How do you decide which toys to keep or declutter?

[LittlePetitePsychopath]

I'm aware this sounds ridiculous but I'd really appreciate advice!

For context I grew up in and out of care, and in poverty, and often didn't have a toothbrush of my own, let alone anything else.

DS isn't spoiled, but he has a decent amount of toys. He is 4 and I have never thrown away anything. i think I thought it was clever to save it for our next baby, but she's got her own interests, and we've ended up not using a lot of it...

I probably do need to throw/sell some things. How do I decide what?! Do you just grab charity bags and get rid of things he doesn't play with? If he was involved, he'd want to keep everything...

DH thinks he has no attention span because he has too many toys and decluttering would make that better. He grew up in a very minimalist house and struggles with ours being a lot less minimalist! But he'd just throw most things...

Ours are grown up now, but we used to have those big packing bags full of toys and rotate them from the garage partly because it was less mess to tidy if they were restricted but also it was like a new lot of toys coming out every week/fortnight.
Could you charity shop the stuff he’s no longer interested in and then rotate the rest?
Maybe a one in one out policy going forward!

Pack up what you see he isn’t playing with. Don’t leave anything out in the mindset of “oh but he might play with it.” You know what he does and doesn’t play with. Box it all up and put it somewhere well out of sight. Then decide a time limit and if he hasn’t asked for it in, say a certain number of months… donate.

We are very minimal and only keep what our 4 year old genuinely plays with. He has magnet tiles, brio tracks and trains, a small box of Lego (I’m sure that will grow in time), a few vehicles, some little animals, dinosaurs and people figurines, and a few teddies. He has a Yoto player and lots of cards, crafting things and kinetic sand/play-doh etc, and he also has a swing and climbing frame in the garden as well as a bike and scooter so he’s definitely not hard done by. Mountains of books too. But not a huge amount in the way of toys. The magnet tiles and Lego do all the heavy lifting to create all sorts of little play worlds.