Works For Me Wednesday: Help! The Toys Are Taking Over!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 12:03AM MAD21 By MAD
For this week's themed edition of WFMW, I get to turn the table on you, my reader. I get to ask, "What works for YOU?" Yay for me!
My girls are still at the young stage when their toys all take up a lot of space. Doll houses, little people houses (barnes, stables, amusement parks, train, circus, playgrounds... you get the idea), kitchen sets, dress-up clothes, big plastic cars, dress-up Elmo, dress-up Larry (veggie tale), train sets, big leggos, bouncy balls, hula-hoops, store sets, stuffed animals, and drawers full of all the assessories that go along with all this stuff.
Initially it wasn't too hard to either give toys away, or put them away until our younger daughter was old enough to want to play with them. But now our girls have similar interests and love to play with the same toys.
I learned long ago how to rotate toys. You know, put some of the toys away, while they played with others, and then switch them out every so often. For the most part it helped to keep our living area from getting completely covered in toys. But we've gotten to a point in our house where I'm simply running out of space. It feels like I'm living in a giant toy box.
I've thought of the idea of having them help me go through all of their toys and decide what to give away, but in all honesty, they at some point still play with all of the toys they have. Over time I've weeded out the ones they don't play with or are too young for them (as recent as September), but there is still so much stuff.
We've just celebrated another Christmas and now have even more toys, and birthdays for both our girls are coming up not to long from now. I can't convince people to stop giving them toys as gifts. I've asked several times for them to give money to help pay for things they really, really want which is gymnastics, riding, soccer, swim lessons, etc. But for some reason, it just doesn't work.
So I guess I'm asking y'all two things:
1. What do you do to keep your house from being overrun by toys?
2. How do you get people to stop buying them toys and pay for them to do things they really want?
Please rescue me by leaving comments with your ideas. I just know the toys are plotting something while we all are away. I may come home one day to find the doors locked and dolls lined up at the window ready to throw bouncy balls at me, while holding the dog and cat hostage.
Every Wednesday, fellow blogger Kristen at We are THAT Family posts clever ideas for getting things done. She calls it, "Works For Me Wednesday" or WFMW. Be sure to go visit her blog to read her post along with links to other blogs who are participating.
Reader Comments (4)
We have a bedroom that we use as a playroom. That way the toys are in there and mostly out of the rest of the house. When our second child comes along this summer I'm hoping to have another girl so they can share a bedroom and we can keep the middle bedroom as a playroom. Once they're older and they no longer need a playroom, they can both have their own rooms.
This is a constant struggle for us too. I've found it helps a little the more I involve the girls (mine are 4 & 6 and play with the same toys too). I've been asking them every couple of days to pick a few things they're willing to part with and put them in a box. I've explained a few times that there are a lot of kids that don't have many toys, and they seem to be interested in helping. Also our church nursery was looking for some toys, and the girls were excited to give some toys to that. I'm having more success with having them choose a few things once a week or so than I did with a major purge. I think it was too overwhelming the other way.
We've done the idea of going through the toys with our kids and giving away what they don't play with. It's a great opportunity to get them thinking about others as well. Right now, we have everything pretty much packed up for our new house- if some toys don't show back up, they might never notice. :) I'm only half kidding!
My children are older now 12, 15, 18, but when they were younger I rotated toys . . . Yes, I actually boxed up toys and stored them away for a month. This tricked worked well for us. I also had toys that were designated for only certain times - resting, traveling, etc. And stored these in a place that the children didnot have access too. Absolute favorites stayed out all the time, but the excess stuff rotated. It worked great for my family!