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Has it been a while since you last saw the living room floor for toys? It’s remarkable how one day you can tidy the whole house and the next day it can look like a tornado travelled straight through it overnight.
Sometimes you could be tricked into thinking that toys breed more toys. In reality, though, most of the toys that your kid has are either bought by you or by close family and friends.
One kid can only play with so many toys at once. Sometimes, especially for new families, the toy shopping escalates out of proportions because the new parents and grandparents get excited. Of course, it’s wonderful that the entire family is excited — but sometimes enough toys, are enough toys.
If you’re struggling with a toy collection that’s exponentially expanding then hang on as we dive into how you can effectively declutter and sort the great from the average toys.
Welcome to the ultimate guide to Decluttering Toys!
The first step when trying to declutter is to put a ban on toy shopping! Tell your kids’ grandparents and your good friends that there’s simply no more space for toys in your home and you’ve put a ban on bringing in more.
Once you’ve put a stopper on incoming new toys and things, it’s time to go through what’s already in the house.
To make things easy for you, here are 4 simple steps to follow:
1 — Categorise all the toys
There’s no point emptying all boxes on the floor and try and tackle all of it in an afternoon! When you start your decluttering, keep in mind that your kids’ attention span is very very limited.
For the experience to be really successful and for them to understand where their toys have gone you need your kid to take an active role in the decluttering process.
If you can, try and categorise the toys before you get started. Go through dolls one day, toy cars the next and bath toys on the third.
By breaking the work and separation into small manageable chunks you can easily get a lot done without having a series of tantrums because the little ones are getting tired and wanting to keep all 459 teddies.
Something that will keep all kids and adults involved and happy for longer is snacks. Throw some popcorn, some fruit and some good music into the mix and you’re flying!
2 — Sort through the toys cleverly
When you’re sorting through toys it’s a handy idea to have three piles or boxes lined up.
- One for toys that your kid uses almost daily
- One for toys that are used regularly
- And a final box for toys that have not been used for a long time
Now don’t throw anything away just yet. Unless of course there are things that are of no value to your kid and can’t be regifted.
Keep the most used box out and put the other two into storage. Whether that’s self-storage or the garage, the loft, or a shed doesn’t really matter as long as you can reach it somewhat easily should the child/ren want their toys back.
If you keep the box of toys that are used only sometimes in the house and only take things out of there when your kid asks for them, you’ll slowly be able to move the ‘sometimes used toys’ in to the never used box and you can slowly filter away things and toys your kid doesn’t need.
3 — Filter out keepsakes
When sorting through stuff you’ll likely come across a few things that you feel emotionally attached to. A doll that you used to have as a kid, a present from a passed away relative, a homemade action figure outfit, the first teddy and so on.
Whilst these items might not mean an awful lot to your 5-year-old at the time it might mean a lot to them later on so you better save a few memorable items.
Keep a small box of keepsakes and old favourites for when your kids have kids on their own one day.
4 — Purge often
For your hard work to pay off and keep paying off you need to purge often and only allow a minimal amount of new toys into the home.
No one needs 17 boxes filled with toys, not to mention all the toys that are too big to fit into the boxes in the first place!
Whenever Christmas and birthdays come around, be a little extra thorough to really clean out the home!
Images from UnSplash.com