Come talk to me about toy rotation

[leplan]

We have too many toys, DS1 can't play with any of them as they are all mixed up. He's forgotten about half of them and lots needs setting up which I never have time to do because I can't find all the pieces.

DS2 is 16 months and at prime - taking things out of boxes- stage so I need less for him to take out.

How many toys do you have 'in action' at any one time? How often do you rotate them? Where do you put the ones you're not using.

I always mean to rotate the DSs toys, but it's a maybe-tomorrow kind of task that I never get round to.

They do rotate them themselves, sort of. Well, rotate across floor, through bedrooms, the kitchen, the corridor, etc.

I have (ikea trofast) storage in the living room, so each type of toy has their own box - complete with picture labels on the front so its easy to put away. Bigger toys (garage, pirate ship, happyland stuff, masses of duplo/brio etc) are in bigger crates under the stairs and these get rotated in and out - meant to be weekly, but doesn't always happen.

I get a few different bits out from the trofast storage- jigsaws/instruments etc and then kids get out more if they want - I'm trying to encourage them to tidy away too, but doesn't always happen and at least because its (semi)organised its easy to pack away and means things don't get lost so much.

Any help?

ps I am a Childminder, so had to be more organised with it all than I would have been otherwise!

All toys sorted into 8 big plastic lidded boxes which are stored in their wardrobe. Every time they start getting bored with their toys I get out 2 new boxes and put away the old toys into their box.

It helps to sort the boxes carefully. Each pair of boxes has a range of toys - something electronic, something loud, jigsaw, construction toy and so on.

If you are changing the boxes regularly you can have fewer toys in each box, and therefore less mess and trouble losing pieces.

Sometimes a set of boxes lasts a week, sometimes it lasts three weeks.

The boxes are numbered as I have a hopeless memory. I just work through them in order.

It sounds as though I'm really organised. I'm not really!

We had about 4-5 boxes which went via garage bedroom and downstairs on a 3-4 week basis

oh fgs take toys, put away, get out put away get out
how hard IS it

eatyourveg, thanks for that, glad you took the trouble to post on something so pointless.

DS has Trofast in his bedroom but I think we need more of it as it nowhere near holds all his toys.

I just get additional boxes and then these can go under the stairs with the spare toys.

I often look at my childminder and her beautifully arranged toy boxes with pictures on the front and dream of being that organised

We have simply masses of toys. I don't tend to rotate any of them out and that's worked up to now (DS1 is 4.5)

I do occasionally (say every 6 months or so) move bedroom toys into the sitting room and vice versa. I just do it as the mood takes me, and it refreshes the toys a bit. I leave favourite toys set up for a while.

I do however spend a lot of time tidying up and organising toys and books because I love them and hate all other forms of housework. Now that DS2 is here (he's 13 months) I have less time for that, and the masses of toys strategy is less successful. What saves me is I have boxes with lids and the lids are very tricky to get off. DS1 was well over 2 before he could get the box lids off by himself. That helps a lot. (They are just cheapy pound shop boxes but there is a trick to the lids)