Being organized as a parent can help lead to a stress free life, save time, help create new space and teach your children how to be organized. Do you need some help in this area? Join us in our 10 week Home Organization Challenge. Each week for 10 weeks we will provide one solution that you can do along with us to help declutter, organize and reclaim your home. Follow the challenge here and on Pinterest.
Week 4 – Toys
Keeping toys organized and picked up is an ongoing battle. It seems as soon as one thing is picked up the kids are getting out 10 more things to play with. The best way to attack the problem is to declutter and then to organize:
Declutter
Before starting to look at storage options for toys, first you have to declutter all the toys you already have. Here are some suggestions that will help.
- Go thru your toys and divide them up into 3 different piles (You might want to do this without the help of your kids).
- Donate Pile – Toys that your kids no longer play with and have no emotional attachment to of any kind
- Keep Pile – These are toys that your kids still play with on a daily basis and are age appropriate
- Store Pile – These are toys that will be going away to storage. Toys that were “special” toys that kids had an emotional attachment or toys that if you plan on having more children they can play with.
- Load up your car with the toys that will be donated and get them out of the house. Once that’s done it’s time to move on. Put all the toys designated for storage into large Rubbermaid containers and pack away into the basement or other storage area. Now forget about them!
- So all you have left now is the toys that you have chosen to keep and these will be the ones you have to worry about organizing
Tip: Start a toy swapping program with other Moms with similar aged children. This will help cycle in fresh, new toys for your kids to use without having to go and buy new ones.
Organize
Now that decluttering is done, it’s time to start organizing your toys. Luckily there are lots of storage options out there for helping to organize your toys. IKEA has some of the coolest and practical options for organizing your toys. One of my favorites is the IKEA Trofast. It uses different sized storage bins that slide in and out that can hold all sorts of toys. Unfortunately we don’t have an IKEA store here in Des Moines and the closest one is in Minneapolis (5 hours away). So if you want to go with that option you have to think road trip or you could get lucky and find one at the Goodwill like we did (shipping charges from IKEA website is outrageous!). Other storage options that you can find at local stores include Closet Maid Brand Storage Cubes. You can pair those with the fabric storage boxes and not only organize your toys but conceal them as well. If your child has tons of stuffed animals you might consider a Teddy Hammock, which hangs on the way and helps get them out of the way. Another way to get those toys up off the ground is the Hanging IKEA Organizer, which can be purchased on Amazon for pretty cheap. So just don’t just sit there. Get to organizing those toys!
