Decluttering Toys
Whether you are on a minimalism lifestyle journey, decluterring for a move or simply looking for an easier daily clean-up routine to create more peace in your life, here is a strategy for tackling the toy pile no matter how big or small!
How many toys is too many?
There is no perfect answer, but there are studies that show too many toys can kill creativity and free-thinking (https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/growth-curve/too-many-toys-creativity). As a parent, the signs of having too many toys are difficult to ignore - it takes too much time to put them away, you’re constantly stepping on them, and the storage bins are overflowing with no empty space left.
Before you begin the task of decluttering children’s toys, close your eyes and picture your ideal play space for your children. Which room or area of the house did you picture? Is the floor completely clear and everything has a home? Is it full of bright colors or more of a neutral tone? Is there significantly less toys in your ideal play space than you own now, or just a few less?
This visualization activity can help you clarify your goals for the decluttering process ahead of time and make you think about the space you have to work with to achieve those goals.
A functional, clutter free play area in the living room. Pictured above is the writer’s ideal play space; a soft, comfortable mat for the infant to roll around on safely with minimal toys left out on the floor when not being used for play.
Create a Pile of Toys
The first step in the declutter process is to create a large pile of every single toy in the house, Marie Kondo style. Before creating this pile it can be helpful to quickly pick everything off the floor for 10-20 minutes and loosely organize and group items together (random Legos get tossed back in Lego bin, puzzle pieces back in the box, etc).
This is just basic tidying - if you start spending more than 10 seconds trying to find containers to store items or decide where in the home it should be - you’ve started organizing too much when the focus should be on simply getting that declutter pile all together.
Be forewarned the process of collecting every toy in the house could take anywhere from minutes to hours depending on how many toys there are, so it’s best to pick a day you can be home from start to finish.
As the pile comes together you may notice some of the following categories:
Building Blocks
Shape Sorters
Art Supplies
Musical Instruments
Dress-up Clothes
Kitchen Items
Cars & Trucks
People & Animal Figurines
Stuffed Animals/Dolls
Puzzles
Outdoor/Beach Toys
Recognizing these categories is useful because it can aid in identifying how many toys in each category you have, and which category may have excess. As you create the big pile, try to stack categories and like items together. This will save you time later in the process.
Some parents prefer to do this with their children and other parents prefer to wait until their children are out of the room and cannot interrupt the process. This is totally a personal preference. At home with a 6 month old and 2 year old I found it easier to make executive decisions and declutter during nap time. If they were older I would try to include them in the process and give them some autonomy in the decision making process. At the end of the day, it’s whatever gets the job done.
2. Choose What to Keep or Get Rid Of
Once the pile is made, start by quickly choosing the toys that are an obvious “keep” or “get rid of” item. These toys should only take a split second to decide. These are the “keep” toys that you can’t fathom getting rid of right now because your family loves them and uses them daily, or the “get rid of” toys that you’ve been thinking about getting rid of for way too long now. Anything that is broken or unsafe is a good place to start. These easy decisions will help to gain momentum needed for tackling the harder decisions later on. Another easy category is any toy that is not age appropriate. If it is too young, it gets donated and if it’s too mature, it can be put aside for now to be stored out of sight for future use.
After you’ve sorted the easy “keep” and “get rid of” items, you are left with a pile of “maybes”. These toys might take longer to decide what to do with them. Maybe they were a gift and there is guilt attached to putting it in the donate pile. Maybe your child still plays with it but the repetitive annoying music makes you want to throw it away. Perhaps there is absolutely nothing wrong with the item, but you know you don’t need it.
When trying to decide which toys to keep, here are some questions you can ask yourself:
-Is this an open-ended or close-ended toy?
-Do we already own one or something similar?
-Is it a choking hazard? Is it broken or not worth repairing?
-Do they still play with it? Is it age appropriate?
-What purpose does this serve? Is this toy helping my child learn and grow?
Continue to pick up each item one by one until the pile is sorted through. At the end you should be left with something that resembles different keep/trash/donate/sell piles.
Sometimes even after you have decluttered there are still excess toys. This is okay. Remember decluttering is a process and it can take many rounds to finally be at a place where the toys and other items in your house lose their status as clutter and start to bring you peace and joy. Every single item you choose to let go of brings you one step closer to a clutter-free lifestyle.
3. Say Goodbye, and Prevent the Clutter from Returning
The hard part is done. Now you should be left with toys you and your child love that serve a purpose. That purpose may be educational or it may be purely fun, but you are intentionally choosing to keep that item for a reason. With the toys that are left it is time to start finding each one a home inside your home.
One solution to manage the leftover toys is to implement a toy rotation. Summarized, a toy rotation is exactly as it sounds - every set amount period of time the toys that are currently out for play get rotated with completely new (old) ones. If you notice your child getting bored with their toys even though they have more than enough, a toy rotation is a great solution. It can relieve the boredom and keep the mess under control. There are many different ways to rotate toys. Some people do it once a week, personally as a busy working mom I find this unattainable and end up swapping out toys at longer intervals.
If you have some extra toys you aren’t quite ready to toss, consider putting a small bag in the trunk of car for those times you get stuck outside the house or want to have an impromptu picnic or park play date.
To prevent clutter from returning, think of today as a new starting point or fresh restart:
Share with your friends and family that you are on a minimalism journey, and encourage clutter-free gifts if they ask (you can find some awesome lists online)
Create an Amazon wishlist or something similar to facilitate more intentional gift buying on both your end and any family that might ask
Choose quality over quantity - try saving up for quality toys that will last many years and grow with the child as opposed to cheaper quality toys that break easily and will have to be replaced sooner
The easiest way to control the chaos and clutter is to limit how many toys enter through the door of your home. If friends and family ask about what gifts to get, you can let them know you are on a minimalism journey or trying to declutter and would prefer experiences over physical toys or create a Amazon wish list to share.
Experiences are amazing but also tricky because tickets to a city museum are great, but can require out-of-the-budget funds such as taking a day off work, parking fees, lunch, etc. If funds or free time is limited, try to brainstorm some local experiences your kids might enjoy that don’t require too much planning! A gift card to the local ice cream shop or arcade can be a great way to spend time together while enjoying a special treat.
During this process there is a prime opportunity to take inventory, identify any gaps and make an intentional wish list for upcoming holidays and birthdays. Keep a pen and paper or a Notes app open on the phone to jot down toy ideas that you wish your child had or items they could use.
Perhaps you want to encourage your child to draw or paint more but they don’t have many art supplies, or maybe you want to expose them to music but don’t have any kids musical instruments yet. Write these ideas down.
If you need some worldly perspective, there is an insightful documentary series called Toy Stories by photographer Gabrielle Galimberti who traveled all over the world and photographed kids with their toys. What struck me most about this series of photographs was no matter how few toys the kids had, they’re smiles were just as big. A worldly view can help put the clutter in perspective and remind us that more toys does not equal more happiness (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/children-around-world-their-favorite-toys-180950275/).
TIP: Don’t feel the need to immediately go out and buy new storage bins just yet. Live with the newly decluttered toys for a little while- you would be surprised how many empty containers you have around the house and how your storage needs drastically change after decluttering.
When children are born, there are only so many toys they can physically play with. I think most parents would agree a 6 month old is easier to entertain than a 2 year old. As they grow older and develop, their developmental needs change and the toy pile can grow as quickly as they do!
Every toy, especially when received as gifts, is an act of love and a blessing. However in a consumerist society like the U.S. it can be easy for the amount of toys in the household to become unmanageable even with the most well-intentioned friends and family members. What are your favorite clutter-free gifts to give or receive for kids?
