To feel that we are at "peak toy".

[specialmagiclady]

Boys are 7 and 9. We are drowning, just drowning in toys.

I have been pretty good in that I have boxed up and lofted: duplo, certain special baby toys and wooden train and got rid of a lot of the larger "preschool" toys like play kitchen, pots and pans, playdoh stuff etc.

They still occasionally do dressing up (but I have my eye on that next and I have got rid of the too-small costumes) and like to have Cuddly Olympics with their millions of cuddly toys. They are totally in the prime of love with Lego of which we have millions.

Things I would happily let go: Tracey island, millenium falcon, toy cars, toy animals and dinosaurs, playmobil, anything plastic over about the size of the playmobil helicopter.

They are adamant that they play with them ALL. They don't, but they notice if I sneak it out to the charity shop.

Is it because they are still little enough to want to play with some of the younger stuff, but old enough to play board games etc that we just have so much? Is it going to get better? Will they suddenly say "actually I think we're a bit old for this, mum"? Or am I going to have to be The Bitch (again)?

Either I invest massively in new storage (££££ nobody puts expedit on freecycle) or I chuck chuck chuck....WWYD? WIBU to just get rid of a load of stuff?

[drspouse]

IpanemaMeisje even paper and crayons? really???!

It will cost a lot to send/bring that sort of stuff. Especially paper. Surely children buy cheap exercise books for school? And cheap pencils?

And I do know quite a bit about children in orphanages not being stimulated but in the countries I know best (I have been to Brazil but it's not where I know best) then it would be much more helpful to the local economy to pay for someone to make toys out of scraps, rather than pay to send unwanted toys - someone locally would make some money out of them that way.

Anyway this is a side issue and a whole other soapbox.

[Katreats]

I can remember, vividly, being upset at coming home to discover toys had been donated to local nursery, not because I played with them but because I wasn't consulted! I was a precocious little shit I reckon and well done to my mum for putting up with me, but it might be worth having the kids involved taking them to the point of donation so they can feel good about themselves, also I would never get rid of a millenium falcon that's an awesome toy

[MadeMan]

Special Madge it might be easier just to buy a bigger house. You should keep the Falcon and the Lego; everyone loves Lego. I'm pushing 40 years old and even I'm tempted to buy The Simpsons House.

[prettydaisies]

Hmm...
Mine are 18, 16 and 12. Looking round the sitting room (we don't run to a playroom) we have currently Sylvanians on some of the floor and scarelextric set up, about 5 different musical instruments (and I know 2 big ones - tenor sax and trombone are at school), a couple of laptops, shelves full of board games, puzzles, lego and crafty bits and various books lying around. So there's still plenty of 'stuff'!!

[ErrolTheDragon]

DH used his budgeted 'birthday money' to buy a big lego robotics kit last week - mainly for DD's benefit I think. He wisely bought a set of component drawers from Maplin and has dutifully sorted all the bits into them. I predict that the dining room table will disappear under this in the easter hols and not re-emerge until he next has a client visit the house.

The other 'toy' DD craves now is a windsurf board and rig... no idea where we'd put those!

[SylvaniansKeepGettingHoovered]

We are currently at Peak Toy. DDs are 7 and 5.

I find Peak Toy hard work and draining, but I'm glad we're finished with the noisy toys, i.e. when the DDs were toddlers/babies and we had millions of V-Tech noisy toys, bulky ride-on toys, walkers, wooden blocks, endless noisy books and singing toys which needed batteries.

We have a lot of playmobil, many many naked dolls, piles of dolls clothes, and tons and tons of craft, pens, beads. Our puzzles and games are quite well organised though, on shelving, and we've taken control of the books too.

[MrsYoungSalvoMontalbano]

lol at Peak Toy Oh, yes! My DC are now teenagers, but somehow they years went by so fast that I missed the point they stopped playing with lego, and have not been able to let go and get rid of all that stuff.. (Maybe not so unconsciously thinking of grandkids....? They and Dh would see the stuff go without a second glance. me... I'm not yet ready...

[Dancergirl]

I agree kissme embrace the toys!

Already my older two are too old for toys I'm hanging on to dd3's smallness.

[drspouse]

So if you are interested, donate soft toys DO get sold in markets in developing countries. I took this photo yesterday: