Total Chaos!!!

[GoofyG]

My House in under siege!!!! My kids have way to many TOYS!!!!!!!!!

I feel overwhelmed, between toys and clothes, and Christmas is around the corner.

Any ideas? I'm ready to get rid of somethings, also any ideas on organizing?
I have an open floor plan, kitchen, dining room, and living room are all together.
Also we just lost the play room! Needed a room for the baby, so the toys are everywhere.

I NEED HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[eaj1228]

Donate toys to Salvation Army, Goodwill, a local daycare or church. Include your children and let them know that these toys can go to children who probably really need them.

I am a huge fan of plastic storage bins. I don't have children myself but many of my friends to utilize plastic storage bins that are labeled.

Good luck.

 

[iheartdisney]

We have the toys divided amoung different sizes of totes and boxes. (barbies in one box, blocks in another, one for potatoheads, etc) They get ONE at a time, the rest go on the top shelf of the closet. Then the each have one small mesh basket of their own random toys. If they want a different box, they have to pick up the previous one.
I like clear totes and toy boxes. Also, think outside the box on toy storage, literally! All the small toys (Littlest Pet Shops, Ponyville Ponies, Star Wars guys) fit perfectly in empty cheeseballs buckets!

 

[adoptionmomma4]

I totally understand We have two playrooms and it is still a problem here. They just have to much. We are limiting what they get for Christmas this year and are asking people to donate to college saving accounts instead. We are currently thinning out the playrooms (my 3 year olds it the worst) and giving stuff to the church and the kidney foundation. I am also not leaving everything out for her anymore. I have sorted al of the stuff like lego’s, pony’s, polly’s, play dough, blocks, little people etc... in those clear totes and put the on shelves. She can ask for anyone of them, but only one at a time. She usually plays with these during her playtime with her siblings. She is happier now with less choices and actually plays with her things instead of just dumping it. She is not a good clean up helper and that task usually falls to me, so it is making my life easier as well.

Good luck! The clothes are my next obstacle.. I am convincing myself no child needs the amount of clothes mine have (as I impatiently wait for my Gymboree order to be delivered). It is a sickness really.

 

[GoofyG]

Good luck! The clothes are my next obstacle.. I am convincing myself no child needs the amount of clothes mine have (as I impatiently wait for my Gymboree order to be delivered). It is a sickness really.[/QUOTE]



I agree on the clothes. I could open a store with the amount of girl clothes. I'm waiting to order thier Christmas outfits from gymboree!

I'll look into the clear totes, I'm on a tight budget, so it may be a few totes every month. Thanks everyone for all the ideas!

 

[EthansMom]

My kids each have one of those children's bin organizers in their rooms. All toys get stored in each of their rooms and they can bring one or two plastic bins out to the livingroom at a time to play.

A month or two before Christmas and birthdays, we go through their rooms and "find toys to give to the poor kids". Toys and books that my son has outgrown either go to my daughter, the town thrift store, a neighbor boy, or the garbage. DD4's toys and books either get donated to her preschool, the town thrift store, or the garbage. We call this "making room for Birthday/Christmas presents" and my kids REALLY get excited, knowing that they will soon be getting new junk... er, toys.

I've also been known to sneak in when the kids are at school or Grandma's house and brutally throw out McDonald's toys, birthday goodie bags and the like.

For all the toys they have, my kids play with only a few of them over and over again.

 

[nessz79]

We have the same problem. We have a tiny 1100 sq. foot home (rounding up even! LOL). It's 3 bedrooms- we use 1 bedroom for a shared bedroom and 1 for a playroom. The playroom was overflowing and the kids never played with anything. So we decided enough was enough.

We threw away things that no one could use. Packed up toys, sent them to the shed for now, and organized what was left. Guess what? They are still mostly just sitting there. I'd say 75% of the toys are left unplayed with for weeks on end. So we'll be making a second sweep. What a waste!

We're also limiting Christmas presents. My parents are the worst! I've asked them to give them no more than 2 presents each from each person (they are the only grandchildren in the family)...the same for all family members.

Good luck to you! It's frustrating for me that the kids have so much and it's just taken for granted, so time to pare down!

 

[musclemouse]

Omg same thing here. It's driving me nuts! I've come to realize that they don't play with all this stuff. Another thing is they have so much stuff THEY become overwhelmed and complain that there is nothing to do. SO for Christmas this year they are getting less than usual. I mean, what more do they need?! Oldest son will end up playing with the cardboard boxes and Lil (Aidan) will just end up playing online games on my computer.

I just went through all their toys and threw out the broken ones, made a box for Salvation Army and made a box of "just in case they remember this one later" and hide that box somewhere. Now it's organized and there is definately less chaos!

Good luck to ya!

 

[GoofyG]

Thanks for the support. We are going to start going through the toys and donate, or go to the church with some. I so know what yiou mean about the mcdonalds toys. Those drive me crazy. the best mcdonalds toys my kids got and stil play with were the disney cars. Lightning McQueen. they play with those all the time.

 

[holly7347]

We do 2 big toy purges per year plus smaller ones when I feel the need. I go through the toys before Christmas and in March before their b-days. When they were younger I did it when they were sleeping so they wouldn't freak out (my oldest is a packrat). Now that they are a bit older I tell them Christmas is coming up we need to get rid of toys you aren't playing with to make room for some new stuff. I also explain to them that there are kids out there that don't have much money for new toys and by us donating our unloved toys we give those kids a chance to have new (to them) stuff to play with. After they pick out a few things I still wait for them to go to bed and add to the pile.

If you have any storage space somewhere out of the way (closet, garage, basement, atic etc.) you could try rotating toys. Even though I try to keep up with removing unloved or broken toys we still have more than we can keep out all at one time. DD#1 has a bookshelf in her bedroom that is 1/2 full of books and 1/2 full of toys. When they show an interest in bringing out some of those toys we bring a bin out to the living room and take one of the toy bins from the living room back to DD's bedroom. We also have some seasonal toys like obvious Christmas or Easter or outdoor themed toys stored in the garage.

 

[puffkin]

If you can definitely rotate toys. We surprisingly don't have a whole lot of toys but even what we have overwhelmed DS so he didn't play with them. So we put a whole bunch of stuff in his playbox and just set a few toys on top. Guess which toys he played with....the ones on top! So now we just get out new ones every few days and put the others away to keep it fresh. He plays much better when there are less choices.

I also try to do a toy purge before Christmas and birthdays.

 

[bellebud]

we also have too much 'stuff' (honestly, I don't know anyone who doesn't).

I usually do my 'black garbage bag' cleaning when the kids aren't home. they don't even notice anything missing. of course I hand down good toys, but mostly everythings broken or has missing pieces, so I toss, toss, toss. But if the kids were home, it would be impossible to get rid of anything (I've tried).

Also, I utilize storage in my livingroom - I have an oversized ottoman that has storage inside, I have a large, pretty 'box' from homegoods that opens and we use as a toy box, my coffee table has very wide drawers, my end tables in the livingroom store toys too. (we also have a main floor playroom, and a bonus room upstairs that is the size of our 3 car gargage!) Ridiculous! And seriously, my dh and I have not bought most of this stuff - it's gifts from relatives and bday parties. It is truly wasteful, and I've tried to make it stop, but it doesn't.