Being a Childminder

[ChocoholicsAnonymous]

I presume you are highly organised. Please can you give me some tips on how I can organise my home so it doesn't look like a toy shop that's just been burgled? Thanks

I'm lucky. I can put the toys in a spare room when they're not being used. Solutions I have seen by other minders are

• toy boxes under beds
• kallax type storage (see Ikea)
• boxes stored in the garage and rotated.
• putting in a false wall, to use as a toy cupboard
• boxes which double up as seats

However, there's no disguising the huge kitchen, etc.

Thanks. Seriously need to get organised. It's chaos in our house.

ikea - both the solution to the problem and the route to addiction.

Jannier

We've got an IKEA unit with toy boxes stored in it that the children can access whenever they want (cars, baby dolls, wooden blocks, play food, dressing up, bags/hats, jigsaws). One of our bedrooms has a big Wardrobe which I use for toy storage. I tend to bring down a couple of things each week (so maybe garage and car mat or pushchairs/cot/highchair or duplo). I find if there is too much choice, they end up getting everything out and playing with none of it.
I really need to go trough the toys and be ruthless, getting rid of the toys I am keeping for sentimental value (the pram we bought dd when ds arrived -it's too big to have put so just takes up room).
I find we go out each morning, back for lunch when little ones nap, quiet time and if I have set up an activity for them, so they actually don't have a great deal of time to play with a great many toys. But as I say, I try to limit how much they have put at any point as it can't get ridiculous.