I’m still laying in bed listening to hubby try to handle both kids. I almost feel bad but it’s so funny, my 5 yo is doing an “experiment” so hubs is chasing him around exclaiming what are you doing??? And why do you need that?? And what’s that for? And my son is giving very precise scientific answers all while hubs is also trying to placate and entertain our 1 yo girl... the baby just grabbed a roll of foil off the “experiment” table at the same time as my son asking for “just a few drops of food coloring to highlight the reaction” 🤣 I know he’s struggling and I need to get up but I just can’t bring myself to do it lol
Question! When you are starting to feel overwhelmed by clutter in your house, where do you start? 95% of our problem is the girls’ toys. And the fact that DD1 doesn’t enjoy structured organization. Exhibit A: I bought a colored pencil/crayon organizer for them that holds all the things, but when I look at the floor there’s art supplies all over it (the holder is upstairs, I’m downstairs). I also picked up a bag in the playroom this morning that was hidden under a chair, full of colored pencils and crayons. 🤷🏻♀️ She is my daughter though - I was this way as a child haha! They just have way more toys than I ever did, mostly because MIL brings them things anytime she sees them.
I digress. Where do you start in order to tame the clutter monster?
@bblair24, I start with anything that DS2 is not interested in or may have outgrown. Then, I see what can be set aside for DD2. Everything else gets packed up and dropped at Goodwill. I think years of moving from apt to apt conditioned me to cull clothes, books, movies, and toys every six months.
@bblair24 we do a lot of putting things in bins and the bins in a closet out of sight. And then I just every couple of weeks pull a different bin of something out until they are bored if that and I switch it out. Also finding the compromise on things, like maybe art supplies don’t have to be completely sorted, but they have to go in one large bin, or be on a table, a designated art area etc.
@bblair24 and I feel ya on the MIL part! Mine gets them so much especially for birthdays and holidays. Whenever we lived closer to her and we would go see her she would show them what she got for them. I just started saying “I’m not sure where we even have room. Maybe we can leave that here so you can play with it next time we come visit and it can stay special for you!” It drastically reduced how often she was getting little things. And it stopped the gift of slime after one time with the comment that it could be played at her house on her marble table, lol!!
@bblair24 designated areas where if things are found abandoned outside that area they disappear 😊 My son has his room, playroom, and art room all upstairs. Room has to be relatively clean, playroom is cleaned once a week—I don’t have to look at it and can just shut the door. Downstairs he has a closet just for his stuff, and one cabinet and drawer in the kitchen. Anything downstairs not put away at the end of the day disappears. Not permanently but long enough to convey the message. Compartmentalizing designated areas where each kind of activity can be done helps. Like drawing coloring painting play dough can only be done in the art room or the kitchen table. Toys stay in the playroom or his room, and if they do come downstairs they’re subject to the closet or disappear rule. I really don’t Care about the upstairs because we don’t use it (master and dds room is down) so I don’t have to look at it but it’s a good way to teach them responsibility and taking care of their belongings that if they get left lying around bye bye lol. But maybe I’m a mean mom 🤪
also edit to add I’m a SAHM so I have time to clean every day, working mamas you go ahead and wallow in that clutter! Ain’t no thang.
@Serenamarr I’m also a SAHM! I just feel so sabotaged in my efforts to clean that I tend to give up. 😂
@aisukurimsarang I did start sorting clothes. I have a friend that can use some baby girl clothes, and I went through a ton for her and goodwill! It was a good start.
@theletlers oh man, the slime 🙈 MIL brought silly putty once and it got all embedded in DD1’s bed sheets and totally ruined the set. 😤 What’s crazy is a lot of what she brings throughout the year is stuff she’s just unloading from her house. She’ll even say “if you don’t want it, just donate it or give it to someone else!” And I’m like okay, and how many goodwill stores/drop offs did you drive by on the way here?! Just take it there without giving it to us first! She knows we don’t want it, I think she just feels guilty being the one to donate it. Christmas is a whole other story - her thing is the number of presents so she loads the girls down with so much little trinket-y stuff, it’s really too much for them to enjoy.
@Serenamarr I love your idea of things "disappearing!" I'm having the same trouble with DD leaving her things downstairs when she has an entire second floor to herself. But my problem is that DH will sabotage my efforts and say I'm being ridiculous if I do things like that. If I had it my way, that's exactly how I'd roll!
@bblair24 I usually weed through toys and books every couple of months or so and take out the ones she doesn't use or that are broken. I need to start getting rid of them for good, but for now I've been sticking them away in the attic.
@riff323 yeah, part of our problem is that I’ve been bagging up and collecting donation things and sticking them in the basement...and haven’t actually donated them yet 🙈 So they’re just taking up space, which feels like it’s adding to the chaos! DH is off work now for the rest of the week and I mentioned maybe we should finally take all the things to Goodwill while he’s off!
All of what @Serenamarr says! I will not hesitate to purge anything my 8 year olds leave out, or drag from the basement up into their room (and leave out) when they know the rule is toys stay in the basement playroom.
@BuckeyeNut05 and @Serenamarr I need to start putting things in toy jail! I have done that before when I ask them to clean, and then they say they're done and there's still toys all over the place I just take them away for a while. If they would leave the mess in their bedroom and playroom/school room I wouldn't care so much, but they have to carry everything down to the living room and leave it there. Then they get more things and leave them with the other things and it makes me craaaazy. The real kicker is the school/playroom is going to have to turn in to baby brother's room at some point so that'll just add to the madness of trying to find a way to contain everything. We just need a huge purge, I think. Maybe we can send the girls to my parents' house to spend the night and bag up a ton of their toys while they're gone.
@bblair24 minimizing is really the only way I don't get stressed. And I am definitely not a clean freak. I just found that having less stuff around is much more pleasant.
@Lexibizzel I know what you mean, I’m far from a clean freak too! My mom always reminds me of how messy I was as a child when I talk about DD1’s tendencies. Yes mom, I know. 🙄😂 I am going to work hard at minimizing and purging before the baby is born. I did some more work today.
Finally, regular movement. Like every hour, regular. I've even seen my belly jump a few times. I'm almost 24 weeks! I'm used to this happening MUCH earlier.
We finally took 6 big bags of clothes/toys/baby girl things to Goodwill tonight. These same bags that we’ve been moving around the basement for years, stepping over them to get to other things. 😂 So it’s a start to our clutter issue anyways!
I attempt to do the toy rotation thing, but I get lazy about it and the bin gets buried in the laundry room for months. I am looking forward to being out of the baby phase with baby #2 so I can purge all the baby related stuff that is taking up space in the laundry room. That room is a disaster and the basement (where most toys are) usually is too. Our main floor and upstairs are better because we have very limited toys on main floor and no toys upstairs in the bedrooms. I tried to Marie Kondo our lives a few years ago and love the idea of having less, but I have trouble staying the course.
@kadeephd I had tried the toy rotation once before and failed miserably. DD2 was a newborn and it was my last ditch effort to make myself feel better about our living situation at that time. It didn’t help. 😂 Now that they’re older, I have a much better toy rotation going, and it helps that DD1 will occasionally ask about one of the other toy boxes.
@bblair24 I get so overwhelmed by clutter. This time of year is so hard because DS’ birthday is the end of November and then Christmas happens and it’s just a lot. I purged in advance, but need to again. I also put everything with multiple parts/pieces in clear bins. We have those cube organizers in the playroom they fit in, and we also rotate whatever doesn’t fit out to a shelving unit in the garage. DS can go out and pick other boxes he wants too, and since they’re clear he can easily see what’s inside.
@forevertired ooh the clear boxes are a good idea! We’re in a similar boat - DD2’s birthday is 12/12! So lots of things all at once. Now that we’re done with all the gifts for a while I need to purge again.
FIL kept saying today “good luck finding a place for all of this when you get home!” Haha yeahhh, not funny. 😂
@forevertired we had two birthday leading up to Christmas, so I totally know the struggle. I purged a week before Christmas and feel pretty good about it all, but our house is now being taken oven by legos. I love that they enjoy them so much but they are everywhere.
@pelorunningmama same with little things being everywhere - DD1 was given a color reveal Barbie for Christmas and it came with all these tiny surprise accessories. She also got a Scooby Doo mystery machine play set that included 20 tiny things for the people to hold...they’re alllll over the place. I will definitely accidentally vacuum one up someday and she’ll probably never even miss it. 😂
Sorry I've been MIA recently-- the holidays have been crazy around here, as I'm sure for many of you too. I hope everyone has enjoyed their holidays and are looking forward to the new year!
Late to the game on the toy chaos thing but I do a loose version of toy rotation. Basically keep one type of toy in each cubby in the playroom (blocks, dinos, matchbox cars, little people, etc with bigger items like a large truck being by itself) and when I notice they aren't playing much I switch it out with something else. No set schedule just on an as needed basis. We also implemented clean up time about 45 minutes before bed. We are about 3.5 weeks in to doing that and its working so well! I'm not stressed about toys all over during the day because I know at the end of the day they will all be put away and it won't be me doing it alone. We aren't neat freaks by any means but these two things do help to keep things less chaotic for us!
@runsoncoffee I like the toy clean up idea! We need to do that every night. I’ve considered that before but never manage to remember to actually do it.
I'm really liking all these toy rotation/storage ideas and am filing them away for future reference! Sorry I've been a little MIA the past week; we were working on cleaning/organizing/baby-proofing the house and we did the nursery and play room. I'll post some pictures in a spoiler, but we are pretty happy with how it turned out! I hope you all had a lovely holiday!
I'm going to try to do toy rotation but we haven't even completely unpacked the toys yet so TBD on success. My main thing is that toys will be put back in the playroom throughout/at the end of the day. That room doesn't have to be clean IMO. Today I picked everything up off the floor and ran the Roomba and that felt amazing. But we are a two working parent household and our clutter reflects that. I have kallax shelves from ikea and am working on organizing the playroom this week (today I started with the boxes of books in the closet in there to make room for my planned organization). But basically, if I can make the living room comfortable I'm much happier.
@kvh22 our main goal is a cleaned up living room too. Our bedrooms and playroom are upstairs and I don’t mind the toy mess as much in there. But when the area rug in the living room is completely covered in toys, that’s when I start to lose it!
Is anyone else’s app/site messed up? Mine will not show me which threads have recent comments, no matter what I do! I’ve tried to log out, deleted and reinstalled the app, accessed from web, nothing makes a difference. It’s maddening!!!
@juliebird6 mine is working but I have that happen frequently and it drives me crazy. Usually going back and coming back on solves it but not always. I can't wait to move to FB (as long as you all think I've participated enough since I've been intermittently on this time). It makes it so much easier to interact.
I only use the desktop version but that happens to me sometimes too @juliebird6.
We transitioned to FB about three months before the babies were due in my last BMB, so if this BMB follows a similar timeline that would be pretty soon. There were 56 of us in the D18 fb group then and now we're down to 40. This group seems smaller though. I wonder how many people would make the switch to FB.
@kadeephd my May19 group moved mid-February (I had to go back and check when it was created). So just under 2.5 months before the first due date. I think everyone was in 3rd tri by that point. There's 47 members still. Only a few have dropped off. It's much more active than my first BMB for some reason 🤷 I think we have way less in this group but I feel like that's the nature of the pandemic. I have friends in other BMBs who have said they're current ones are also pretty quiet.
@Buckeyenut05 I'm not opposed to trying something else. Maybe when it comes time, we'll have a vote? FB is probably the most commonly used social media platform though. We had a vote in my last BMB and that won by quite a bit. We did lose some people when we moved over because they didn't have FB accounts. I use FB almost exclusively for my BMB group at this point.
@juliebird6 mine did that for a couple weeks! It seems better now. For today anyways.
My July 14 group moved to FB probably a couple months before the babies started being born. With DD2, I don’t think the group was created until after babies were born. This group does seem smaller. With both of those we had people that had pretty much never participated in anything on the board - like ever - trying to join the FB group and we decided against that. Just seemed too weird!
My May 19 BMB started with a FB group and has migrated to mostly FB messenger (some only go to messenger and some only to the group) which is actually pretty amazing. We have threads for general chat, crafts/sewing/knitting, baking/cooking, home design, health/fitness, etc. I have slack for work that I don't use frequently but am somewhat familiar and open to it as an option. The conversation vs posts/comments is really nice and slack has some good functionality.
I generally don't have too many issues with the bump, but will migrate with the majority. I dont usually use FB, but I think if I went there for a specific purpose like this group it would be ok. I'm open to other platforms as well.
I've never used slack, but I'd be open to trying it. I probably wouldn't be as active there as I am/have been with my other bmbs after moving to Facebook. Connecting with other moms with kids the same age as mine is predominantly what I use FB for nowadays. I'm not in a huge hurry to migrate though - I was just venting my frustration with the dang app. I'd be cool with a mid-late 3rd tri migration, with some sort of safety protocols in place to make sure that the people who join are the same as those who participate here regularly.
Re: Random Thread
also edit to add I’m a SAHM so I have time to clean every day, working mamas you go ahead and wallow in that clutter! Ain’t no thang.
@aisukurimsarang I did start sorting clothes. I have a friend that can use some baby girl clothes, and I went through a ton for her and goodwill! It was a good start.
@bblair24 I usually weed through toys and books every couple of months or so and take out the ones she doesn't use or that are broken. I need to start getting rid of them for good, but for now I've been sticking them away in the attic.
We transitioned to FB about three months before the babies were due in my last BMB, so if this BMB follows a similar timeline that would be pretty soon. There were 56 of us in the D18 fb group then and now we're down to 40. This group seems smaller though. I wonder how many people would make the switch to FB.
My July 14 group moved to FB probably a couple months before the babies started being born. With DD2, I don’t think the group was created until after babies were born. This group does seem smaller. With both of those we had people that had pretty much never participated in anything on the board - like ever - trying to join the FB group and we decided against that. Just seemed too weird!