I swear the soft toys are breeding...

[vvviola]

I need help with soft toy storage. Well, I need help with a lot of things, but soft toys are what's causing me stress today.

DDs have loads of soft toys. We have a couch/futon in the playroom and nobody can actually sit on it due to the pile of soft toys. I've tried a cull, but the problem is DH and DD and I are really sentimental. We can't get rid of that one because my Mum, DH's Mum, random relative etc etc gave it as a present. Or we got it on X, Y, or Z occasion.

So until I get a bit of sense and cull them drastically... how do you store soft toys? Especially in a small-ish space? I would like to be able to get DCs to sit on the couch occasionally...and not have the toys invade the living room quite so much!

Thanks!

My sister used to store her kids soft toys in one of those tall pop up baskets from Ikea, it kept them all together! I hate them, my DD has 4!!! You could try putting a few of the non-special ones in the loft for a bit and see if anyone notices? If not you could declutter them?

I hate soft toys that is not pop up baskets!

We do the pop up baskets as well. I am considering hanging them from the ceiling to get them out of the way.

Dds and ds's are all on top of the dresser units in the lounge near the ceiling. Nice and tidy, but the 300 eyeballs staring at you whilst you watch tv is a bit intimidating

We have a big pile at the bottom of the boys' beds. It's a pain on bed changing day but fine otherwise.

Chickabilla - I try to minimise the amount of teddies in DD1's bed for two reasons - firstly she has always been queried with having mild "night time coughing" asthma and we were told to try to keep her bedroom as free of dust magnets as possible. Also, any more teddies up there and the complex games she plays before bed would go on all night

It seems like pop up baskets from Ikea are the solution. Now if Ikea would only hurry up & get to NZ! Shall have to search local places for something similar.

How about a toy hammock? We have one in DS's room above his cot. It's a corner one and holds lots of toys, high up and out of the way collecting dust

We have one of these which is quite useful for keeping them off the surfaces.

I used to keep ours in 2 large plastic bins. My ds had over 100. I was so glad when he finally outgrew them and we took them all to charity shops.

Just to add, to avoid them breeding, make sure the soft toys are of different species that won't mate with each other.