To be scunnered by the state of my lovely new house

[Anythingelseintheboxpandora]

Jesus fucking Christ. Is this normal?!

Two girls - 6 and 4. Moved into a brand new new build not six months ago. It was perfect. We decluttered, they have a huge playroom, ample space etc.

It’s a fucking pigsty now. Toys everywhere. Not a square inch on the floor. They do nothing. They just drag everything out. They put nothing away. Six year old flings herself to the floor in dramatic tears if I have the temerity to ask her to put her barbies away.

And it’s the mixing of toys too. Sylvanian family house full of Lego and barbie shoes. Jenga blocks in the Lego.

I have just flipped my lid. Still no one is tidying. I tidy one room while they trash another.

I’m just…gaaaah!

I think you need to start with a really good organised system. Make it super easy for them to tidy up. Involve them in how’s it’s organised and structured. Label maker if necessary!! Make sure the storage really works. Be ruthless, take every tiny bit out of every box. Summer is coming up so may be a good time then?

Then you have an easy system for then, just make tidying up part of the routine. We had dinner, fruit, then tidy up then “sweet thing” (yoghurt or biscuit) in front of the TV, which encouraged them to get on with it. Obviously if the tidying took too long then we wouldn’t have time for sweet thing. We also played a comedy song called “tidy up” by nick cope which they loved. If they tidied nicely all week they got £1 on the Saturday.

Someone who is pretty good at room organisation etc is playful den on instagram.

Too many toys.
I used to keep no more than a third of toys out. Everything else was boxed away in the loft and rotated about every 6 weeks.

Don't be fussed how you tidy. No sorting stuff into different containers just sweep it up.

But, don't forget it's their home too. Maybe keep toys to bedrooms at that age?

My kids are the same, it's so annoying. I took all the toys out of the living room and put them in their rooms, so at least the living room is always tidy. If their bedrooms aren't tidy they get no iPads, treats and no friends to visit. Most of the time they don't care and their rooms are usually a mess.

Why not designate one room as the playroom and let that be as messy as hell but other rooms must be kept tidy with a 'one in one out' toy rule. One toy at a time in any room except the playroom.

I tried to rotate my 7 year olds toys and she annoyed me even more whinging for toys on the other rotation.

I ended up getting a trofast stacking unit and sorting toys into themes. I get each box out each night and set a timer, she has to put all the toys for that theme in the box before the timer runs out. If she beats all the timers she gets a small reward; bag of mini haribo, a lolly, a mini milkway etc.

Works for us.

Same here with two boys 6 and 2. Bits of toys end up in bits of other toys, so they don't play with the toys as the manufacturer intended, they just bash them together it insert bits of one toy into another. I may as well have bought them a pile of rubble from a building site.

OH doesn't bother to sort through the bits and put them back where they belong, so I won't now either.

I am in a 2 bed flat though with no loft and minimal outside space. That is pretty hard. It drives me utterly nuts, but the housing and rental market is shit and we are trying to save a deposit. It did dawn on me the other day, do I really need a play kitchen, when my son hardly plays with it and he probably has access to one at nursery?

At 6 & 4 they are still very young, I think most children this age make a mess. Although I don't know any 6yr old that still throws tantrums. Shes far to old for that but it gets her, her own way so why would she stop. I'm afraid the problem here is you.

You need to tell them when to clean. All 3 of you should be picking up the toys together at the end of every day. If 6yr old throws a tantrum, take away her favourite thing for a day or 2. You need to make it clear to her that that behaviour is not OK.

You'll need to be specific with instructions - "tidy up your toys" is too vague. Tell them to pick up specific items or clear a particular area. Tidying effectively is a learned skill not an inbuilt ability. Visual clues help so they know how it's meant to look (laminated photos of the tidy room) and easy to use storage.
You're the adult in charge. If they're walking all over you now, the teenage years will be a real challenge when they start testing boundaries.

When my kids were young and at school, the teacher used to have "tidy up time" before hometime.

I feel your pain OP. I have a 4 year old and I feel like I live in a sea of hot wheels.

They are very little. I wouldn’t expect too much at that age. Can you tidy up before they get to do something they really like, such as TV or snack time? You will need to get stick in and lead them, I don’t think they can be expected to do it alone. Toy mixing up isn’t the end of the world. I have a sort out every few months and put everything back together again.

Save your nuclear meltdown for when they’re 12 and lazy as shit like my eldest.

At that age you need to teach them to tidy.

And make the storage systems very robust.

Putting the effort in now should pay off later though.

Have you ever taught them how to tidy up their toys?

I'm not proud of this, but I did once throw away a jigsaw.

I'd asked DD to put it back in the box and put it away numerous times. It became a bit of a stand off, so I said "if you haven't picked it up and put it away by the time I've done x thing, it's going in the bin"

It went in the bin. Like I said, it's not something I'm proud of, and I won't repeat it, but it had the desired effect.

It's so frustrating but I definitely agree with paring the toys right back. DD only plays with a small percentage of her toys so it is much easier to keep on top of and after I threw her jigsaw in the bin she knows I'm not kidding when it's time to tidy up!

Lots of firm jollity, proper storage and determined parenting. Win this battle now - before they get older and decide they won't help with the hoovering, the cooking, the recycling...

At DS's nursery, when he was little, they used to put a plate of biscuits out ostentatiously on a high table and then play the "Mission Impossible" theme tune until everything was put away.

Can't you limit playing to the playroom only? No toys anywhere else in the house. Let the playroom remain a tip.....after all, it's for playing. Shut the door on it so you can't see it.

Keep everywhere else tidy and don't let them play in any other room.

Tell them there are 2 £1 coins hidden under all the toys and if they put the toys away in the right places whoever finds the money gets to keep it.

• keep the coins on you until almost all the tidying is completed then stash them under what's left

I agree with pp - toys come out of their boxes when they're bought and they go into an End Home, which is usually a plastic box with a lot of like toys in. All barbies and equipment live in one box so when we are playing barbies that box comes out, and even little kids can Chuck things into a big plastic box. Ditto for Lego, sylvanians, ponies, peppa pig - all in separate boxes and we play with a few boxes at a time. It's an advantage if the box clicks shut so only an adult can open it and allow access.

Tidy up time regularly at that age like a playgroup would. Before dinner, going for walk etc. Build in time to do it.

I do lose my shit over board games though as I hate finding odd bits of those.

I actually think it's hard if you've got well behaved children because you've not had to follow through on consequences to their actions before, in a significant way.

Like some PP said - ask them to do something. Tell them what will happen if it's not done. Carry it through. I only had to throw one barbie away (and I deliberately chose an old, ratty, third hand one to put in the bin) before they realised that when I said "toys on the floor get put away or they're going in the bin" I actually meant it.

Mine are 5, 7 and 9, and TBH we've only started cracking this now. I wish we'd tried this sooner.

After it took an entire day to tidy the playroom a few weeks ago we found something that seems to work. DH told them he'd check the room each night and if there was anything not put away it would go into a binbag. (He didn't specify whether it would be into the bin after that or out to the garage for a while, though we'd do the latter.)

They're allowed to ask to leave out a game overnight - like if they've set up a cafe - but if I say no then they must tidy.

We've managed three weeks with a tidy playroom every day, and today DH and I both dedicated a half hour at the same time to play an imaginative game with them in there as encouragement. This is a big reward because I am NOT playful (DH is). We had fun playing shops.

So you could try that.

Mixing toys drives me absolutely bonkers. It's usually when my husband has done the 'tidying up'. He thinks that I'm nuts for going nuts when I find a piece of a Peppa Pig jigsaw in the Paw Patrol jigsaw box. He says they're both jigsaws so it doesn't matter. Drives me mad.

It's so hard to keep on top of the toy mess when they are that age. I spent hours tidying bloody lego.
Maybe have a rule that they play with messy toys (Sylvanian, Lego) only in the play room and cuddly toys only in the bedroom and the rest of the house is not for toys.

Would it help to have special zones for different toys? We build a big low table for Lego with beading on the edges to stop the pieces from falling off. Or spread out a huge sheet for them to play it on and then just tie it up at the end of the evening.

I used to spend half an hour every single evening tidying their toys at that age, even with their help. I'd forgotten what it's like.

@gardeninggirl68

what are the consequences of not tidying up?

Treading on a Lego brick just wearing slippers or worse still - bare foot. I think the Spanish Inquisition missed a trick here!

While there's a balance to be found - being a kid would be pretty dull if every little brick and freshly-completed Sylvanian house were put away moments after completion - you can still instil some boundaries. You do need to show them your expectations and the consequences.

I have a simple rule that they cannot take out a new toy until the old ones are put away (within reason, as I like Sylvanian set-ups and Lego areas.) If they continue to take out toys, throw them and make no effort to clean, they sit on the step for a few minutes and are told to tidy, and if they refuse, they go back to the step. No treats. Dramatic tears? Back to the step.

Though honestly, I rarely have to do this. I set the expectations - there are easy storage boxes and it's all very obvious where everything goes, Sylvanians here and Lego there - and they know they'll lose fun things and treats if they don't, so they just do. I leave out some stuff but the majority is tidied. It becomes habit.

Many of us work full-time, it's not unusual. You'll probably have to clean up after the four year old more, that's part and parcel, but they can be encouraged so long as there are consequences for non-compliance.

Mine was the same so LO gets £3 a week to keep it tidy and make the bed