If you’ve ever attempted downsizing kid toys you know the dilemma – how do you know which ones to part with, and which ones you’ll regret? Will your child miss the toys? Or perhaps you’ll have more children later and wish you hadn’t parted ways. Then there are the sentimental toys – the ones your child played with when they were newly into toddlerhood, or the ones connected to special moments… unfortunately, even with the space to keep an astronomical amount of toys (which is what happens with the line of thinking above) stepping on or over toys all day long is enough to make anyone lose their mind a bit.
If you’ve started to go a bit wonky over toys on the floor, or are sick and tired of picking up tiny pieces that don’t even seem to go to anything – but can’t seem to eliminate a significant number of these annoying obstacles – then I’ve got a tip just for you.
When the Toy Purge is a Struggle
My children as of this writing are one and two years old, and boy do they have a lot of toys! Before this tip, the toys were scattered all over the floor, day and night.
We were stepping over and around toys, tripping on toys, and kicking them out of the way (embarrassing but true) more frequently than not. As soon as I’d put the toys into their designated spaces (mostly toy bins), the boys would dump them out again. Talk about frustration!
My husband was all for eliminating small (palm sized) toys altogether… but that didn’t seem reasonable considering blocks are small, and those are literally our oldest child’s favorite toy to play with. And yet. I understood his frustration… toys underfoot constantly is no joke.
Everytime I attempted downsizing kid toys, I ended up hardly better off than I started, with hardly any toys to donate, still looking at a mess, unable to decide which toys should stay and which should go.
(Please keep in mind that we are planning on expanding our family in the future, so this also was taken into account.)
The Game Changer for Downsizing Kid Toys
It wasn’t until researching the topic for a bit on Pinterest that the solution presented itself. Rose of Roselounsbury.com, a simplicity coach, spelled it out beautifully for me (along with additional tips).
With emphasis on the pickiness about choosing each toy to keep, the question is presented: “do my kids play with you” (for extended periods of time)?
If the answer is “no”, then it’s time to eliminate (donate/sell, toss, or put into storage for future children) that particular toy. Although there were other questions presented that are well worth reading the article linked above for, that one question alone helped me eliminate more toys in one purge than I’d ever managed prior.
And hey. If you are worried about downsizing kid toys too much, remember that Christmas is coming, and birthdays usually bring lots of toys, too. In the meantime, if you are looking to keep your child occupied without an overwhelming mass of toys, consider reading Being Productive with Young Children Around, which contains twelve ideas for keeping kids busy and most of the ideas aren’t toys!
Do you struggle to manage downsizing kids toys? Let me know in the comments below!
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
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