Toys....

Tea-and-Cake_3

How many toys do your children have? Did you have loads of toys growing up? How do you store them?

Our children seem to have loads of toys, I have them well organised and tidy but they have almost every possible toy type and when they start pulling things out the room and whole house can become covered and choatic in minutes and I spend far too much time tidying toys. My husband thinks they should have a few toys each and the rest given away, I sort of agree but then wonder what my kids would do all day. The other option is rotating toys (ie. putting some in the loft and changing them every so often) but I'm reluctant to do that because then would it not feel like birthdays and christmas every few weeks?

One of my friends grew up in a big family of 7 children and said they had no toys, they had to play outside most of the time or make their own fun and I remember another friends room from when I was little and she had a really clutter free bedroom with some barbie's in a box and a dolls house and that was about it. I envy their mothers lol!

I would love to know what the toy situation is like in other people's houses.

balletshoes

well if they have lots of toys, thats great - but they would also be able to do stuff if they didn't have all the toys - they could draw, look at picture books, they have DVDs no doubt? TV for a while, outside and play (mine and most of the neighbourhood kids have been outside in the garden most of the day so far today).

Mine has far too many bits of plastic, dolls, Littlest Pets etc etc, but she wants a more grown-up bedroom, so I've already told her she's going to have to be a bit ruthless when she's clearing out her room, to make space for the stuff she wants to replace it with.

I don't keep her old toys though, once she's outgrown them and as is happy to give them away, I donate them to the school/hospital/surgery/neighbours kids etc

picnmix

We have a playroom and all the toys are supposed to be put away in there. Ha! they end up all over the house, at one point this morning I don't think there was a room that didn't have something in it. I have 2 DD's who are 3 years apart, so the toys have been passed down from one to the other, so this means quite a bit of crossover that they both play with, but then they have their own interests, I have one who loves dollies and the older loves barbies. We do clear it all away at the end of the day.

It's not the toys I mind so much but all the useless crap they accumalate, bits and bobs of stuff, which to them is important but to me is a pain in the butt. I know they will not be little for long, and know that their tastes will change so I just see it as a short term things - thats what gets me through the day.

We do move stuff into the loft, especially approaching birthdays and Xmas, with the explanation that it will come back down, I have to say though I don't think it ever has. They just seem to forget about it after a while and then it gets too young for them, so I sell it or donate to Charity.

I feel where you are coming from, and my DH states that when we were kids were didn't have this much, apparently all he had to play with was an Action Man and a ball! I keep expecting him to come out with the old chestnut "and all we got in our stocking at Xmas was an orange and a penny":)

Tea-and-Cake_3

balletshoes wrote: »

well if they have lots of toys, thats great - but they would also be able to do stuff if they didn't have all the toys - they could draw, look at picture books, they have DVDs no doubt? TV for a while, outside and play (mine and most of the neighbourhood kids have been outside in the garden most of the day so far today).

There is also loads of creative stuff....paper, pens, paint, play doh, plasticine, stencils, stickers, masses of books, only a few dvd's as we have sky we have access to lots of kids channels. My issue is not with them not doing enough more that the house has too much child related clutter that I did not grow up with but spend my adult life sorting and tidying. I was wondering if all modern mums homes are like this.

Spendless

A few years back I used to lurk on the organisedhomes forums (sadly now gone) and their suggestions were to allocate how much space you were able/prepared to give to that item and then when close to full, some had to go. For example an ice-cream tub worth of macdonalds type toys, once it's close to full, you sort thru and get rid of so much, so there's space for more.

For my kids they have/had containers under their beds so the room remains stream-lined to look at (when tidy!). Bit more difficult to do in DD's room as she has the smallest but we have a summer house and the playing houses type toys went down there. DD is a hoard-a-holic and not int he slightest bit mature about getting rid of anything she's outgrown or even broken, so I get rid when she's not about. She has never asked for something I've got ridden of, as I am careful about what goes and what stays.

bluebird

We didnt have toys as kids we spent most of our playtime in the park,but my boys had loads of toys,too many if i'm honest,every september i'd say to them santa will see you got loads of toys so we need to get rid of some,quick as a flash they'd sort out the broken to throw away and the good to pass onto someone else,it was a good quick way to empty the toy box.

balletshoes

Tea-and-Cake wrote: »

There is also loads of creative stuff....paper, pens, paint, play doh, plasticine, stencils, stickers, masses of books, only a few dvd's as we have sky we have access to lots of kids channels. My issue is not with them not doing enough more that the house has too much child related clutter that I did not grow up with but spend my adult life sorting and tidying. I was wondering if all modern mums homes are like this.

yep, my room had loads of stuff in it when I was a kid (including a scalextrix track on a huge bit of mdf on the floor ). But the toys were never left out in any other room of the house, just the kids bedrooms, so everything was put back in the kids rooms before bedtime.

My house is similar now with DDs stuff, I think I have one small box of paints/plasticine in one of the kitchen cupboards, and there is a stack-box with DD's art stuff hidden behind a bookcase in the dining room. Everything else lives in her room, if it spills out of there it gets put back at the end of the day.

Spendless

What sort of toys are you struggling with tea and cake? Maybe we can give some storage solution ideas. My DD's doll clothes are all in a cloth 'tube' that was made by a relative, think of the sausage type holders that you can buy to put carrier bags in, it's like that, embroidered on the outside with 'X's dolls clothes' and has a loop to hang it up. Done like that it takes up far less space than a box on the floor would. FIL who is good at woodwork made her dolls bunkbed cots and all dolls sit in the beds, so it only takes up the floorspace of 1 cot.

*Louise*

We have just redone DD's room as I was sick of all the toys everywhere. She now has a cabin bed which has lots of storage - at one end of the bed there are 3x 80L storage boxes - one for barbies, one for sylvanian families and one for a wooden train set.

At the other end of the bed there is 3 plastic drawer sets, stacked (so 9 drawers high) these house different items in each drawer - girl lego / polly pocket / dress up clothes / Octonauts / wooden doll furniture / dolls clothes.

The idea is she takes out one box, plays until she is bored and puts it back before taking out another one - she is doing pretty well.

In a built in cupboard there is a box for books and the rest of the room is clear.:j


In the living room there is one leather ottoman which has their little bits and bobs - paper, crayons, books etc. Anything they bring down from the bedrooms has to go back once they are finished - I got sick of my house looking like a kids playroom all the time

gibson123

put half of them away in the loft for
3 months and then swap over the kids "forget" they had the toys and it's like another Christmas when you do the swap.