To not want toys brought into the lounge?

[ohnononofenton]

So in context, our downstairs area is all open plan. There’s a smallish lounge, a dining room and then an orangery. The children’s toys and games are in the orangery and their bedrooms.

They both but especially my five year old keep bringing them into the lounge. I hate it. It’s mostly because the lounge is on the small side so quickly gets full, toys get trampled on, end up under the sofa and the TV unit. I end up skidding on toy cars and parts of tool boxes all the time.

I am trying to be quite firm about keeping toys in the orangery or bedrooms. Or is this just too uptight? It’s an ongoing battle keeping the house fairly tidy and I don’t do a bad job but it is a lot of work.

What happens if you don’t sit in the lounge (until after he’s in bed)? If you spend your time in the orangery does he still go through to the lounge?

Perhaps he's not quite ready for it. it's counter productive if he's overwhelmed and stressed. You may need to just do the tidying yourself for a while, with the occasional clear out.

If you have hard flooring perhaps using a toy broom to sweep all the toys together might be a game for him.

Some people are very ordered and need their environment to be that way to be happy. Children generally aren’t that way inclined: they mix their toys up, plays with things in different ways to you’d expect etc. I’ve got one of the wooden pizzas the OP mentioned and I haven’t got a clue where the topping pieces are an it doesn’t bother me. I suspect the OP is going to have to work on letting go a bit as her children get older and you need to let them be a bit freer.

I’m relatively chilled out but reach a point where mess makes me feel quite on edge. The OP obviously hits that point quite quickly.

YABU, it’s what kids do and he’s very little still.

It won’t be forever, and it’s not a huge hassle to just chuck everything back in the playroom at the end of the day or whenever doable.

This is largely my view at the moment. There does come a point where I think you just have to go with what works and with what feels comfortable to you as a parent.

@Lovesacake he tends to roam around a fair bit, which is fine but he does leave a mess strewn in his wake.

What is it that makes them different from conservatories then I wonder?

Where do you sit? If youre sitting in the living room and theyre in "orangery 🙄" then YABU. The kids want to be near to you, not shoved out to another room.

Quite a lot of people have explained this on the thread, if you’re interested. If you’re not interested but want to make snarky remarks - I am not interested.

They aren’t, they can come and go as they wish. And I am regularly commanded to ‘sit there’ by youngest anyway. I’m just asking for them not to take toys out and leave them all over the house, really.

With young children this is virtually impossible! They are playing with toys things are always going to get mixed up, how old are you children? I have twin 3 yr olds, I do a 'reset' of play room 2/3 a week but as soon as everything is in order they just pull it all back out...completely normal for young children, as long as they know how to put things away, they might not do as you ask now but eventually they will

Also for people being an arse about an orangery - these images don’t really scream bog standard conservatory.

https://www.davidsalisbury.com

Why don’t people just google it and learn?

This is a battle you will not win. Enjoy the toys, enjoy them having fun while they are small and play. Toys are always organised chaos, keeping all the bits of certain toys together just isn’t real life when they are small.

buy a nice box. Put it all in there at the end of the day

I don't know what you are talking about. What "snarky" remark? I am quite new to the thread. Thank you for the information

Does he tidy at school, out of interest? (They'd have told you if he didn't!)

We have this in YR a lot. The ones who refuse to tidy at home find the first few weeks quite hard. We all tidy together. Those who do not tidy will have mess saved for them. Every kid tidies up unless they lack the cognitive ability to comprehend tidying (they get taught over a period of years then, but we still embed it).

Mine used to give it a good go at home, but was shit at it and it needed me to do a lot of 'finishing.' I used to put it in to one heap for each room first, which I found quicker. I also used to do it to a timer to keep myself focused. I can do a full YR classroom that's been meltdown trashed in 30 mins (including sorting multiple mixed up hurled drawers of craft things and puzzles) and a sitting room in about 10 mins if I'm hyper focussed on it. My sincere and honest advice, is just do it quicker! It's easy to accidentally waste time, but then you've wasted a whole evening too when you could have been sat resting...

It isn’t quite as palatial as that one to be fair

I think the house was originally two tiny cottages that were joined together and then a couple of extensions added on. I love it but it’s nothing special apart from being my home. It’s literally just that a conservatory is all glass and it isn’t. I’m not really sure what else I should have called it; playroom maybe.

@Lowkey28 we obviously have toy storage. The point is it takes a long time to gather the toys up and put them away. It isn’t just chucking them in a box. That’s what used to happen and it just resulted in bits of things everywhere, the children couldn’t play properly because none of the toys all went together.

@JanglingJessica I am sure he does; he also ate cauliflower cheese at nursery.

I am sure no one needs telling children are very different at home to school/childcare!

They want the dopamine hit from typing something cunty?

I haven’t RTFT as the orangery debate was relentless lollll so this has probably been mentioned, but I have purchased these boxes from John Lewis and they are brilliant for toys, very unobtrusive, and stackable - could you put two in the lounge and just throw everything into the box when you’re tidying up (encouraging DCs to help) and then you can just stack them out of the way in the corner and go and empty them in l’orangerie when you can be bothered? https://www.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-felt-lidded-storage-box/grey/p111391502

Sorry I see you already have boxes. But maybe these boxes will be less annoying in your lounge - they also come in cream! 😂

I understand they can come and go - that's never been a question of mine. Its more - youre "commanded to sit there" - but do you?? How much time are you actually in the same room as their playing?

we just put them in the box at the end of the day. They like playing with bits of everything at the same time. I guess that’s imagination for you, a bit of Lego and some wooden cars or whatever. Thin out the toys, and so long as it’s all away at the end of the evening that’s enough. We use the long hoover hose to get stuff out from under the sofa and a dustpan and brush for mega blocks , all done in seconds ! 3 year old twins will ransack the place but really finding the odd Barbie in your handbag is quite nice

The problem isn’t toy storage, it’s toy gatherage

As an example, this is still a firm favourite a year after it was a Christmas present. And there is

an ice cream cone

two vanilla, two chocolate, two strawberry ‘ice creams’
three ‘toppings’
and a sundae dish.

So - if ds has been on one of his wanders and left bits strewn everywhere think about how long it takes to gather them and put them together so they can continue playing with it: that’s eleven pieces.

And obviously that is not the only toy.

It is so much easier when all in the same room.