Warning: The below picture may be difficult for some of you to see. This is the real life post-Christmas toy explosion in my girls room.
It’s terrible. I know. It’s the results of lots of new presents and no orginazation for them.
We really try to go minimal on the presents we buy for our kids. Santa brings them a present, and goodies in their stockings and we buy them one present. That may sound crazy to some of you, but after presents from both sets of grandparents, aunts and uncles, my kids have PLENTY of awesome toys! On top of our Christmas presents, we also have a child with a birthday in November and another child with a birthday in December. All that equals lots of new fun toys!
Before I continue, I am in NO WAY complaining about the gifts my family lovingly gives to my kids! I am thankful for them. And they really give great gifts! Gifts I know my kids love! But have you ever noticed that when given too many options your kids don’t play with any of their toys?
In fact, I just read about a study the other day. This study let a group of toddlers play in a room with either 4 toys or 16 toys. They found that the toddlers who were only given 4 toys played more creatively and played TWICE AS LONG as the toddlers who were given 16 toys to play with. Moms! TWICE AS LONG!!! Let’s just take a minute to stop and think about all the things you could get done in those extra minutes….(insert happy sigh).
Anyway, back to the point, I have definitely found this toy overload phenomenom too be true with my kids. I don’t know if they just feel overwhelmed with too many options, but whatever the reason they don’t play well when there are a ton of toy options in front of them. In fact, just after Christmas, one of my kids said “I have nothing to play with!” The truth was they had too many options to sort through and weren’t sure what to do.
So our solution to the toy overload has been a toy rotation system! When my kids were younger, I would pick toys for them and rotate every month or so. Now that my kids are a little older, they get to pick 5 toys and 5 books they want to have upstairs for the week. Everything else is stored downstairs where my kids don’t often play. They each have a tote upstairs to keep the toys they picked for the week, and when the weekend rolls they get to pick new toys to bring upstairs. It’s like taking them to your very own toy store without the expensive price tag!
What else do I love about our toy rotation? I’m so glad you asked! 🙂
-My living room pre-toy rotation could be seen with toys overflowing out of totes and strewn about the floor. Now that we have put the toy rotation into place my living room toy totes look like this! So much better!!!
-Not only is my living room cleaner, but there has been less conflict about picking up toys!! I know some moms are amazing about making their kids pick up every toy as soon as they are done playing. Sometimes I wish I was that mom, but I’m just not. I always seem to be in the middle of helping someone else, or I don’t see the mess in a room until hours later. My kids don’t naturally clean their toys up right away, and I am just not good at staying on top of it. I’ve finally come to the point in my life that I’m okay with that. I’m great at lots of things, that just doesn’t happen to be one of them.
However, I don’t want to live in a dump, so one of my kids chores every day is to go around the house and do a mass toy pick up. This used to be a battle ever day, but now that there are only a handful of toys to pick up, it gets done quickly without much fuss! WIN FOR MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!
-And just like the study said, my kids have actually played with their toys and played for longer. The next morning after we started our current rotation, instead of roaming about and complaining of boredom, my oldest went over to her tote and got one of her toys and played with it. I’m not saying you will never have a kid who complains of boredom again, but every little bit helps, right?
I could keep going, but you get the idea. The toy rotation is fabulous! If you are feeling the strain of the post-Christmas toy explosion, you should try it out! And make sure you let me know how it goes!!
Looking for help on connecting with your kids? Click below to see how we do monthy dates with our kids!
