Welcome back to my 31 Days of Decluttering In December! If you have missed any days in this series, no problem! You can find each day here!
I don’t know about you but one of the hardest areas of my home to keep clean is our toy area. It’s not because there aren’t proper bins for the toys to go in.
It’s because I have boys, and my boys are farm kids. My boys have farm equipment that you can’t put in totes because it gets broken, tractors that are so big that even if you could put them in totes, only a few would fit inside each tote. And those that farm equipment is not cheap to replace. Sure, the other toys take up a lot of space too, but the tractors, planters, semi trucks, wagons, and combines by far take up the most room.
Your toy problem might not be farm equipment. It could be remote control cars, or any other bulky items that don’t fit nicely inside a box or are heavy for small kids to put away.
Today’s challenge is decluttering the toy area. I hope this will help you prepare for the incoming Christmas toys and also let you bless others with the toys your children no longer want or need. I always find that decluttering toys right before Christmas keeps me from wanting to lose it after Christmas, when toys seem to be everywhere!
Here are a few tips for decluttering toys:
- For toys that are big and bulky (like my boys’ tractors and farm equipment) using under the bed storage (if they will fit) or on top of wide shelves work well. We also park some of the tractors under the train table, just to keep them out of the way!
- Do not get rid of their favorite toys even if you hate them. You will have a much easier time getting your kids to want to share their toys with others if they aren’t worried that you are getting rid of the ones they love.
- If it sits on the shelf and never gets played with, it’s time to go!
- For preschoolers, book shelves like the one above work well because they can see the book they want instead of pulling each book off the shelf to find the right one. If you rotate their books, the books stay fresh and new and easier to keep picked up!
- Kids actually will sit down and play with their toys when there are less around to play with. Each time, our toy area is clean, they really play with their toys. As soon as it’s messy and cluttered, they no longer want to play.
- If your kids are old enough, include them in the process. My kids are still young and it never fails that as I’m putting the unused toys in the bags to donate, they decide they are the best toys around. This is a problem because after that, no toys go in the bag and I have an even bigger mess than I had to begin with! As they get older, I think it’s great to teach them generosity and giving by letting them decide on what they like or don’t like. (Just be prepared, they may not find your She-Ra Princess Of Power doll nearly as cool as you did when you were a kid!)
- Toy organization doesn’t have to look “cute”. If you search around there are many pieces of furniture that when taken care of can grow with your child!
- You don’t have to keep all of the toys from when they were a baby! If your kids have developmentally outgrown them, you can let them go! I know there’s a lot of guilt over “Mom gave them this” or “Aunt Sally bought them that.” However, I highly doubt these people gave them the gifts with the intention of you keeping the toys until your kids are 60 years old. Do yourself a favor and keep the durable ones that you might want to keep for your grandchildren (if you have room to store them) and get rid of the rest!
- If stuffed animals are a problem at your house, consider giving them to local firemen. I know in my area these can be donated to children who have lost their toys in a fire. I also know of a school in my area that uses the really nice ones for prizes for an after school program. Be creative. It’s fun to bless others. The zoo nets they sell (like the one below) are also an easy way to store extra stuffed animals.
- Remember there are options besides just donating, you can also sell them or choose to keep the best of the best but to store them away. Also, if they toy is broken, just throw it away. No child wants to receive something that someone else already broke.
- When you organize the toys to keep, sort them into categories. We have designated totes for Legos, dolls, kitchen stuff, and farm animals. I used google images to print out a picture of a bull for the boys’ animal tote. We’ve done this on all of the toy totes, Legos, Tinker Toys, etc. It has worked wonders because without reading they know which tote things go in!
- For anything with small pieces, keep them high on the shelves to keep little ones out of it. This will save you from messes and choking hazards!
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