Hard-Core toy declutterers, come help me! - Page 2

[OkiMom]

Personally, I don't rotate toys. I don't have the storage area to store unused toys. I keep what I know they do enjoy playing with. If they don't play with it on a regular basis it goes. If its a Christmas/birthday present I will usually get a picture of them with it to send to whoever gave it to them and then Ill find it a new home. My girls much prefer having books to read to toys a lot of the them. They do have their favorites (blocks, trains, cars and dolls) so I keep those. It all has to fit in the boxes I have that store their toys. If there isn't enough room it goes. If they stop playing with it and don't want to play with it, it goes. Honestly Im a little ruthless since I don't want toys overcoming our whole house.

Right now we have:
1) blocks- played with daily/every other day
2) cars- again played with regularly
3) Mr. Potato Head- I use to work with DD1 on speech and DD2 likes to join us so hes used regularly
4) finger/hand puppets- same as Mr. Potato Head
5) Balls- Great universal toy, my girls love their ball pit and DH loves to take them out and play "catch" with them
6) Dolls/stuffed animals- these they like to carry with them when they go places. DD1 likes to act out stories with them so it encourages her speech.
7) baby toys- I do a bunch of baby sitting for friends/church acquaintences so I keep these around for them.

It sounds like a lot but its not. Mostly if I didn't need to work with DD1 and her speech I could get rid of a lot of it. However, shes a little behind and the only "solution" they will give me over here is to send her to a preschool an hour away for 8 hours a day, NOT HAPPENING so the toys stay. On the good side, since I started working with her shes gone from having a huge delay to just a slight one and being slightly advanced in some areas. I guess she just needed time to catch up.

[lexmas]

It doesn't sound like too much at all! We're not quite there yet, but I'm working on the space thing...since I kept only enough cars to fit in a tiny box, and he's actually started playing with them! I've done decluttering before with similar results, but it always surprises me when they start playing again! Crazy! Oh, and I'm going to send you a PM, I'd love to hear with what you do for speech!

[amj'smommy]

I'm a "hard-core" toy de-clutterer and don't feel bad about it one bit I have 5dc in under 900sq ft... my dc ages are dd (11) ds (almost 10) ds (5) ds(3) and ds (14m) dd has her own room (maybe 8'x10') and has 1 bin of little pet shop and 2 houses for them and a shoe box of barbies/clothes/accessories. she does have about 30 webkinz ( I DETEST stuffed animals!!! but they are hers) and a friend gave me a homemade beanie baby holder (looks like a coat rack with elastics to hold the webkinz) so that has worked out WONDERFULLY for her. She also has a bookshelf (she's quite the reader!) her desk and her captains bed. older 3 boys share the other 8'x10'room... 2 boys in a double, 3yr old in a toddler bed... NO TOYS in their room other than their stuffed animals for bedtime, the baby is in our room. The boys toys are in the living room in a corner, luckily they are all into the same thing so what we have is a small toy bin organizer that holds their imaginext figures, super hero squad figures, other random action figures and matchbox. They also have a smaller car play table. I did have to pull out the smaller chokeable imaginext accessories but they didn't play with them anyways so no loss there We do have a few random "baby toys" ie FP mailbox, FP little people bus and a handful of random little people and a FP laugh and learn farm (strongly debating donating this toy). We have a small bin of books as well (we live about 2mi from our library so I don't find the need for lots and lots of books for the lo's though they do like to get a book occasionally from the Scholastic book orders) That's really it for toys in our house.... it actually seems like alot from typing it out, lol but really it's sparse compared to what their friends/cousins have but I'm a total minimalists and it's what works for us! Now outside we have an AWESOME homemade sandbox with trucks and shovels/pails and a few little people that migrated out there, lol. The older kids have thier bikes, we have a lovely swingset, plastic climber/slide and chalk... oh and the random kickballs/whiffle balls/bats and footballs. I actually freecycled today a little tykes toybox we never really needed since we didn't have any toys to put in it, lol, a step 2 wagon that was never used and a police cozy coupe that the kids had outgrown... I was SO HAPPY to see those things go! our yard looks much better now

[amj'smommy]

oops.... I forgot about the little boys "dress-up" ie markdowned halloween costumes we have a 3 drawer plastic tote for those.

[lexmas]

I know what you mean, I tried to type up what we have and it seemed like a LOT, even though it's not very much at all! So I have a very good idea of what is a lot of toys and what isn't based on lists after I did that! Thanks so much for explaining what you have, and for encouraging me in the hard-core toy decluttering department!

[lexmas]

Oh, I forgot. Is it still considered decluttering when you buy new things? Whoops. DS really wants to keep this fisher price farm that we have but I really don't like soft plastic, so I went out and replaced the animals with schleich animals...on the plus side this means we don't have a million of them like we did the little people animals!

AND, all this decluttering is getting into my 3.5 year old's head, because we had company yesterday and they kept going on and on about toys and saying, "you must have thousands and thousands of toys" like it was an impressive thing to have lots of toys...they were really just trying to make conversation with DS but since he doesn't have a lot of toys and we're trying to de-emphasize the accumulation of anything that's not loved and played with, it was very awkward, and finally DS just said, "Some kids don't have any toys."

I was so proud!

[naturallyspeaking]

Thanks for the great tips. I so need this too. My problem is my ds 7 is into many different things and he plays with almost all of it frequently. I need to come up with how much is enough for each of these toys. He is into Bionicle, Pokemon, Lego, finger board skateboarding and the usual little matchbox cars, books, etc... Also I don't know how to deal with the situation where he likes to spread out his toys (ie, Lego, skateboarding park) on a table, floor, couch, nook table, any flat surface to build things and they get left there when he leave the room... I'm constantly having to tell him to remove the toys...

[PeacefulSeams]

I am a hard core toy declutterer. I have 2 DS (6&1). They share a room. DS
(6) toys fit inside a trader joes bag and ds(1) toys fit inside a sandpail. Their books fit on half a bookshelf. Since we live down the street from the library, I seeno needfor aton of books. The rule is DS(6) reads a book and if he loves it, we keep it...but if he doesnt it goes. DS(1) has a few board books and some handed down books. DS(8) has 3 games....all travel size so they fit on the bookshelf. He has his bike and scooter and DS(1) has a ride on toy.

[lexmas]

Originally Posted by naturallyspeaking

Thanks for the great tips. I so need this too. My problem is my ds 7 is into many different things and he plays with almost all of it frequently. I need to come up with how much is enough for each of these toys. He is into Bionicle, Pokemon, Lego, finger board skateboarding and the usual little matchbox cars, books, etc... Also I don't know how to deal with the situation where he likes to spread out his toys (ie, Lego, skateboarding park) on a table, floor, couch, nook table, any flat surface to build things and they get left there when he leave the room... I'm constantly having to tell him to remove the toys...

I've been thinking about this for days now...how much is enough for each toy...I definitely have the same problem. For me, I think I need a set container for each type of toy (or space, because DS needs different containers for each different "set" of that toy), and I need to stick to that. Trying to figure it out...it's really hard! The spreading out and leaving it is exactly why I want less, because it's less to clean up!

Originally Posted by zenenlightened

I am a hard core toy declutterer. I have 2 DS (6&1). They share a room. DS
(6) toys fit inside a trader joes bag and ds(1) toys fit inside a sandpail. Their books fit on half a bookshelf. Since we live down the street from the library, I seeno needfor aton of books. The rule is DS(6) reads a book and if he loves it, we keep it...but if he doesnt it goes. DS(1) has a few board books and some handed down books. DS(8) has 3 games....all travel size so they fit on the bookshelf. He has his bike and scooter and DS(1) has a ride on toy.

All right, you're my hero! It really inspires me that you really can have so few toys! Thanks for the input!

[UberMama]

Oh my goodness, this is the thread I needed to read at 2am (can't sleep).

I've decluttered a lot of our garage and closets through out the house, but the kids room is bothering me once again. It just pains me that 80% of the toys in their room are not touched (just moved to gain access to the other toys). We have kept some of their deeper toy boxes and those things are the pits (LITERALLY!). I really need to grab them and toss the unused toys in them and give it ALL away. I have a HUGE pile of stuff in the garage to be given away on Craigslist once we have nice weather so I can put it in my driveway. I'd love to put a bunch of toys out there as well.

Still reading through this thread and I'm going to bookmark it to read in the next few days as I look for inspiration.

Thanks SaraCate for that link to that blog post. SO HELPFUL!!

[gothnurse3]

I flipped out right after Christmas this year. Sick of tripping, stepping over, and moving toys all the time. We ( DH and I) only buy our kids things for b-day and Christmas( and minimally). It the grandparents that feel we deprive our kids. (Whole other thread) We also have NO toys in the bedrooms. Just a few books on a bookshelf.

So, I dove into the club house with trash bags in hand. I had DH install those plastic covered wire shelves from home depot along 1 wall. I then sorted out the toys that they really play with. Each group got it's own plastic box with a snap shut lid. Then I sat at my computer and searched clip art for the contents in the box. (Ex: I went to Magic Cabin and copied the picture of the girl dancing with a play silk. Printed it to come out 4 x4 and then cut it out and used clear packaging tape to totally cover it and make it stick to the side of the box too....Play silk box) What does this do??
1) everything has a home
2) even if you can't read you know exactly where everything goes.

It has helped soooo much. They all have asthma so I have to keep things clean. This makes cleaning the club house a snap for me...because they are required to put their own toys away. I did spend some money upfront for the wall shelving and plastic boxes but it has brought peace to our home.

[LaughingHyena]

Also I don't know how to deal with the situation where he likes to spread out his toys (ie, Lego, skateboarding park) on a table, floor, couch, nook table, any flat surface to build things and they get left there when he leave the room... I'm constantly having to tell him to remove the toys...

I think it was here I saw the idea to make a board that could be brought out to play on then slide under the bed when not in use.

The basic idea was to take a board, as big as you have space for. Nail on some batons round the edges so the lego doesn't escape and put casters on the bottom so it slides away easily.