When I first read this clipping from People magazine that talks about how many toys Americans have, I felt guilty as charged.
I thought that my own household probably has tons of toys that don’t get played with at all, and that my children would find it easier to occupy themselves in our house if they could only see the good stuff, but that the real treasures are probably sadly tangled with items they don’t care about.
I fantasized about an electronic system that would tally the percentage of playtime each of our toys get so that I could eliminate the least valuable items in our portfolio. (Hence the tagline of this site is “Two geeky girls’ guide to the first years of motherhood.”)
Then, before I sat down to post this clipping, I went into their playroom and looked around. Most of the stuff seemed pretty good. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I imagined. And, I’m embarrassed to say that the things they don’t use that are taking up space are LEGOs (I know, blasphemy!) and Thomas tracks and trains.
I always think that if I had curated the toy collection just right, our leisure time would be harmonious, no one would ask for the iPad, and clean up time would be a cinch.
I’m curious. What’s taking up space in your kid’s toy pile that doesn’t get used? Are you guilty of The Clutter Problem?
Related: See Charlie and Andy’s post about How to Commit the Perfect Toy Murder on How to Be A Dad.
I think our biggest clutter issue is all the toys in our playroom for my 2 year old. We lack organization, as basic baskets/shelves just mean she pulls it all down, so it’s hard to know what we do and don’t use/have/need. But, we also don’t have tons of money to throw into organization that is kid friendly, but also kid resistant.
Great post!
I have way too many toys. Last year I did the apartment therapy toy cure which did help but, I did it pre-Christmas so that sort of defeated the purpose.
I aimed to have only quality toys, nothing that makes noise and lights up as a primary function but a combination of my marketplace loving mother in law and realities of being a parent took over and now my house looks like a day car centre.
I have girlfriend who has bought her three and 2 year old 1 toy per birthday/Christmas. She plays with household things and the gifts from friends and families. Their house is much neater! I alternate between jealousy and feeling sorry for the little girl. Kids definately do not need toys, at all.
This drives me crazy. I always feel like we have too many toys because so few get played with every day and at the same time, I feel like the problem is that we don’t have the RIGHT toys. That some other toys would be played with more. But I also can’t bring myself to get rid of much because I worry that I’ll regret it, or inadvertently get rid of something my son loves but I assumed he didn’t care about. Or worse, I’ll end up re-buying things later because my daughter wants them and I consigned them.
Whit, I’ll take your Legos.
When we notice this, and after it gnaws on us for a while, we get rid of toys by donating. But our need for purging toys decreased after we asked our loved ones to stop giving us toys and if they did, to focus on quality and get us good wooden classic toys or handmade unique and beautiful toys. We are trying to raise the kiddos to not be such consumers so we change up the idea of christmas and birthday gifts too–exchanging toys with friends/cousins for example–and we explain it to them and they get it just fine of course.
In my experience as soon as I notice a toy not being played with, and I go to put it away, it suddenly becomes interesting again. So for us, every few months (when I have a chance, really) toys go up into the attic. They key here is doing this while the kid is at someone else’s house. That way they don’t protest every.single.toy that goes into the bin. A few months later, they come back down, and the current toys go into the attic. This is especially helpful during the end of winter/early spring when we’ve spent a lot of time inside, and Christmas toys are starting to lose their newness.
As many of the other posters have said, my aim is to purchase quality toys that spur imagination. But, I have relatives who don’t feel asl strongly as I do. We have always purchased one toy for christmas/birthday for our daughter… because we know the Grandparents will go insane and buy 40 toys. (We also do this for each other as well.) This year I have made a wish list on amazon for my daughter, attempting to give examples of toys I think she would like. Time will tell if it worked.
My sister has four children, all of whom are older than my daughter. So she often cleans out her toys… and just gives them to me. Makes me feel good that we’re recycling toys, but it’s crazy annoying that my almost three year old already has FOUR doll houses.
We are approaching her birthday and I am already cringing. In my family, they do the incredibly annoying thing where the kid opens all their toys at the party. So far I have been able to avoid this at birthday parties, but Christmas is insane. Kids are happy to get ONE toy and play with it. My mother in law practically rips the toy out of her hand and shoves a new one in its place to open. Cheese and crackers man, let her play with it! I promise I will give her the rest of the toys later…
We have a hard and fast rule that on Christmas, the kids get to open whatever, whenever, at their own pace. Granted, my daughter was a month old last Christmas. It took my son 2 days to open everything. I am not blameless for the excess (postpartum hormones, feeling guilty for having a new baby and not being all his anymore….) but family went way overboard. So this year, I am going to make a few suggestions and express that we would like for everyone to stick with one or two toys. They can buy all the books they want and clothes are fine, too (although they always seem to have too much clothing as well…). I like to put more emphasis on birthdays because they get their own all to themselves. But that is when we do bigger gifts.
I have a friend who has two daughters who are 3 and 5. They have more than enough toys, so when their birthdays approached last spring, she asked people to bring new or slightly used books to donate. I thought that was a fabulous idea as I have been to children’s birthday parties, and seen parents’ faces cringe at the end of the day when they realize they have to find more square footage for the new round of toys that just arrived.
The pull quote on that article mentions books and magazines. I’m of the mind that books (unless they are branded character oh my god this are god awful and will my step mother please stop buying them variety) are something that it is hard to have too many of.
Totally guilty. We just put up new shelving for storage of all the toys and there is a lot! My kids are 4 and 1, so right now, there are few toys that they can both play with. We saved a lot of my older sons infant toys that the baby is playing with now, plus the baby is getting new stuff, too, from grandparents hating that the baby always gets handmedowns! So as new stuff comes in, the old baby stuff goes out! It’s good knowing that our family is complete now, and not saving baby stuff for the next one. And if my older son gets a toy that’s a dud for him, that one doesn’t get saved.. it goes to the bye-bye pile. Too much stuff definitely stresses me out… however, things are different if we’re talking about MY shoes and clothes! 🙂
I have started asking for consumable items for birthdays and Christmas. Playdough, markers, Crayons, Highlights subscriptions… even a zoo pass or children’s museum. I just can’t take anymore stuff. It is overwhelming to the kids and me. 🙂
My son is 20mo and we’re trying the toy rotation thing. His excitement over a toy is definitely much greater when it comes back from being gone for a bit, but I still having trouble sticking to it because I can’t decide what should go away and I want to take things out prematurely since “he loves this toy,” “he might outgrow it” etc.
Swapping has also helped to cut clutter. I take our outgrown toys to Kindercycle’s swaps and trade them out for clothes, gear or different toys (except for the times when I’m hoarding toys that should already be out the door…but I’m getting better)
I always feel like we have too many toys, but then I walk into the playroom and realize there are few that don’t get played with. Right now Big Bro (4) is building with the legos, while Little Bro (2) is building with duplos. Before dinner they were digging through the overflowing dress up bin that I would love to clean out, but they use different things in it daily, depending on the pretend play theme of the day. Before that it was crayons and markers at the table that I swear takes up too much space, but gets used all the time and before nap the train table was being used to create a mode of transportation for the Little People village. I think the kitchen could go at this point, they rarely use it, but I bought it since it was gender neutral and I wanted to encourage more domestic pretend play (less pirates and policemen, oh, well…).
What takes over our house are all the little things, that plastic truck grandma brought when she came, the pinwheel from the dollar spot at Target and the kids meal toy that is a character from some movie they haven’t seen and probably won’t, that’s the stuff that I periodically have to make disappear. Other than that I like to think I’ve done a pretty good job of curating the toy collection… except for the Hot Wheels cars that are taking over my house slowly…
I ask my family to buy craft projects, paper, crayons, books, for birthdays. For Christmas I ask that they only get the kids 1 toy.