Talk me into this--Update..Doing it!!

[Therese's Mommy]

Ok, we need to simplify in this house...big time! We have way too many toys. My girls play with most of them (I used to think it was all, but there are some big items that never get touched). I really want to have our house more comfortable and not have people come in and say "your kids have alot of toys!". I really want toy pick up time to stop being an enormously daunting task for them. I am about as close to getting rid of toys as I have ever been, but I keep worrying that they will miss something or some way to play if I get rid of a lot of toys. They love to role play both using figures and just with themselves. Because of this I plan to keep their FP Little People and their play clothes and play silks. They each are going to get to keep a couple of soft toys (their kids as they call them) and their strollers. I will keep the vacuum and one push toy for the baby. I will keep a small container of baby toys and wooden blocks. I plan on getting rid of the rest, including the play kitchen and dishes and food that go with it. I am a little conflict about this as they do play with the dishes and food some, but it seems to be a big source of the clutter as well. The kitchen is rarely used even when they are "cooking". Is it a mistake to get rid of all the dishes and food? I also plan on getting rid of the Duplo blocks. Again, they are a big source of clutter. My girls rarely build and I will have the wooden blocks for them to stack. FWIW, the house will be set up so that they can more readily do arts and crafts which is something they enjoy, but with the clutter is hard these days.

Can my kids develop into smart and normal kids if they don't have play food, play dishes, and building blocks?? One part of me knows this is a stupid question, but I honestly need some reassurance.

Thanks and any other suggestions in the toy decluttering arena is *greatly* appreciated

Beth

[daytripper75]

My suggestion to you is to set aside storage for your toys. (We have a basket in each room and a toy box in each bedroom.) Whatever doesn't fit has to go. When a new toy comes in, something has to leave.
It's hard to do and there have been things I have gotten rid of that my children were (later) sad about but it makes for a much saner home for all of us!

[wife&mommy]

We have issues with our kitchen and things like blocks, too. What I do is put the blocks in a big container. When they want to play with them they can but they need to keep them in one place (usually on the rug) and then when they are done we pick them all up and put them back. With the kitchen stuff, I put the dishes inside the kitchen, and they go back there at the end of the day. I took all the little food we had (TONS of felt stuff that my mom made them, everything you could think of) and put them in the grocery bags she made for them. I have them up high and they can have them whenever they want. It seems they were just getting it out to dump it out and they never really played with it. So putting it up has actually helped them play with it more since they don't see it every day.
If you have somewhere you could store them for non-everyday use then maybe this would work. If not, I agree, just donate them.

[Juvysen]

Originally Posted by wife&mommy

We have issues with our kitchen and things like blocks, too. What I do is put the blocks in a big container. When they want to play with them they can but they need to keep them in one place (usually on the rug) and then when they are done we pick them all up and put them back. With the kitchen stuff, I put the dishes inside the kitchen, and they go back there at the end of the day. I took all the little food we had (TONS of felt stuff that my mom made them, everything you could think of) and put them in the grocery bags she made for them. I have them up high and they can have them whenever they want. It seems they were just getting it out to dump it out and they never really played with it. So putting it up has actually helped them play with it more since they don't see it every day.
If you have somewhere you could store them for non-everyday use then maybe this would work. If not, I agree, just donate them.

I should do that... the stuff we have just ends up scattered all over the house... it's making me NUTS.

[justmeandmybrood]

I am right there with you - I feel like my kids have so much, though we have gotten rid of plenty...however, now that they are older (7 and almost 5), we have new, older toys, ergh! What I did with their tot toys was pack up half of them, store them in the attic for a few months. If they never asked for them, I would sell/donate them, pain-free!

Good luck!

[Therese's Mommy]

We really don't have room to store toys for non everyday use. We have really no storage in our house and what little we do have is being taken up by clothes. With 3 girls I can't justify getting rid of the clothes because they are getting lots of use in the hand-me-down capacity.

Please reassure me that my children will develop normally without a play kitchen, play food, Duplo blocks, etc.

Thanks

Beth

[InchByInch]

Originally Posted by Therese's Mommy

Please reassure me that my children will develop normally without a play kitchen, play food, Duplo blocks, etc.

Homo sapiens has existed for about 100,000 years. Mass-produced toys didn't come along till probably around the mid-1800s. Somehow we survived that whole time without 'em-- and your kids will, too.

[justmeandmybrood]

Yes - listen to inchbyinch! Toy kitchen? Ptooey! We had one, yet most of the time my kids wanted to play with pots, pans, ladles, etc. The real things are even better, and you can always get some construction paper, draw some circles for burners, and teach them something even more important - imagination! My kids were never into the duplos and they have turned out very well so far, and so will your kiddos

I say go for it, and don't look back!

[BCFD]

If they really don't ever play with the kitchen, I say get rid of it. My 3 girls (ages 5, 4, and 3) still play with theirs and I was stressing out from the mess! We had about 4 complete sets of plates, plastic food that you would NOT believe, wooden fruit, plastic frying pans/pots, metal Ikea pots/pans, aprons, chef hats....it was insane!! I passed down all the plastic stuff with an exception of a few cute items, kept the wooden fruit/veggies/soups/boxes, and the Ikea pots/pans and aprons. I still look at it and think I could purge more, but it's a wooden kitchen set that does have a lot of storage space, so at the end of the day we just toss it all in there.

I found a crazy good deal on about 20 Thomas trains from a local thrift store (maybe $10 for the bag?) during my crazy thrifting phase and even though my kids don't really play with them, for some weird reason I can't get rid of them. We have a small stash of duplo's, but they don't really get played with that often. They seem to play more with the smaller Lego's (again, a random bag full from a thrift store). I have tried to get rid of them and my DD's usually say they want to keep them. They are really good about saying "it can go", so we don't usually have issues.

The one thing that just gets me is that I bought them a cute little wooden dollhouse with all the accessories. Probably cost $200+ and they prefer to play with the Fisher Price loving family dollhouse that I got for $10 (with no lie...about 20 people and 100 pieces of furniture, including a big mini van!!!). I don't know whether to just put it away or pass it down.

But I have purged HEAVILY in the last few months, so I just wanted to offer my support. You can do it!!!

[daytripper75]

Originally Posted by Therese's Mommy

Please reassure me that my children will develop normally without a play kitchen, play food, Duplo blocks, etc.

Not only will they be fine, they will really appreicate the times they get to play with those things away from home.

[Therese's Mommy]

I have several bags of toys to donate and have 3 bags of trash so far. I am off to Target to get the storage containers that will determine who much more we need to purge. Everything needs it's place; if it doesn't have a place it goes Oh, and a friend came today to pick up the kitchen and accessories for their dd's birthday next month It totally warms my heart that this super little girl is going to be totally psyched to get our used kitchen for her bday

[Juvysen]

Awesome!