To not want toys brought into the lounge?

Aww, maybe they find the orangery whatever that is I assume like a conservatory ??? too cold or just want to be with you in the lounge area . They don’t stay little for long and then once they hit teenage years you’ll not see them they live in their bedrooms 😂😂😂. Let them be but insist they tidy up at bedtime or if you’re leaving the house

You brought children into the world, and admit to having a small house but are effective banning them from a major part of the house. Okey dokey.

You might know it by its former name; an extension. Often with massive windows and possibly a skylight too. All very nice, but just an extension. Until builders and window companies and estate agents realised they could charge gullible people more money if they called it an orangery.

Orangery 🤣🤣

You lost me at “orangery”, OP 😂 I can’t believe you really call it this?? Brilliant!

But yes, toys should be allowed in the living room IMHO. It’s your children’s home too! Obviously tidying up / not having too much out at once important too.

Have you tried toy rotation - my kids toys are effectively split half (except a couple of their most precious ones, books and cuddly toys). Swap them one a week. Soooo much less mess to clear up and easier to keep track of things. I believe as kids get older the answer is supposed to be to swap to a "toy library" where they can swap one toy for another.

Just relax and let them be happy in their home. In afew years toys will be a memory

So then work on your parenting skills! And let the children be children!

I think we used to have an orangery... Although we called it a sunroom. It deffo wasn't a conservatory.

Anyways, I also grew up in a house where all mine and my siblings stuff had to be squirreled away upstairs and I wasn't actually really allowed in my parents room either, so I grew up thinking it was trashy and chavvy to have kids stuff visible and just out and about in the living room 🥴 despite the fact that I wasn't happy at all growing up under such uptight conditions.

I'm not like that at all now I've got my own children, and think people who seperate their kids stuff completely off are a bit mean. Mostly because I think it puts odd notions in children's minds that their stuff is an unwelcome inconvenience, and perhaps as an extension that THEY are an unwelcome inconvenience.

My kids stuff is all in the living room and there is tonnes of it. It takes me about 5 minutes to clear it up (probably because everything has it's own place!). Maybe 10 minutes if they've made a den. Although if stuff ends up under the sofa then it's gone until I can be bothered to lift them up, usually once a week.

I suggest having a pretty fabric 'toy basket' you can throw all the odds and ends in you come across in the evening, and if they're missing a piece when they're playing then they can check in there for it.

I also have a gem jar and a gem chart with all the skills I'm working on with my youngest. Once he gets 30 gems, he gets a small prize (usually some toy he has asked for). Helping is one of his skills, which includes tidying his toys up. If I specifically ask him to tidy up with me and he refuses, he may lose a gem. But there's always opportunity to earn it back.

However I am aware as a parent it is ultimately my responsibility to clear his toys away... It's part of the deal.

I would also rather be stressed by visual clutter than have my kids grow up internalising feelings of being an inconvenience. Wouldn't you?

then again, why not move some furniture into the orangery?

Regarding Orangery, it all depends whether you keep to the original meaning or the more modern one. In the end who cares ? A bit like Lounge, Sitting room, Parlour, Front room, etc.etc.

However, regarding toys. Someone once said to me ‘You aren’t a real parent until you’ve trodden on a piece of Lego and, while hopping around on the other foot trying not to swear, you’ve put your full weight down heavily on that second foot on another piece’.

If you spend your precious two hours tidying toys, when are you having ‘quality time’ with your children ?

Surely it can’t be an Orangery unless it’s full of oranges?

In which case there would be no room for toys.

I don’t know if this will be of any use to you but we have now started to keep a big kallax unit full of DS’s toys up high out of his reach and bring one box out at a time. (The ikea ones will all the box insert type things)

He didn’t get another box out until that one had been tidied away.
Sometimes it works and he put the toys back in that box to get another.
Sometimes he just continues playing with the contents of that particular box.
Oftentimes I end up clearing it away once he is in bed but crucially it’s now only one boxful rather than all the toys, which was is helpful as we only have a small area of floor space in the living room and as I have mobility issues, clearing up all the toys is well beyond me by that time in the evening.

Appreciate that may not be helpful when you’ve got two children to deal with though.

I always think that I will miss the toys once they don’t cover my living room floor, so I really try my best to not make a big deal about it, they clean up after all, I want to raise a living room kid not a bedroom one 😄

@ohnononofentonI like an orangery - so much nicer than a conservatory! And YANBU. I hate mess.

It's a bit like how people create desire lines, kids will play where they want to and where their parents are. My living room is more like a playroom with two sofas and a tv in 😅 but it's just where my son likes to be because we're there too.

Yabu to call it an Orangery. Unless you grow oranges in it. Ha ha.
And very unreasonable to not be happy about your kids using their home as their home. If you had a totally separate lounge (4 walls and a door) then that would be easy to keep separate and for the kids to understand that. As your downstairs is open plan, thats huge play area for your kids. I would let them be kids.

I had to Google it 😭

Kids need to be able to have uninterrupted, immersive imaginative play where their toys become whatever they’re needed to be…mine used to make massive railway/town/farm/jungle mashups stretching over several rooms.

No, they do not need to do this.... i was never allowed to and my children aren't either. Guess what, I'm a happy and successful adult that thrived nonetheless! True creativity isn't doing whatever you want with no limits, its doing it with what you have available to you.

Orangery😂😂😂😂…. Someone’s up their own arse !

Orangery 😂

A hyacinth bucket term if ever i heard one

This is completely normal. Children want to play where you are, they'll stray into the lounge with toys if you tend to drift off there.

I don’t have an orangery so kids played in the lounge. They soon learnt that I at least needed to be able to get from the kitchen to the stairs without having to tip toe over the Brio, and that they’d be helping to clear up, so the more mess the longer to tidy.

I don't really understand what an orangery is but I really really want one in my house.

Anyone else have to Google what an orangery is? I'm in my 30s and have never heard of it

Sorry last point..we also toy rotate , so they don’t have everything out at once. Maybe put the dressing up stuff away or whatever for a month or two and then swap it out , less stuff, less carnage