Organizing toys?

ThatWasAHoot · December 2013

Hi!
Does anyone have any great methods on toy organization or storage to minimize losing toys?

We have a rather large playroom FULL of toys. We try and purge a lot of them, but I have other kids that I take care of and have even more coming in! So I store a lot of age inappropriate toys until they come or are of age. We do put a lot of things in the closet and such so we can rotate toys, but we lose so many toys! My son will be 3 in a month and I have a 14 month old, too.
Any ideas?

MamaAllison · December 2013

I'm a big fan of bins. I have shelves from ikea on our playroom that are divided into cubes, and in many of the cubes I have bins. When everything is away it looks pretty organized (as often as that happens!!)

beautiflaw · December 2013

We have sling shelves for our books, (we have these in a rotation too. bedtime books are on her bedside table and the rest are in shelves) pull out drawers for some toys/playset items (little people in one drawer, cars in another drawer, dress up stuff, stuffed animals, etc), stacking bins for larger stuff like big blocks, race tracks, and her collection of plastic animal figurines (including the my little pony stuff) drawers for dollhouse stuff, barbies and barbie accessories, a big toybox for play food and kitchen stuff, and a big drawer holds dolls and doll accessories. Stuff too big to go in a toybox (doll stroller, doll cradle, shopping cart, rocking horse, etc) is parked. We have "zones" for activities. Baby doll stuff stays in one corner, blocks in another, etc.

All our shelves and drawers are plastic. I'm scared to have wooden stuff in her room right now because she wants to climb on everything. You can get the Sterilite ones you can find at Wal-Mart and Target for super cheap, and they are easy for kids to use since they are see-through and the drawers are lightweight enough for kids to pull. Also if they get messed up they are cheap. I'm not the type to invest a lot of money in a kids room when kids are so destructive. They come in so many sizes that I think they are great for little odds and ends like legos and stuff. Also the Itso stackables from Target are great. They are cheap and you can fit them however you want to fit your room's needs. Pretty sturdy too for plastic.

DD is only 2 and she knows where everything is and puts everything in its proper place after playing (mostly). We've never had problems with anything getting lost because all of her stuff is organized by type. Playsets stay together.

Right now coloring books, stickers, markers, crayons, etc have to stay in a closed bin that she can't open on her own. She needs 100% supervision when she's got that stuff. But once she's old enough to be responsible with it we are getting her an easel or a desk with storage for the supplies. That'll be after she's done with some of her toddler sets so we will have room for it by that time. If you do arts and crafts you can get inexpensive folding tables and chairs that can be stored after they are done. Some of my friends use those outdoor kids picnic tables.

We do have a rotation. It takes her a long time to get bored with things so our rotation is like 6 months. I play it by ear and when I think she's tired of something I stick it in the top of her closet. If she doesn't want it when I bring it back it gets given away or sold on ebay. Some things don't get rotated, like blocks, since they can be used for all sorts of things. We try to keep things parked on our patio if possible if they are okay to get wet, like her wheelbarrow and sand toys. Most balls stay outside. To me those are outside toys.

We keep age inappropriate toys where she can't even see them to want them. She is always getting stuff years beyond her age level from relatives... so a lot of times they are stored in my own closet, or in a sealed box in hers. For your situation I'd say keep them out of sight in a tote or bin until the younger ones are down for a nap or occupied with a different activity. Maybe set up a zone for younger ones to play on one side of the room and older ones to play on a another side. Post pictures on the outsides of drawers so during clean up the kids can figure out where the toys go on their own.

To control the number of items we have, we get rid of one thing for each new thing she gets. Usually its a stuffed animal, or books she is tired of. If we have too many of something to fit into a drawer or bin, we get rid of something. We try to do the same thing with clothing.

To keep it interesting for her, we rearrange her room a lot. Like every couple of months. Certain playsets stay out all the time, like her little people farm set and her dollhouse, because she plays with them every day and they are larger items.

The giant stuffed animals every kid seems to have but that don't fit anywhere live in the closet, under the bed, or on top of her shelves. She knows where they are and goes and gets them when she wants them. I hate them TBH but she likes to cuddle with them when she reads, and use them as pillows. lol.

JenniCollins · December 2013

We have a cube storage shelf that is full. So we are getting her another one for Christmas. She does really well keeping her things organized in the different baskets and cube fabric drawers. Target has two small drawers that fit into one cube, we have 2 sets of those to house the smaller items that don't need an entire cube.

I don't like toy boxes because everything just gets mixed up and lost. We have a few toys (Batman playhouse and Disney princess castle thingy) that get stored against a wall and the pieces are in a small bin on the shelves. Other than those everything gets put away as a complete toy. The top of the shelves are used to store puzzles.

Books are housed in Ikea spice rack shelves that are attached to the wall. They are the perfect size for her books (she has a few shelves in her bedroom as well).

HML5382 · December 2013

We don't have a playroom, so my girls each keep their toys in their own rooms. The baby toys aren't overwhelming at this point so they're just distributed into small bins inside her toy box and we pull out one bin at a time to play with and then throw everything back in the bin and return it to the toy box, easy peasy and nothing gets lost.

My toddler has 2 big drawers built in to the bottom of her bed that we use for dress-up clothes, and then she just has one of those 9 cube storage units for the rest of her toys, but she has a LOT of toys. I started toy rotation recently and it has been so wonderful! I bought 3 big tubs from Target (I'll be adding at least one more after Christmas!), I sorted all of her toys into whatever categories made sense based on what she had, and then put 1/4 of each category into each of the 3 big bins and 1/4 on her cube shelf. This was she always has some kind of figurine set to play with or block type toy to build with, music instruments to play, etc. and I store the 3 bins in the basement and rotate them about once a week, it literally takes 5 minutes now that everything is sorted. Her dressup clothes are always out and I store her extra puzzles and all of her board games in her closet where she can't reach them but I can get to them easily when she wants to play with one. It has been so great because she doesn't have the ability to create a huge mess since she only has 9 different toys/sets to pick from and each one is contained in it's own little bin on the shelf so it's super easy to put away. We have the rule that she can't take out a second box until the first one is cleaned up. Of course if she wants to combine two things to play with together we let this slide, like building a castle with her blocks and pulling out some princesses to live in the castle, but it does keep her from mixing everything up and losing parts or making an overwhelming mess that would be too much for her to handle.

Oh and we have art supplies stored in a bookcase in my living room (right next to our kitchen so we can work at the kitchen table). I like those to be out in the main part of the house where I can monitor her, she's a notorious wall colorer

Genevieve_kris · December 2013

THis is a constant battle at our house, too. I have bins and try to rotate out / donate things so that it doesn't get more out of control. WIth the holidays coming up, there will be goodwill trips in my future.

ThatWasAHoot · December 2013

I wish I had the guts to just attach stuff to the walls, but our playroom is made of this expensive and very nice knotty pine on the walls. Maybe I will just suck it up and install some crap! Haha

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