The amount of mess in my house makes me want to cry, cleaning it up constantly makes me want to cry

Storage footstools or ottomans are great. Or baskets with lids.

It’s more realistic to just open ottoman or basket and get toddler to help throw stuff in.
Everything possible has a lid in my house so it hides mess.

Otherwise baskets with no lids slide under sofa. That’s where I store the heavy brio.

Any ottoman or basket is only 1/2 full. If you try and ram too much into small
basket then it’s harder for small children to find stuff or re- tidy away

I have a constant bag for charity or bin for random things that accumulate like freebies from town fair or things he’s outgrown

My children are adults now so don't need parenting lessons thanks. FYI despite no tidying lessons as toddlers they are very tidy nowadays. Are yours adults?

I didn't say anything about whether disabled people can tidy so not sure why you keep mentioning that. Obviously it depends on the disability.

If you’re not teaching your kids how to tidy up I have no qualms about saying that you’re failing them in that regard.

It is about learning to take responsibility for your possessions, take pride in your space and have respect for other people by not allowing your mess to impede on them, as well as about clearing the space to take on a new activity. My child has been capable of doing it with guidance since they were under one. And yeah, it is work for parents to teach this. Parenting is work, have you heard?

And I have no idea what the f disability has to do with anything. Any child with a disability needs to learn to tidy up within the scope of their ability same as any other child.

Parents who don’t teach their kids the basic skills of being in the world are the reason teachers and anyone else who has to deal with such kids despair.

It's not a “skill” to know that you need to put things away if you want space and for things to look tidy. Anyone with half a brain will have worked that out by the time they are tweens/teenagers/adults. Whether or not they actually do tidy will depend on how much they care about whether things are tidy and how much time resources they have.

First step - Stop buying toys.

Buying and giving toys does not equal love.

You have overwhelmed children, an overwhelmed house and an overwhelmed you.

Our best friends had a professional nanny and the first thing she did was bag up 50% of the toys and put them away. She then rotated the toys around every 6 weeks. I thought this was genius!

If there is too much out that they can no longer play learning to make space and stay safe is a skill. If we are taught to do it young we are more likely to accept doing it as tweens and teens who should be helping out not being lazy arses incapable of household chores. At what age do you think someone should have responsibility?

Just because they tidy toys away at nursery doesn't mean it is a "skill" and it certainly doesn't demonstrate that toddlers have to be told to tidy things away incessantly all day at home. If anything it demonstrates the opposite. Many of the three years olds will only have tidied at the end of the day at home if at all but will do it a nursery or school when asked.

Kids are very different at childcare settings than at home.

As you doubtless know.

Of course it's a skill. What do you think happens when they are 3 and start school nursery that 40 children are allowed to just dump toys out all day long then staff spend a few hours tidying for tomorrow? Or that the kids suddenly think wow this is fun I want to be tidy?
Not sure what disabled or non disabled has to do with it....disabled people can often tidy up to.

That sounds like more work than just tidying things away with them at the end of the day. Putting things back isn't a skill. All non disabled adults can tidy up after themselves if they want to and if they don't you can't make them want to be tidy.

Get rid of things and be ruthless.

separate their toys into separate storage boxes/cubes with a variety of different bits inside and make the rule that only one box is out and open and a time. If they want to switch then everything goes back inside the box and another can be taken out.

I gave up tidying toys. Just put them in a pile in a corner. There's no point

the parent sets the limits. They are required to do this at nursery and need these skills at school and preschool. You repeat as a mantra, pretty much all day long: “When you’re finished with a toy it goes away and then you can get out the next thing”. If they don’t, you take away the thing they want next and you let them have it back when they’re done. You have to motivate, help, set example but if you’re consistent they will learn and repeat the rule back to you if you break it yourself!

it’s not cruelty it’s a skill they actually need

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I bought some of these for jigsaws, lego etc, anything with tiny bits in large boxes. 2 year old DGD knows which toy goes in which colour wallet. Can all be chucked in the toy chest at the end of the day and no danger of boxes breaking or tipping up.

This looks easy to do - staple a sheet to a cardboard box, tape over the staples and there you go 🤗

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We used to keep toys in large boxes on 14 inch deep sets of shelves. They were very much discouraged from just dumping it all on the floor at once.

I only said throwing things away is wasteful. If you aren't throwing things away and agree that the behaviour of your family isn't normal or healthy why are you do defensive?

Honestly I'd massively reduce toys available. Like massively. I had very few toys as a child and I'm very creative and imaginative. Throw out the least played with half and put the rest in cupboard / storage / loft.

So you might end up with:

One set of pencils, two paper pads, two scissors, one sticker book
One bag of Lego/ duplo
One box of open ended wooden blocks and animals / figures
Teddies
One box of play doh and cutters

If you only have eg 5 toys, you only ever have 5 things to put away.

Those huge drawstring sacks for Lego and paper sacks for soft toys are great. You can make a game of putting things away by throwing them into the sack.

I never said we threw it away. We donate, we sell, we pass on. We donate lot of sorting out, we replace younger toys with the newer, more stretching ones.

It is an added workload we could do without. But one day we won't have these people. And maybe it's not the healthiest of behaviours from those people, but what do you think we should do? Force them to change their behaviour? Stage an intervention? Or, do we just let them do the thing that makes them happy, given they're in their 70s & 80s?

I feel your pain here. I have ADHD and autism so I both desperately need order and really really struggle to maintain it - and the small kids chaos is just overwhelming!!

My advice is to get rid of most toys. There sound like there are lots and most of them probably aren't favourites.

Then keep any 'sets' of toys out of reach. So they can be brought down by an adult, tidied, put back away before something else comes out.

Maybe have 1 or 2 things out that they can just consistently play with if they have free play time.

Something like one of those wooden rainbows for construction play. Or colouring books and pencils.

That way you have a balance of them being able to access some limited toys, and everything else had to be got down by an adult.

They don't really need loads of toys to have fun. I've been on week long holidays in a house where there is just a set of wooden construction toys (hard to describe) but they just play with it endlessly and don't seem to notice they don't have their usual billion toy chaos around.

So they are shopholics rather than hoarders. Either way, constantly buying things even though you beg them not to especially to the extent that your DH brings a bag of stuff home every week which you throw away is not normal healthy behaviour.

But they do not live surrounded by stuff, unable to get rid. They buy for other people. It's their way of showing love and affection. Which is why they get hurt when we try to turn it down.

Have a read up on hoarding.

Okay. Maybe they are shopaholics rather than hoarders. Either way they have issues.

@wombat15 that's retail therapy or a shopaholic, if you will. Different set of issues.