Too many toys, too much everything!

[Jacketandbeans]

I am feeling utterly overwhelmed by stuff. I have three DC aged 6, 3 and a baby.
We have really generous grandparents and family who buy lovely presents for the kids, I'm so grateful for that, but I can't cope with the mess anymore.
We are currently living in a small place with no storage and will move soon, but even when we move we won't have a loft or garage (loft is converted), but we will have a bedroom per child and small shed.

My main issue is that most of their toys are really good toys, loads of much cherished Lego and Playmobil. sooooo much Lego and it's all built and they won't take it apart.
We have loads of Playmobil sets, all the pirate sets, castles, swimming pools, you name it.
Every time there is a birthday all the family members ask what to buy so it's not like they just buy any old crap, but when you add up everything, each birthday means an influx of about 10 new toys, and Christmas is worse.

Clothes is another issue, we just have too many and I can't get on top of it. They grow out of things before the next one needs it, and I can't find places to put them.

What do you all do?!? And please don't say toy rotations and put them in the loft as we can't do that. I can just picture every year the build up getting worse, I want to enjoy life, not be stressing over this all the time.
God I sound like such a drama queen but it's really getting to me.

Your older child is almost at the age where this reduces, it will be tech on their list, clever storage, de clutter anything not needed and reduce the amount people buy

I know what you mean! We have two children, similar age, we moved to a much bigger house recently and I'd say 50pc of stuff was toys. We had mountains. Kids got a whole huge playroom and soon it begun looking like toy storage.

I purged. All toys were really good too, same as you we have generous relatives. First I put semi interesting things in clear IKEA boxes and sent them to the garage. Then I donated all questionable ones. This took effort BC of pure bulk of it!

My kids didn't miss any of the boxed treasures except two sets which I rescued. The rest was donated. I'd say I got rid of 80pc of toys and now kids have more space, less clutter and they actually play more :)

It's a mental struggle to give away good stuff so I also secretly kept a box which will eventually go to grandkids lol anyway, some sentimental things are ok

I would make sure you’re ruthless at the baby end of your spectrum - so make sure they move up into clothes as soon as they fit and donate the old ones, be ruthless on baby toys - as long as they have a few blocks, a wooden spoon, a car and some books that’s all they need really.

I agree it’s hard, my youngest loves toys and does use them all. DH is traumatised from toys being donated without permission when he was 10 so we have to hold on to everything! I am good a decluttering my own stuff though.

Your husband's experience really helps here I think. We did a big declutter, got all Montessori inspired, a few things out on low shelves rather than letting the playroom turn into a mini storage facility. The difference was incredible - they played SO much more.

You're the grown up, you can make the rules. Lego can stay made up for a week, or made up models live on this shelf and when it's full, something has to go away to make space for a new one. (I would do this after X time anyway, so they are not disincentivised to built new things.) We used to use Montessori style mats - each child could keep toys out on their little mat on the floor and everyone would respect it and leave it alone as long as it was out. Anything not on a mat went away at bedtime.

I like the look of a picture rail height shelf running along the wall for "display" items. But it would need dusting and the more storage you have, the more clutter you tend to collect. The ideal with decluttering is you end up needing less furniture.

We also cut down big mounds of stuff with the container method. Eg had loads of train tracks. Just pulled out the favourite stuff that would easily fit in a kallax box, stored the rest away. Was completely fine, they didn't miss any of the less favourite bits.

Lego is tricky to store. We went by themes for sets - had a Ninjago plastic box, a Lego Friends one, a separate box of generic non-sets. Cut out a pic of each model from the packaging, stuck them all on the lid of the plastic tub, and kept the pieces and instructions loose in the tub.The key here again, the tubs can't be too enormous. I'm a bit on the fence with this because I think there is real value in mixing up the Lego and them building from their imagination. But that was never going to happen with autistic DS so we went with lowering the barriers to stuff he could manage. And loads of kids do just build the sets these days.