Alrighty... time to do something different. I need some motivation here ladies. I'm having trouble getting on top of things at my house lately (largely because we keep unpacking more boxes of crud.....oops, I mean important stuff! lol). The kids toys are basically contained to the basement. They are allowed books and their precious stuffies in their rooms. This is different than what we did at the last house... there we allowed them to have a small selection of toys in their rooms. So far it's working okay. However, the 'playroom' area of the basement is constantly a disaster. Which wouldn't bother me too much except it always migrates to other parts of the basement. It's partly due to the fact that I have a 1 and 3 year old... you can only curtail so much of their messy nature unless you're following them around all day. Which doesn't work for me. :) It's also in part because it is the one part of the house that I don't insist get cleaned every day. So tell me what you do. How do you organize toys? What about those 'odd' toys that don't belong to any sets and just never seem to find a home? (They drive me crazy!!) Do you have any particular rules for toys that work at your house? Tips for getting the 1yo to refrain from pulling every single book off the bookshelves?? (I remember this age and stage with Liam and Fiona as well... the book 'bomb' would visit our house frequently! lol)

I'm not of much help here. I'm at the "burn it all!!!!" stage right now. Ugh.

I have weeded things out. Most of their stuff is in the basement and the littles are not allowed down there during the school day. They have a selection of things upstairs for 'school time play'. But even that is driving me crazy.

I'm a fan of drawers and cubbies though.

Books? Oh dear, no help there. My 3 and 5 yr old still empty shelves to the floor and then walk away :p Doesn't matter if it's a bookshelf, a cubby, a basket, a drawer or gutter shelves. The BEST I can hope for is books being tossed haphazardly on a shelf. No order to it. Just tossed in disarray. But even that rarely happens.

Hmm sorry, I'm kind of in a foul mood at the moment, I'm not being very helpful at all.

Drawers and cubbies, higher shelves???

lol....yes it does sound like you are pretty much where I'm at. If it were just up to me, I'd seriously toss a bunch of stuff. But hubby... well he has a different philosophy about that kind of thing. He thinks the kids should always be able to give permission to part with things. Always be part of the process. You know kids - they will keep *everything* if given the choice. lol I'm in agreement with older kids. But at this age... there are times when you just need to quietly get rid of things, yk? If it were not so deceptive, I'd do it while hubs is away the next few days. He won't notice the difference. Neither will the kids. They haven't *ever* asked for anything that has remained packed. That about tells you how important it is, right? ;) sigh... I'll settle for packing away some more things into storage. Trade things out now and then. But as for the day to day 'out all the time' stuff... I just don't know.

Any advice for dealing with older kids toys? Liam and Fiona each have 1 or 2 things that the youngers shouldn't really be into.

High shelves for the elders.

I plan to have a shelf in the girls room so Doodles can have some 'pretties', display pieces and what not. It will be either just somewhere above her bed (top bunk) or elsewhere in the room, perhaps running the length of a wall...a high shelf about a foot or so from the ceiling.

Obviously, that's very much for just display as even Doodles couldn't reach it LOL

But maybe something in the closet could work too? Depends on what you're trying to 'keep away'. Closet shelf, an organizer of some sort...either the hanging shelves (kwim? those canvas deals?) or something over the door (think shoe organizer pouches)??

Oh and yeah, I try to have the kids involved in purgings. If it's just really old, lost most pieces, trashed..it goes. Period.

But if we're talking 'weeding out'..I involve them. Set a number of items for each to pick and let them pick their favorites. You may want to work this in shifts. Have a number in mind of how many things you would *like* to have...or see leave, whichever way works better for your situation. Then give the kids 3 items to choose from...'ok, you can keep one' then repeat with 3 more items until you have achieved adequate purging. You may even want to break that down to "one to keep, one to give, one to pack away for rotation"

Give them options. Nothing wrong with that. Just let it be known you have expectations and x number of items WILL be gotten rid of. They can help make that choice...or they can give up that control ;)

Oh and yeah, I try to have the kids involved in purgings. If it's just really old, lost most pieces, trashed..it goes. Period.

But if we're talking 'weeding out'..I involve them. Set a number of items for each to pick and let them pick their favorites. You may want to work this in shifts. Have a number in mind of how many things you would *like* to have...or see leave, whichever way works better for your situation. Then give the kids 3 items to choose from...'ok, you can keep one' then repeat with 3 more items until you have achieved adequate purging. You may even want to break that down to "one to keep, one to give, one to pack away for rotation"

Give them options. Nothing wrong with that. Just let it be known you have expectations and x number of items WILL be gotten rid of. They can help make that choice...or they can give up that control ;)

I have started to do that with Liam and Fiona. Particularly before we moved. It was an utter disaster with Fiona. Showed her 3 things, told her to pic two to keep. She just couldn't do it. Complete crying meltdown. "But I want to keep them all!!!" sigh. Liam is a bit better as he doesn't have near the amount of stuff that Fiona does. And he's old enough to realize that often times (ie. before Christmas), *part* of the reason for a purge is because he won't get anything new unless he does. lol

The stuff I just want to get rid of when no one is looking is the misc toys that are not precious to anyone, don't belong to any sets and McD's toys that just always end up scattered everywhere. Not because they are actually enjoyed and getting played with, but because they are tossed to the side when digging in buckets to find something 'better'. kwim?

Well I am not a ton of help we have some good chaos here too :-) The one thing I really like is keeping big sets of things ( train sets, marble works, duplo ) separate. I have clear stacking totes that we keep in the storage room. I usually do not let these loose in the play room. They bring them upstairs and play. This usually lasts a few hours since they have not played with it in awhile. It is easy to clean up even for young ones as it does not get mixed into the other toys and it is not so much to pick up. Plus all the pieces are together and there is less mixed into the toys so less overall to keep picked up. We are still unpacking and in a mess in some places here, will have to see about new ways to organize and keep things clean. Our big kids are great at cleaning up when asked but goodness the two year old can make a mess quicker than stink when you are not watching. :)

Oooh, good topic, since we just re-organized our toys here! :D

We have a slightly different situation and that is that my MIL has told me not to get rid of things, because she wants to make sure that she has enough toys at her house when the kids come over. So if I'm tired of having something around, I usually pack it up and send it to her house, LOL! That helps, because if my daughter protests about me packing her toys up to take out of the house, I just let her know that it'll be at Grandma's house if she really wants to play with it.

Right now, we have 90% of the kids toys in our living room. We have a one level house with no basement, though.

I organized things into several categories:

1) A basket for trains, trucks, planes
2) A container for dolls and doll accessories
3) A box for miscellaneous toys
4) Legos and lincoln logs neatly put into their respective containers
5) Bookshelf organized as follows:
a) On top of the shelf: DD's dollhouse and dollhouse accessories
b) 1st shelf: books that can be easily lined up. On the right of that is a pile of books that is Sabbath appropriate, such as Bible stories, etc. To the right of that is my kids Noah's ark set, so that way they have quick and easy access to Sabbath toys. In front of that is Mr. Potato Head.
c) Bottom shelf:
Larger books such as child encyclopedia/reference books, laid neatly in a pile. To the right are all the little chunky baby type books that can't be easily lined up like normal books.

6) To the left of the shelf is my DD's toy washer and dryer set

I hope that helps some! Of course, we all have different situations as far as space and preferences.

It was very invigorating to finally go through my toys. Before I went through them, we had so many toys around (and they were so disorganized) that the kids could hardly find anything to play with!

Kathaleen, I've done that with big sets of things as well. They're all in storage under the stairwell. I don't generally let them bring it upstairs (although there are exceptions!) but I do require that the playroom be completely tidied before bringing out one of those sets.

Ruth, we used to be able to bring toys to Grandmas too. :) That was great! lol But she has long term houseguests now so we had to take all our stuff back which is probably contributing to my 'what to do with all this stuff' situation.

Quick survey....

Do you keep McDonald's toys and other small, not very valuable toys? If yes, what do you do with them? If no, do you just pitch them? Give them away?

My dd has a plethora of miscellaneous toys. She has 4 pet shop animals. Three are from McD's. She doesn't really play with them but insists they must be kept. She has 3 Strawberry Shortcake toys. Again, they don't really get played with, but I can't convince her to pass them on. Would you keep stuff like this? Make her get rid of it? sigh... it's the little things like this that drive me crazy. lol

Kim, maybe you could suggest to Fiona that she donate the toys to children who don't have any toys?

Kim, maybe you could suggest to Fiona that she donate the toys to children who don't have any toys?

Tried that. Sad to say she's not quite there yet. :/

I'm very much like Tara when it comes to these topics! lol

Here's a few general rules we go by, because I become a nasty woman when we have too much "stuff", especially toys!

1. Never keep McDonalds/Wendys toys. In fact we've quit ordering happy meals for the kids and rather just get larger chicken nuggets, etc to share. I cannot handle those cheap plastic toys that barely work.

2. If the kids get something new, something old has to go.

3. I have a couple Ikea TROFAST units (with bins that slide in/out) and I got vinyl lettering to put on them - lego, magnetix, train, baby toys, play food, etc. and basically whatever can't fit in those, out it goes!

4. If we get something for the house that comes in a big cardboard box, I let the boys play with it for a week or so until they forget about it, then I talk it over with them and they actually understand why it's ok to let it go... then we take it to the dump or recycling together. I think it's good to talk things over with your kids and let them see why it's actually a good idea.

5. I watch shows like Hoarders or Consumed with my boys and they're usually more than willing to release old toys! lol

Hope that helps!

Margi, it's funny you should mention good 'ol ikea.... just today I learned that they have bins that will fit in our EXPEDIT unit (already in the kids room) that have *zippered* lids. I think that will help a bit. Particularly because Alanna can't do zippers yet! :mrgreen: heehee! I think the zippers will also help the older kids think twice (with training of course) before dumping multiple things on the floor. We also have plans to get a second EXPEDIT unit shortly. I think that will help even more. :)

You know, I'm with you on the McD's toys. However, hubby and I are not on the same page with that one. At the moment, it's not a battle worth fighting, so I've had to let it go. That said, I need to figure out how to deal with what is already in the house.

As for new things coming into the house, (particularly with Christmas in mind) I'm kind of sneaky... I try to coordinate willing relatives so that the kids receive multiple items from one type of toy, so they end up with a new 'set' so to speak. So last year when Liam was just getting heavy into Ben 10, several of his gifts were Ben 10... instead of a bunch of misc. toys that won't get played with as much. The one thing in, one thing out rule is great... I can see myself using it some of the time. The only problem that I foresee is that often times when one kid grows out of it, the next kid down is the perfect age to grow into it. Thus it can't actually leave. Some days you just can't win. lol

Thanks for your input, Margi! [cheerful]

As for new things coming into the house, (particularly with Christmas in mind) I'm kind of sneaky... I try to coordinate willing relatives so that the kids receive multiple items from one type of toy, so they end up with a new 'set' so to speak. So last year when Liam was just getting heavy into Ben 10, several of his gifts were Ben 10... instead of a bunch of misc. toys that won't get played with as much.

What a great idea! I've had that idea in theory but I haven't actually put it in motion. The in-laws LOVE to give toys that have many little pieces, and they'll give completely different sets to each kid... I'd rather even just have them get a big bin of Lego for all the boys instead of little sets of trendy stuff that gets forgotten after a few weeks!

You know, I'm with you on the McD's toys. However, hubby and I are not on the same page with that one. At the moment, it's not a battle worth fighting, so I've had to let it go. That said, I need to figure out how to deal with what is already in the house.



I say hub needs to be picking them up then :~p ;)

We have never been ones to get the happy meals. Only from Chick Fil A sometimes. However, we have an aunt who seems drawn to these things. She either buys the meals for herself or loads up on the pieces at garage sales. Then saves them up for my kids <sigh> I've decided to put them in our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes :D The toys are still in their little packages...so as soon as I see them come through the big box my kids unload...I just exclaim "ooo great! those will be perfect for our shoeboxes!" and they excitedly proclaim "yeah! oh look, here's another!" hehe :D