To be overwhelmed with toys in a small house?

[MooseBreath]

My house has a small living area. The main floor has a kitchen/diner and a living room, but no other living space in the house. Bedrooms are small, so not great for play. We therefore have to share the living space with our children (nearly 3 and 6 months). Obviously kids that age come with a lot of stuff and our living room currently contains a bouncy chair, a jumperoo, hanging toys, a toy storage unit with 3 boxes, and an ottoman toy box, plus all the things in a normal living room (sofa, chair, coffee table, sideboard, TV unit, TV).

On loads of forums and parenting articles, people suggest that parents rotate children's toys so that it's not the same stuff every day. Our space is limited in our house, so I thought this would work really well for us.

But DS (nearly 3) refuses to have the toys rotated! If I put any in storage, he immediately asks (politely, in fairness) for the exact toys I have put away. But he then adds the recently rotated-in toys to his play and I can't cycle the new ones back! He knows every single toy he owns and plays with all of them together Toy Story style. But this leaves our house in such a state and I can't get on top of it.

AIBU to be pulling my hair out? I'm not from the UK and the standard in my home country is a separate playroom or basement, plus a bigger footprint for houses. How do you all keep a house reasonably tidy with children?!

You are not unreasonable to feel overwhelmed but your child does appreciate and love their toys.

the key is reducing the amount they have. Which you can’t easily do now they’ve got them. But restrict what comes in and try and reduce what they have, as they grow out of it all

I also find you have to be STRICT with loving friends and family who obviously want to buy toys galore at Christmas / birthdays etc

it’s taken a while but they finally understand my FIRM “just a book please” or “a lovely outfit for XXX would be great”, especially whilst they’re relatively too young to understand what presents are

I never bought that many toys and had a storage trunk in the sitting room that doubled up as a seat and used to chuck them all in at the end of the day.

My friend had a similar size house but their kids had so many toys it was like a shop and always looked cluttered but both sets of grandparents bought loads.

I suppose how many toys are too many.

When I had 3 kids in a very small space, I really got into Marie Kondo

Honestly I would just accept that this is life with small children for now. Make sure you have places to store everything so they can be easily chucked away at the end of the day to give you the space back. Sometimes acceptance is the best course! If he's actually playing with the toys, then I wouldn't put them away. I'd try not to worry about it during the day and then make tidying everything up part of your pre-bed routine with older child (we do this with our 4yo and playroom) so you reclaim it a bit for the evening.

Once you lose the bouncy chair and jumperoo it will help as those are big pieces of equipment.

Oh and our biggest win for baby stuff was just one big fabric sack that stuff all over the floor can just be thrown in to either be sorted later or just left in there to be played with. It doesn't take long to chuck stuff in it and then it's at least contained!

I’m afraid it’s something you kind of deal with until they get older and no longer want toys… I tend to store some in bedrooms and some in ikea trofast units downstairs. We do have a lot of toys in the living room but I know it’s temporary so I just live with it.

I agree that it's rubbish but also that's it is part of life with small kids. I find it very important to be able to put everything away at the end of the day. I usually do bedtime while DH clears up so I come down to a nice tidy room. Obviously there are somethings you can't put away like the big baby equipment but nothing makes your heart sink to coming into a room and seeing the floor carpeted with Lego.

Stacking boxes? I used these. I had about 8 stacked in the living room. Different ones for

Oops pressed send!

Different ones for different toys. One for Lego, one for dinosaurs, one for cars etc. Start of bedtime routine was clearing most of it up back into the boxes. DH finished it off while I was upstairs.

One option is storage under sofas if yours are high enough off the floor. I do think you could get your three old to help tidy up if you don't already so that it's in a reasonable state by bedtime. I have just had to embrace the living room looking like a playroom phase for now and chuck what I can in a large ottoman!

Why are you letting your 3 year old make decisions?

A simple “no, we’re not playing with X today” suffices.

We have labelled Trofast storage so DD1 can easily see what's inside and find what she's looking for. It's helped a lot as means everything doesn't need hauled out to find one particular stegosaurus!

Because I'm not about to start limiting his imagination. If he wants to have a tea party in a MegaBloks castle with cars, PJ masks, and farm animals, why shouldn't I encourage that? It's not like he's dictating that the toys stay in the living room and then not using them, he is actively engaging.

I agree with other pp’s. While it is a bit frustrating, the time they play with lots of toys is relatively short. So I’d just make the best of it for now. Do what you can with storage and yes definitely get the 3yr old to help put away at the end of the day. I always did that with my DC and it just became part of the routine.

Our sofas are too low, unfortunately. Our current storage is Trofast, but we can only fit 3 of the bins! We do tidy up every evening before bed, but there isn't enough storage to put the toys away properly, IYSWIM.

Definitely a big contribution to the problem is grandparents! We didn't buy most of the toys!

just be grateful the ki is into toys, not screens. And is polite.
Make tidying up at the end a game.

I have sympathy. I found the toy stage hard. I came on to say it will pass. The toys get smaller as they get older and one day your living space will be just that again.

My son also wasnt mad keen on the rota idea as he didnt want a tea set day, a dolls house day and a train set day. He wanted to to take the figures, on a train to a tea party.

I found it easier to rotate games, puzzles and crafts though.

My only tips are to have storage thats adequete and put stuff away each day.

How did you do the labelling?

this is lovely. And helps the kid to learn about sorting, categories etc.

I bought the labels on Etsy. You can get personalised ones with whatever you want and then they just stick on!

He is definitely into screens as well! But I will try to remember that he could have just rejected toys, that's a good point.

Tidy once they're asleep. They'll get it all out tomorrow and I'll do the same. For that reason make putting away simple.

We do tidy up every evening before bed, but there isn't enough storage to put the toys away properly, IYSWIM

The solution is to only have as many toys as you can comfortably store. If your DS is playing with them all now, though, you can only make a pact that going forward you will limit the toys coming in, and gradually reduce that way.

Remember the bulky baby stuff will go in time and it’ll feel less crowded.

Have a watch of Minimal Mom on YouTube.

This. Or ask for experiences such as annual passes to local places like farms/soft plays or whatever is around you. Grandparents recently bought us merlin passes for the year which are expensive but they didn't want to waste money on 'stuff' as they put it.