help me w toy organization.

mrse1107

hey...

we recently moved in w DHs grandma so now the kids toy area has expanded into a toy room...

The problem is, i am having a hard time keeping it organized.

I do have a toy organizer, and I spend a lot of time trying to categorize by  toy.

IN addition, we have a big toy box for larger toys and other little baskets for dress up,etc...

When they go in, they tend to dump buckets (we try to stop this) or they pick things up and just don't put them in the places I would like them to be. 

Neither does DH....

I know they're young so I cant be crazy over it, but I worry that when things are all mixed up that badly they don't really play with things the way they should. 

Tips??

Pesky

Even at 2, they can understand that they need to put things back in 1 bucket before pulling out another.  That's how it works at our daycare and the kids get the rule just fine.  they just don't always want to follow it. 

mrse1107

true...

maybe I just haven't "enforced" the clean up rules well enough.

 

franciscaz

Organizing is probably not the problem.  We had this issue and were very worried with the holidays coming so we tried two new things.

First get rid of half the toys or more (we got rid of 2/3).  When the twins were napping and Harm was at school, my nanny and tore apart all the play areas and for every one toy we put as a keep we put another in the give away.  Than with the keeps we really thought about what they were playing.  I was surprised how much went and the kids hardly noticed!!!!!!  

The next thing is that we just don't let the kids now move from one activity to the next until everything is cleaned up now.  There are no dumping buckets anymore b/c the kids know they have to sit there and clean it up.  It took a couple of weeks of misery trying to get them to get this but now it just is natural for them. 

kmhunt11

I personally don't worry as much about categorization.  As long as it's cleaned up I'm happy.  I figure DD will get to the point where she sees the value of keeping them organized (especially being a Montessori kid!), and in the meantime she can deal with it as is.  Also, too many toys = way to hard for them to keep it organized.  Nor can they even play with it all.  Weed out what isn't being used as much and put it in big tupperwares in the garage or something.  That way you can rotate and keep stuff fresh.  If you really are set on organization, maybe clean it totally out temporarily and add stuff slowly back in until it seems like about all they can manage.  

Mrs. Rohde

franciscaz:

Organizing is probably not the problem.  We had this issue and were very worried with the holidays coming so we tried two new things.

First get rid of half the toys or more (we got rid of 2/3).  When the twins were napping and Harm was at school, my nanny and tore apart all the play areas and for every one toy we put as a keep we put another in the give away.  Than with the keeps we really thought about what they were playing.  I was surprised how much went and the kids hardly noticed!!!!!!  

The next thing is that we just don't let the kids now move from one activity to the next until everything is cleaned up now.  There are no dumping buckets anymore b/c the kids know they have to sit there and clean it up.  It took a couple of weeks of misery trying to get them to get this but now it just is natural for them. 

I agree with this. I had to weed out a TON of DD's toys to make space for new Christmas and birthday stuff. She also knows to put things away before bringing out more stuff. I still need to give reminders at times but she's doing much better than before. 

I also tried to categorize the toys but this was  driving me more crazy than anything else. The main issue for us was the mess and DD not cleaning up. It takes some work and A LOT of patience but she's doing much better now

KatFCo

We've found shelves to be more useful than buckets or toy boxes. We used her old changing table as a place for large toys and got some big baskets to put on one shelf for smaller things (i.e. all "baby" related things go in one basket). We also put a bookshelf in her room (properly mounted to the wall!) so she has several shelves for her books and other toys.

We also try to make sure every Saturday morning is clean the room day. I go in and help her, but we're slowly trying to phase that out so she can figure out how to think of where things go. It also helps that I'm insisting DH put things in their proper place also, rather than just behave as though "off the floor"=clean.