we rebuild our house I plan to divide all the toys into 3 rotations and keep the "off" ones in the basement. There will always be some kind of blocks out (we have about 4 different kinds), always books, the dress-up stuff will be divided (maybe animal costumes versus people costumes), 1 or 2 Little People sets (we have about 6 of them), etc. All toys will be kept in what will be our school room/play room. I plan to keep nothing but a couple of special stuffed animals and books in their room. I only want to have to clean up one area of toys.

[MyLittleWonders]

This is my job this summer (with dh's help). Right now almost everything is in the garage because I got tired of dealing with it all. For the most part, all three of my boys like to play with the same things, but none of them like putting anything away. So, for the next month (basically until we have time to do anything about it), they each have a small canvas "cube" (the ones from Target) in their room with selected toys, plus they have whatever ds#3 received for his birthday (Hot Wheels and some little action figures). Everything else is massively cluttering up our garage.

 

My goal is to work on the categories that we want to keep, getting rid of the junk, and then deciding how to rotate it all in and out. Here's what we have/are keeping:

 

Legos

Wooden blocks

Wooden train

Imaginex people/action figures (ds#3 is the one that plays with these the most)

Little People (for new baby, though I want to eliminate some of the stuff)

Hot Wheels (and 3 "tracks" - nothing big, just 3 different "jumps")

Playmobil

Army men/vehicles

Dress up/Nerf weapons (because they seem to go hand-in-hand)

 

But, I only want two things in at a time. The boys share rooms (well, two share and one is on his own, but will be sharing with the baby come winter) and there's not much room for toys in there (except their "cubbies" that fit those canvas cubes from Target or small clear bins and under their beds). Even within those categories, I want to purge a good amount of what is included (well, not the Legos or the wooden blocks, but I think everything else can stand some reduction in numbers). I'm just at a loss as to what to do with the toys we decided to bring in to the house.

[Wheres Toto]

What do you all do with the toys you decide to purge? Many of the places I used to donate to (Goodwill and Salvation Army mostly) are no longer accepting a lot of items - toys, clothes with metal buttons or snaps or any baby items.

[MyLittleWonders]

I don't know either; I do know we won't be having a yard sale as dh and I loath yard sales. We've always just dropped stuff off at GW donation bins, so I wasn't aware that many of them are not taking many toys/toy items.