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.

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 😄

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.

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

In which case there would be no room for toys.

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 ?

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

Orangery 🤣🤣

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.

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.

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

We had a select few toys in the living room in a toy box. Four kids here so a couple of toys for each of them, plus some 'communal' toys. Anything else was in their bedrooms. The toys were regularly rotated so the ones in the living room didn't get tiresome. I found they just wanted to play wherever I was, so telling them to stay in another room if they wanted to play with toys seemed unfair.
I should add that my middle two are both neurodiverse so it wasn't always easy to implement, especially the tidying up!

Blimey, we live in a small cottage and have one room that functions as living room, dining room, play room (and orangery). Loosen up!

I just got the butler to tidy them away, seriously though I think it is childrens house too and no I would never ban toys from anywhere they can learn to tidy as they grow but I never banned anything other than dont touch that it is dangerous type thing

I found toys SO much less stressful to tidy than bits of food trodden in to the rug,or socks thrown behind the TV

Our living room still has a pile of toys,paints,felt tips,paper etc. Not a childfree zone at all and my kids are much older (9 and 13). Still used frequently :)

When they do have device time,they're literally 2 feet away from me so I can catch anything I don't like. Not me pushing,but they prefer to sit/play/draw/watch with company.

Not all sunshine and rainbows,I do wish sometimes for a bit of P and Q but also kinda pleased they want to be with us.

Fair point.
Its all the other jabs about it that are cuntastic. And they're still piling on. Its ridiculous.

That's a bit like saying kids can survive on Sunny D and jam on toast, and that they're just as good as more nutritious and scientifically more beneficial options.

My 5yo resists tidying too but if I do a "deal" with him, e.g. I'll put away the Lego if you put away the cars, he will usually do at least some. For him it seems he feels it's "unfair" if he has to do it by himself (even though he makes the messes himself!) so doing it together makes it feel fairer to him. I also sometimes resort to cutting down on story time if there's absolute refusal to tidy, because as a natural consequence of having to tidy myself, I'll have less time to read with him before bed. I don't ever leave tidying till after bedtime, my evening is sacred!

Well, that would make life easier from the point of view of what I’m talking about.

I don’t think keeping toys together and not in a mess is stifling anyone’s creativity. It’s actually letting the enjoy play and therefore be creative for longer.

I am a very tidy person but my 3.5 year old son is allowed to play wherever he fancies! He's exploring and each room is different. If he plays cars the hallway has hard floors so is best, he drives his massive mini cooper in a big loop around the whole downstairs, he parks trams in my kitchen, my living room always has a massive train track set up in it and he rarely plays in the actual playroom! I actually love finding his toys and seeing all the new ways he decides to play; tonight he came in from nursery and was rolling a massive roll of tape down the hallway 😂

It takes me maybe 20 minutes maximum to tidy up even after a crazy playdate. What's your storage like? Is it just split into categories like small vehicles or is it very specific? Would a toy rotation help so there's less available but they can play where they want?

I used to ask mine in they wanted to do x or y.

Do you want to put those toys back in the box or these toys back in your room worked better than saying tidy up.
It meant I did half the tidying of course but it was a start

Another thought.. are all of the toys stored in the sun room, where he can access everything? Because I find that makes it hard for tidying if they can get into every single toy they own at once.. we have some in the lounge and some in the family room, but we rotate what is out so that it's not everything at once- e.g currently there is a box of duplo in the family room, and a train set and some trucks and car tracks in the lounge. But everything else is organized in the toy closet. Then it's easy to pack up because it's not a mix of everything,and the other toys are packed away in the toy closet and swapped out when they want something different.