Arrrgghhh! Toy Storage
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How do you store your children's toys? I really try to keep their toys to a minimum, but somehow they seem to multiply.
I bought some stackable blue bins at Walmart a few months ago and I try really hard to keep the toys organized so that when Matthew pulls out a bin it is an activity centre. He is only allowed two bins out at a time, if he wants another we have to tidy up first.
The bins have categories, mega blocks (2 bins), train set one bin, shape sorter and stackables in another bin, music stuff in a bin, cars in trucks in a bin, kitchen stuff in a bin, and a misc. bin for little bits and pieces that do go with any particular activity.
I cannot get DH on board with my system and it's frustrating, I only ask that when he tidies up with Matthew that he put things back the way they were, otherwise everything is a disorganized mess and the children don't play with the toys they just dump them out on the floor and go to another bin. He wants me to put labels on the bins, geez what's so hard about this system, sometimes I don't know how he got through 4 years of "higher" education. Matthew is a peeler, meaning he will pick the labels off the bins as he loves to pick lables off everything so that is just a waste of time.
So after a very long story, how do you store your toddler's toys? I'm not sure if I need a new system or a new husband.  Maybe just a reformed one.
A little similar to what you're doing, but only on some things. Natalie has a toy storage unit in her room with 4 large plastic tubs and 8 smaller ones. MOST smaller things go in those. Her kitchen set is in her room, so kitchen things are stored in there, but she plays with them throughout the house.
Her room, in each tub: little people, cars, little animals, small wooden blocks, music instruments, kitchen play, snap beads, and one misc. catch all. She also has a separate large basket for dress-up, and one large tub with two side handles that holds larger misc. toys.
Her closet has a few larger items that she doesn't play with often but still likes. Sit 'n Spin, Little People farm, Noah's Ark, extra stuffed animals, and puppets.
In our family room, we have 2 plastic totes and those are not organized in any way. Toys just go in there. BUT, some toys within it are organized. For instance, her stringing beads are in a bag, the pegs for her pegboard are in a bag, her doctor kit items go in the dr. kit when we clean up, etc.
Books are her most used toy and they are on a large bookshelf in her room as well as in a large basket under a family room end table.
She can play with as many things as she wants at a time, but everything gets cleaned up at the end of the day. She knows what goes in her room and what generally stays in the family room. There is also a basket in the family room that's just for balls. We started doing that when we started losing them!
I have found the bins to be most helpful for the smaller items. The picture labels ar ea good idea, and I used that in kindergarten, but if you know he'll pick them off then don't waste your time. I'm not doing labels with Natalie. She can see what's inside anyway.
I've had kids before who just dumped toys and left, but fortunately Natalie hasn't really been like that. She's pretty thoughtful about what she chooses to do, so it hasn't been an issue. Like I said, as long as she picks everything up at night, her room and our family room can be pretty covered with toys, but we don't mind too much. We push things to one side in her bedroom at night, but don't always "clean" it up per say. The family room however is picked up completely at night.
My biggest problem has been with the larger toys. The basketball hoop, the easel, the stroller....things like that. My garage is already filled to the max, so storing them there when we're not using them is not a good option really.
Good luck! I think it's a constant re-organization and a work-in-progress!
Can you maybe put a label on the inside bottom of the bins? That way when they are empty, your dh and ds know what go together in the bins and perhaps your ds won't be tempted to pull the label off since, if he can see the label that means the toys are all out and he can play with them.
Good Luck We are out of the toddler stage. When they were toddlers I really had no organization. I tried many times but they always ended up all messed up again because of the kids and of course my dh So I completely know where you are coming from.
Oh...her mega blocks came in a wagon, so they stay in the wagon. Sometimes we leave it out, sometimes it's in her closet.
Oh, I feel your pain! I finally moved almost all the toys downstairs to the family room, now play room. I put legos in a bin, my little pony's in a bin, and so on. In her room Syd only has baby dolls and clothes,books on her bookshelf, and stuffed animals which mostly go in her closet in a big basket. She was actually able to clean her room tonight all by herself with no help. It's so much work!
Can you try rotating the toys. Putting just a couple of bins out at a time? I know Sydney didn't even notice when we packed up a few boxes of toys and brought them to the basement. I don't think I'll ever bring them up! LOL
Patti, I just want to hit DH over the head with the bottom of the bin, LOL I'm not sure where all this hostility is coming from, aunt flow is gone and is not expected back for another 28 days.
Matthew is not allowed to have any toys in his room, well maybe one or two for bribery reasons but that's it. He ruins all his books, he peels the paper off all the board books, this makes me nuts, so no books that he can reach, he has to ask and is supervised while reading books. If he has too many toys in his room he won't sleep or if he's upset he fires them down the hallway which again drives me crazy.
Eve, I will start to rotate again, I just haven't been doing it lately because we are moving and there's no place to rotate to. We are stuck in the living room and all the toys end up under the sofa or the t.v. wall unit. Cameron loves to kick toys under there. I'm ready to pack everything up and send it off to Good Will.
I really need a new system for the new house. They will have the family room all to themselves with very little furniture in it. I'm going to put a large cube shelving unit in there and a small table and that's it so hopefully we will be able to manage the toys a little better.
Deanna, I only let Matthew have 2 bins out at once because I can't stand the mess and I find when there is too much stuff out they can't really play, you can barely walk in the room when I let them just go at it, not only that it all ends up under the sofa. You're lucky Natalie is thoughtful in her play. Matthew is becoming that way more and more but Cameron is like Godzilla, Matthew will set-up his train tracks and Cameron will come in sit in the middle and tear everything apart or ruin all of Matthew's creations that he makes out of mega blocks. Matthew's a good sport though, he doesn't get too upset.
Keep some more ideas coming.
I used to store all the toys in neat little tubs and I even put a picture of what goes in each one on the outside. It only resulted in me sorting toys for hours because my DK or DH would just throw them into the same tub...DIDN'T THEY SEE THE PICTURE! Anyway, I gave up I keep a large portion of their toys in my closet and rotate so that only a small amount are allowed out at a time, one week I will put out the rescue hero's, the next the little people, the next their big barn w/ tractors and animals. This has been working for me..now if I could just figure out what to do with this clothing bomb that keeps erupting in my house!
I also went to a good ole fashioned toy box and that has saved me a huge headache.
Hhhmmm...Natalie doesn't dump and not play, so the toys out isn't an issue for us I guess. It's never big piles where you can't walk. Mostly, it's creations with blocks or animals. Only occasionally is clean-up a big deal at the end of the day. She cleans up about 90% while we supervise and assist. Larger items we will usually put away, or help with.
I'm sure you do and it may sound silly, but do you model where things go during clean-up? And when he dumps a tub and starts to walk away, do you stop and remind him what to do with the things in that tub? I had lots of K's that would dump toys and take off, but I found that each time they did that (if I was available) I would jump in and play with them for 5 min. and model the fun things that could be done with that toy. Most of the time then it was like a light bulb for them...."oh, I never pretended that the cows were eating hay and the sheep was in this pen made of blocks..." I found when I taught at least that this really helped with "dump and run". LOL I briefly taught in a daycare in my early days and this was how I handled it there as well. That's just one suggestion.
For anything that's not small, I like the idea of the "old fashioned toy box" that Coopav mentioned. That's what we have in the family room, only 2 of them. There *are* small things in there as well, but misc. that really can't be sorted anyway. Maybe he's just not ready for the micro-organization, but just "toys go in the toy box" when it's clean-up time. ??
We have done both systems. The issue with the big toy box, is all the toys do eventually get dumped. In general I use some rubbermaid tubs for smallish toys. I do label them, with words and pictures, for great prereading skills (of course I have all their drawers for clothes labeled too!). My favorite storage system is those little carts with drawers and wheels. I label each drawer, so like with legos, they can pull a whole drawer out.
In general what I have found is your system has to change on occasion, based on the stage they are in. If they are in the huge dump stage anyway (my dd never did this), then you might as well have them all together anyway. If they get overwhelemed easy, find smaller toys and control just how many they have out.
Matthew only dumps and runs when the toys are not organized appropriately, it's more of a frustration with DH not being on board than anything.
I'll give you an example if all the shape sorter pieces are in one bin then he can play with these items. If all the pieces are in seperate bins he doesn't know what to do with it and moves on to something else. Although he's beyond the shape sorter stage, I'm sure you know what I mean. How can he play with his train set if all the pieces are scattered in different bins, there's no logic to the madness for him.
If your gave you little one the Farm set with all the kitchen pieces it might be confusing, this is what I'm trying to get at. I'm trying to make the system work for DH, the big grown-up that doesn't get it.
Clean up with Matthew is not a big deal for me as long as he helps I'm fine. I usually do 60-80% of the clean up and he helps, it's the days when I'm busy and DH cleans up or after I come home from a day out on Saturday and all the toys are put away but they are a jumbled mess and I have to resort everything the next day.
Maybe this is just more of a vent about DH than anything.
Thanks for all the ideas, hopefully I'll find a way at the new place to get the toys better organized. I do want to get one of those slanted shelving units that holds bins for toy storage but they are expensive so I'll have to wait for awhile for that.
Sorry Heaven! I misunderstood. I took it as more of a Matthew thing than a DH thing.
We have the slanted toy shelf with the plastic bins. That's what is in Natalie's room. It was about $60 at Target and it's been a good investment. They had a cheaper one that was similar at Walmart, but it was cloth bins, and they didn't stay upright on their own so I returned it.
My system was and still is like yours Heaventree, with the bins, only I did mark in a HUGE magic marker what is inside. Seems men and boys have a hard time putting things back where they belong.
Magic Marker! Brillant!
We are on toy overload here too!
One time I told my kids that anything they didn't pick up was going to be thrown away. They left to play, and I went in their rooms and filled 2 large black trashbags with toys that they had left on the floor, or put in the wrong place (under the bed, in drawers). They didn't even notice that they were missing anything. It all stayed in the storage closet for about a month, and no one ever asked for anything back or mentioned that they were missing something. So, I went through the bags and pulled out a couple of sentimental items and the rest went in the trash.
We just picked out our floorplan for our new house. It has a large family room downstairs which will be used as kid headquarters. I'm hoping to be able to get some sort of organized system in place for toys. We should be in our house in about 6-8 months. Until then, it's utter chaos with the toy situation!
I sympathise - my DH also just dumps the toys into whatever, never mind that for years I've had everything organized with labels! Grrrr He's not the one who deals with the toys on a regular day to day basis, so I think he just doesn't get the importance of how they're put away - or what a hassle it is to get everything sorted out again. For him it's just easier to tell the kids to 'clean up' than to supervise & help them put stuff in the right place.
But we're going to a new system this next week - I'm having dh make several simple wood boxes (cause my kids destroy the plastic bins) and I'm gluing on those plastic magnetic ALPHABET LETTERS to one side (with super glue or cement glue, something strong like that). Most of my kids are reading now & they also peel off the paper labels. And since DH will be making different sizes for different toys, then I hope he will have more of himself invested in 'what goes where'. I hope it works........!!!!
Good luck Mia, I hope it works for you. You have given me another idea, a make work project for DH.
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