Toys in the house - rules

[Poppychick]

How do you all keep on top of the endless supply of toys cluttering up every surface of the house?

We have lots of baskets and those Ikea storage things in DD and DS bedrooms. There still seems to be stuff everywhere.

I used to make DD tidy up before she got anything else out but DS now just tips stuff everywhere as soon as I turn around so pretty pointless.

What's your secret?

Dont know but if you find out how, please let me know!

Don't tidy until after bed, 5mins shoving everything in a box of some sort, not obbsessing abpout eveything being together as it will only get chucked evrywhere again tom.
Lot less stress than trying to keep tidy while dc are up.

maybe you have too many toys?

Not trying to be sarcastic, am serious. my kids play with far less than they actually have. I just got rid of a LOAD of puzzles, games, ponies.....all sorts. Sometimes when there is too much choice they don't appreciate or look after what they have

I'm with diva. The toy phase doesn't last forever.

I have a playroom. It's the "dining-room" end of my living-room. If I come across in the kitchen, I lob them through the hatch into the playroom. Toys in the living room get thrown over the sofa into the playroom. Toys in the office or my bedroom get hidden [evil grin].

In our last house the toys would be all over the living room at the end of the day. I used to say "we need to clear space so we can dance!". Cue enthusiastic mass tidying effort - and then we'd put a cd on and dance. Or at least, they'd dance until nicely exhausted for bed, and I'd dance for 2 minutes and then sidle off to MN.

Like it!

I'm with Hana chuck out loads and loads of stuff, put away anything to "old" for them and have less stuff. It's great for their imagination to play with fewer toys.

After years of crippling myself with lego bricks and polly pockets left on the lounge floor I made a poster for the door :-

Absolutely NO TOYS past this point - by order of the management

and for a while everything stayed in the playroom and dining room. I then got cocky and made another one for the dining room. I blew it! It was a step too far - they rebelled and didn't just ignore the dining room notice, they ignored the lounge one as well.

fantastic fruitoffruit, going to try that one as we have music on in evening. i try to stick to one you have finished with one thing tidy up and get another.nearly working.

Oh yes I think we do have too many toys!!! You're right.

I am thinking of putting some in the garage and kind of rotating them a bit. Might even sell some on ebay.

Thanks all - like the music idea too but not sure it will work with DS

No TV or computer until toys are tidied away! Means that everything gets put away at least once a day, even if it all comes out agian afterwards. That way toys also get rotated, as often a different set will come out after TV.

The secret in my house is to have one toy box in each room, and the toys get put in there when not in use.

Rotating or chucking out/selling/freecycleing/charity bagging those that are not used, or grown out of, or kind of duplicated is a great way to create spacfe. I do this constantly - especially before birthdays and christmas, and have a kind of unwritten rule that if they don't fit in the toy boxes that we have, something has to go.

Mine are small enough for me to just do this, but I will be explaining the idea as they get older and how it will help other children who are not lucky enough to have so many toys.

A car boot sale might be good too as your child could keep the money from it and buy something that they really want.

Or a toy swap with other mums....

I still feel swamped with toys despite being ruthless though. And strongly agree that less is more when it comes to toys and using imagination.