Tackling the Toys

Troubled by all the toy clutter? Here are two resources that might help.

1. Parent Hacks suggests that you create an in-home toy library. Here's the first little bit about that idea.

"To contend with the overflow of toys, without violating the principle of ownership (that is, the toys belong to them, not us), we instituted a toy library.

In the basement, we have a bunch of shelving units (Sears, plastic utility shelves), on which are large Rubbermaid bins. The bins are labeled with things like 'dressup' and 'vehicles'. This is the toy library.

Children may check toys out of the library in any quantity at any time, provided they check an equal number of toys back in at that time."

2. The blog in the trenches of motherhood has a collection of 7 tips for aesthetically pleasing, child friendly, practical toy storage - and they are all good. Just two tiny examples:

"If you find the toys overwhelming, so do your children. They can not decide what to play when there are too many choices. Then they do the dump and run. Dumping out toy after toy after toy until the room is a disaster and there is no way for them to clean it up."

"Get rid of the toybox as the dumping ground of all toys. Think of it this way if your cellphone, coffee cup, pocketbook contents, car keys, mail, pens, paper, hairbrush, etc were all dumped into a large box that you had to root through to find anything, how annoyed would you be?"

[via Parent Hacks]

Photo: Via Toy Box [via Apartment Therapy: The Nursery and Parent Hacks]