Anyone else have a toddler who hoards?

iluvbillynollie · May 2011

OK, so my LO is driving me crazy! She loves to take all of her food from her play kitchen, along with any other small toys or things around the house and pile them up. She will collect dog toys, Mr. Potato head pieces, magnetic letters, coasters from our coffee table, basically anything transportable and not nailed down. She typically will pile everything on top of her play kitchen, or in her shopping cart to the point it overflows and then she freaks because the stuff falls out. Sometimes she'll pile it on the couch, and sometimes she'll just lay it all on the floor.

She also likes to carry around as many things in her hands as she possibly can- she will wear purses and bags on each shoulder and just carry randomn stuff around. She also loves to talk about how "we got a lot of stuff mommy!" when we are in the car and she sees her daycare bag and the new babys diaper bag and her lunchbox, etc. She comments on it at least daily and comments on it like it makes her so happy to "have a lot of stuff".

I have taken some toys out of her playroom area where her kitchen is, because I thought maybe she was overwhelmed, but she still does it. I try and try to get her to play other things- to color or draw (she hates to), play with her baby dolls, play games, play pretend in the kitchen and put the food back neatly, but she is very resistant. Both my DH and I have tried to show her how to play with many other things and She LOVES to pretend but whenever she is left to play alone this piling up and "hoarding" behavior is all she does. I googled it and it says it is normal behavior for some toddlers, but it is seriously driving me NUTS! Has anyone else experienced this? I just wish I could get her interested in some other activities.

Smores730 · May 2011

I could have written your post down to the details of magnetic letters and coasters. My DD hoards like this and has done it for over a year now. It used to only be purses and shoes but over time it's the toys and random treasures. Whenever we can't find things we know to go look in 1 of several typical hoarding places. We ended up buying her a treasure chest as a means of creating a go-to place so that we can reduce the number of piles because she was hoarding it everywhere.

I did it as a child too. In fact my mom kept my favorite hoarding spot with all the old treasures in it. I think I stopped doing around age 6.

thegan · May 2011

My son does this, not quite to the degree you're describing. He likes to fill his bed with tons of things at bedtime. As soon as I tell him it's time for bed, he walks to his room grabbing anything he can along the way. There are many times when he's gotten out of bed to gather more after I've left the room! I figure it's something he'll grow out of. It's kind of cute at time, but with the constant unloading of the bed, it does get annoying, especially when they're toys that talk when he rolls on them in the middle of the night!

Emcat1980@yahoo.com · May 2011

DS does this all the time (26 months). It's like he'd rather carry around as many toys/pieces of toys as he can than even play with them. Then he'll stash them somewhere like behind the sofa cushions or in a random container or just make a pile. It's definitely normal but I agree, can also be frustrating - both to watch them not play with their toys and to clean it up!!! (and try to find all the random pieces of stuff all over the house.....)

iluvbillynollie · May 2011

Smores730:

I could have written your post down to the details of magnetic letters and coasters. My DD hoards like this and has done it for over a year now. It used to only be purses and shoes but over time it's the toys and random treasures. Whenever we can't find things we know to go look in 1 of several typical hoarding places. We ended up buying her a treasure chest as a means of creating a go-to place so that we can reduce the number of piles because she was hoarding it everywhere.

I did it as a child too. In fact my mom kept my favorite hoarding spot with all the old treasures in it. I think I stopped doing around age 6.

I am glad to hear my child is not the only one doing it but good god, I dont think I could take it for 4 more years!

MommySteph2009 · May 2011

Yes. DS carries his cars in a shopping cart or a rolling back pack all over the house.

Soter1 · May 2011

My DS is definetly a toy hoarder/piler. He piles ALL of his toys into a huge pile and you have to leave it like that. He also gathers every blanket and pillow from the first floor and adds it to his pile. He claims he's building a "bonfire" (which is a whole other issue, lol). He will knock down his kitchen and tool bench because he is "cutting down trees for his bonfire" It also drives me bonkers. It seems like he doesn't ever play with his toys, he just piles them. His bed also has to have like 4000 books in it and a million animals for him to sleep. I have no solution

regenab · May 2011

Oh yes, I have one that does the same thing. Once she has a bunch of things in a pile in a certain area, she will then sit their and sort them by shape, size and color. She lines them all up in their categories. Then when that is complete, she puts them all in a bag or pillowcase if she can find one and carry them to the next spot in the house. The only thing that is an issue is she has a twin. And her twin is nothing like this. And the twin things it is a really fun thing to walk up to her and take 1 item from her collection at the time. This causes a major, I mean major, melt down for the hoarding twin. OMG the tears because 1 item was out of place is horrible. I can see this becoming a problem in the fall when they start a 2 day a week preschool. If someone takes a toy from her it is a huge meltdown. Not because she has a problem with sharing, but because there is now a toy or object out of place and her organizational brain cannot handle this kind of disturbance.

Sometimes I am a little concerned because I am not sure how she will handle this in school. But at the same time the behavior is normal for her, it is how her brain is learning. Instead of playing with a toy for like 10 seconds and moving onto something else (what her twin does), she will sit and sort and learns about objects and how they work. She is a very focused toddler when it comes to playing. Her twin is more of the play with everything and leave it all over the house in a mess to pick up later because she has to move onto the next toy.

Just look at it as how she learns and processes her environment. Maybe all of our kids will turn out to be geniuses and this is how they started. Stick out tongue

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