DC toys are stressing me out! Solutions?

[Bloodysickoftoys]

Arrggghhhh and breathe. I’ll try my best to include all relevant info.

I only actually have one child, he is two, although I am expecting another soon.

We have a four bed cottage. Downstairs is open plan orangery, dining room and lounge. Then quite a small kitchen, a downstairs toilet and a tiny home office/study area which at the moment is a bit of a dumping ground.

We have toy boxes and DS’s toys are kept in here. He also has

a toy ride on fire engine
a scuttlebug
a balance bike

He is constantly on all of these. As a result, they find their way into the lounge and the kitchen. I hate it; I feel like I spend my life tripping over wheeled items. But since he does legitimately play with them I don’t feel I can get rid and they aren’t for outside.

Then the toys that are in boxes - never seems enough for him to take out a single toy. Endless rummaging with the result of incomplete puzzles, one farm animal out of a set, etc.

I never thought I’d be the sort of parent who begrudged my child toys but I’m honestly finding it incredibly stressful. I know the advice is only to have a few toys out but I don’t know where I’d store the rest. I probably could do with having a proper sort and chuck a load away, but he mostly likes toy cars, tractors, trucks, and just distributes them everywhere.

If anyone has any solutions to this I would love to hear them!

Have you tried toy rotation?

I’m not sure where I would put the toys he isn’t using, is the problem. Plus when I’ve tried that before I’ve forgotten stuff myself!

You need to use tower storage and use the height of the room. So you can rotate easily every few days by switching boxes.

Only one do the ride on toys at a time?

Why can't the balance bike be for outside?

What’s tower storage, please?

If you have the toys systematically sorted into crates/ boxes, you just swap in a different one every week/ fortnight. Would there be room for the crates Inder your bed, in a wardrobe, in the garage? It is an extra chore to swap crates in and out but it helps them not to be overwhelmed with toys and is much easier to tidy up.

www.kidly.co.uk/ideas/why-and-how-to-do-toy-rotation/4132

Goodness you have loads of space if you have 4 bedrooms and room for him to scoot/bike around. We are in a two up two down (granted, with a v. small loft) with a toddler and we don’t struggle that much. Toy rotation is key. Have some toys downstairs and some upstairs and some put away and switch it around every few weeks. Or if there really isn’t space amongst the 4 bedrooms, get tall storage units that have some boxes out of reach. Supervise play and don’t let DS move on before they are put away. Obviously at 2 this will basically be you putting toys away on repeat, but it will set the foundations for the future. If this really doesn’t seem doable maybe some toys need to go to the charity shop? I’m amazed how much better DS plays when he access to fewer things. And I agree with PP - balance bike and scuttlebug for outside only if it’s that much of a trip hazard.

I'd have the scuttlebug and balance bike outside.

We have things categorised by type into different boxes and then a one box at a time rule. If they want to play with things in another box then we tidy up and swap.

We don’t unfortunately @EducatingArti . The beds go to the floor (I suppose we could technically replace them but quite costly really) and the garage is completely crammed full (DH is a car enthusiast.)

We have space but no storage. I probably should condemn the bike and the scuttlebug to outside; the problem is he wouldn’t have much space to play. Most of the garden is grass.

Puzzles and games. keep on shelf, one out at a time
Tidy up time... working together, get everything away at lunch time/before bed

Ah yeah we haven’t mastered tidy up time yet. No shelves 😩😩

Get yourself to ikea and get some kallax units or trofast.

dump toys in the cubes and take one cube out at a time

Tower storage means skinny and tall like trofast.

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/trofast-frame-white-30171123/

All of the suggestions pp have said arr really the only way forward.
My DS ride balance bikes on lawn or we take them to a park.
Toys used to be in tower storage as mentioned. Now have sideboards as per of the regular furniture but has the kallax boxes inside with toys. They play (6 and 3 year old) and tidy away (tidy up time) before getting new toys out or deciding to watch TV or go into the garden.
I recognise your little one is only two but this is something I've been doing since they've been able to get their toys out and it works for me.
I think a combination of the pp suggestions above will help you feel more on top of it all as you have quite a few more toy playing years ahead of you.

Maybe you could just put the out of rotation boxes in one of the bedrooms?

The obvious solutions have all been made:
-fewer toys
-rotation
-tidy up
-outside toys stay outside

If you won't do all or some of these, there's no hope for you!

Sounds like you just have too many toys. Perhaps get rid of anything he no longer plays with, or which is broken/missing pieces. You have 4 bedrooms and 3 people so one bedroom is definitely not used - get some clear plastic bins and store the extra toys for toy rotation there.

There's lots of studies that show that kids play better/longer with fewer toys that they actually enjoy. Clutter stresses them out too. I keep puzzles out of reach and just bring them out when we feel like doing one - otherwise it's mayhem.

Get some trofast or kallax and limit it by "bucket". Lego fits in one bin, trains in another, soft toys in another. If you have too much for the bin, edit it down until it does.

We had a 4x2 kallax for our kids' toys until they were 4 and 2, then I added some open shelving and used the kallax to store stuff out of rotation. Couple more cubes in wardrobes etc if needed.

Access is key. When we had a kallax full of puzzles they hardly got them out. Put 3 out on a shelf and they were suddenly doing puzzles all the time. Reducing the choice made so much difference. I've always been a big fan of kids being able to mix up toys so I have never limited it to one box out at a time or anything, but if you can work out a bucket/bin system it all tidies away really easily, and crucially makes sense to a toddler.