Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might help to have the kids rank the toys in the order they like them, so they can begin to internalize that even if they like something, not all things are equal.

Can you say more about how the toys are bothering you? No room for all of them? Kids don't help put them away? If you help them start understanding that everything has to have its own place to go (e.g. not all crammed into a jumble somewhere) it might be a starting place. You could quietly remove some and see if they ask about them, but it's better in the long run if they can be in on it because they get a better understanding of what fits and what doesn't fit, rather than relying on someone else to regulate that for them.

Ranking for the big kids should work.

The problem, maybe not a real problem, is that the younger kids or younger kids’ friends may want to play with the older kid’s toys that are no longer his favorite.

I’m bothered because our house looks like a big clutter of plastic junk.

I don't know how often your kids have friends over but I try (and it is hard!) not to be bothered by the cyclone of toys coming out when other kids are over. Kids LOVE playing with new things at their friends' houses and I just let them get it all out and make my kids and their friends put them away before the playdate is over.

I agree on the rotating. I also try to purge collections that are smaller and encourage purchases (if needed) that expand collections since it is easier to store that way. So eg I got a block set as a gift that wasn't compatible with duplos and I quietly donated the lone blockset and subtly told the gifted how much my kids love duplos to push towards those for the next gift (this was a family gift giver)

We are a social family. I probably host at least one drop off play date for older child and 1 play date with moms per week. We also host our friends with kids once or twice for per month. This could be 1-10 families coming over at a time.

I never did this, but I always thought there's a good window here for parents to take advantage of the fact that kids have no concept of money. Offer them $1 or something for each toy they agree to donate to charity. (Make clear that it doesn't apply to each single lego, or each toy soldier or whatever...). I bet for $100, you can solve this problem for yourself and everyone is happy.

The books don't bother me. Each of my kids has about 200 to 1000 books in their room, but they read them all the time so that's fine. Books store well, aren't unsightly and don't take up that much space. I love the really tall Billy Bookscases from Ikea -- just line the walls with those and you can keep a LOT of books.

Stuffed animals are the worst. They are vaguely anthropomorphic so no one wants to throw them in the trash (see, e.g., incinerator scene in Toy Story III), and the shelters mostly don't want them due to mold and bed bug concerns. I loved stuffies as a kid, but now that I have kids, I will never give another as a gift.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have four kids and not a ton of toys. Each kid has two shelves of books, there's an arts and crafts shelf they all share, and then each kid has no more than three stuffed animals.

We do NOT have a ton of dinosaurs or a ton of MLPs or anything. If we have a few of something that's small, they ALL have to fit in the baskets on shelves.

So sometimes it looks like we have a lot of toys because there are four kids, but each kid really only has two bookshelves worth of toys and two bookshelves worth of books.

We spoke with the grandparents about experience gifts, or books as gifts, rather than tons of plastic stuff and they were on board (Thank goodness!).

Op here. Our 3 kids have bedroom with toy, toys in family room in main level and then the entire basement is basically their playroom. I would love to have each kid have a shelf of books and toys for each kid. We also have a ton of books.

Oh, I see. I think our house is smaller. The three girls share and the boy has his own. We don't have a basement. And unless you're actively playing with something it can't be in the living room. We are just very, very firm about bringing things into the house and letting them be absorbed into their rooms.

I bribe my kids. One time, I told them that all of their toys had to fit their toy bins (we had 2). Anything else would go to charity and I would get them ONE new toy that was up to $50. They fell for it hook, line and sinker. So this is what I do when I just get overwhelmed by toys. I set parameters (all toys need to fit in X) and anything else goes to charity, and I will buy you one large toy up to $X. I've upped the ante to $100 at 8 and 10. Win-win for all of us. Since they get to pick, they don't wonder "What happened to x toy?".

Also, OP, you might want to decide you will not open any more Lego/Beyblades/MLP/whatevers, since you kids have tons of them anyway. I refuse to open any more Lego - I just got $200 back at Target for unopened Legos. Any birthday or Christmas gifts that are not opened with in a certain period of time are re-gifted, or returned if possible. You have to purge, but you also have to limit what they get, as well.

Anonymous wrote:You need to purge when the kids aren’t home. I did a massive purge a few of years ago—filled up the back of my minivan TWICE and honestly there was ONE toy they gave me grief over.

+1. I learned for my kids I can never get rid of any stuffed animals no matter what but otherwise I can pretty much get rid of anything and they won’t notice/care. What I do is: (when they’re gone/asleep) go through all their stuff, put things in either a donation box to take to charity (sometimes I just take yo goodwill, sometimes for nicer stuff I’ll take it to a women and children’s shelter or similar place) or broken/junky toys go in a trash bag to be tossed in the garbage. I leave the bag and/or box in the basement storage area for weeks—sometimes even months—if the kids don’t ask about their stuff in that time (and they never do!) I take it to donate/trash.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It might help to have the kids rank the toys in the order they like them, so they can begin to internalize that even if they like something, not all things are equal.

Can you say more about how the toys are bothering you? No room for all of them? Kids don't help put them away? If you help them start understanding that everything has to have its own place to go (e.g. not all crammed into a jumble somewhere) it might be a starting place. You could quietly remove some and see if they ask about them, but it's better in the long run if they can be in on it because they get a better understanding of what fits and what doesn't fit, rather than relying on someone else to regulate that for them.

Ranking for the big kids should work.

The problem, maybe not a real problem, is that the younger kids or younger kids’ friends may want to play with the older kid’s toys that are no longer his favorite.

I’m bothered because our house looks like a big clutter of plastic junk.

I don't know how often your kids have friends over but I try (and it is hard!) not to be bothered by the cyclone of toys coming out when other kids are over. Kids LOVE playing with new things at their friends' houses and I just let them get it all out and make my kids and their friends put them away before the playdate is over.

I agree on the rotating. I also try to purge collections that are smaller and encourage purchases (if needed) that expand collections since it is easier to store that way. So eg I got a block set as a gift that wasn't compatible with duplos and I quietly donated the lone blockset and subtly told the gifted how much my kids love duplos to push towards those for the next gift (this was a family gift giver)

Anonymous wrote:We have four kids and not a ton of toys. Each kid has two shelves of books, there's an arts and crafts shelf they all share, and then each kid has no more than three stuffed animals.

We do NOT have a ton of dinosaurs or a ton of MLPs or anything. If we have a few of something that's small, they ALL have to fit in the baskets on shelves.

So sometimes it looks like we have a lot of toys because there are four kids, but each kid really only has two bookshelves worth of toys and two bookshelves worth of books.

We spoke with the grandparents about experience gifts, or books as gifts, rather than tons of plastic stuff and they were on board (Thank goodness!).

Op here. Our 3 kids have bedroom with toy, toys in family room in main level and then the entire basement is basically their playroom.

I would love to have each kid have a shelf of books and toys for each kid.

We also have a ton of books.

Things move to the storage room (or elsewhere) quietly after they're asleep. Sometimes this event is loudly proclaimed after they've woken up, if they'd been ignoring cleaning orders.

We have four kids and not a ton of toys. Each kid has two shelves of books, there's an arts and crafts shelf they all share, and then each kid has no more than three stuffed animals.

We do NOT have a ton of dinosaurs or a ton of MLPs or anything. If we have a few of something that's small, they ALL have to fit in the baskets on shelves.

So sometimes it looks like we have a lot of toys because there are four kids, but each kid really only has two bookshelves worth of toys and two bookshelves worth of books.

We spoke with the grandparents about experience gifts, or books as gifts, rather than tons of plastic stuff and they were on board (Thank goodness!).

You need to purge when the kids aren’t home. I did a massive purge a few of years ago—filled up the back of my minivan TWICE and honestly there was ONE toy they gave me grief over.

Anonymous wrote:It might help to have the kids rank the toys in the order they like them, so they can begin to internalize that even if they like something, not all things are equal.

Can you say more about how the toys are bothering you? No room for all of them? Kids don't help put them away? If you help them start understanding that everything has to have its own place to go (e.g. not all crammed into a jumble somewhere) it might be a starting place. You could quietly remove some and see if they ask about them, but it's better in the long run if they can be in on it because they get a better understanding of what fits and what doesn't fit, rather than relying on someone else to regulate that for them.

Ranking for the big kids should work.

The problem, maybe not a real problem, is that the younger kids or younger kids’ friends may want to play with the older kid’s toys that are no longer his favorite.

I’m bothered because our house looks like a big clutter of plastic junk.

Pack up half in rubbermaid totes and put them out of sight for a few months. Then rotate.

what do they entertain themselves with when tired of all their toys? maybe they don't play with stuff because they are also overwhelmed by the amount of stuff. In which case I'd suggest getting some bins to store each collection in and then rotating what is out so that only a couple things are out at a time.

It might help to have the kids rank the toys in the order they like them, so they can begin to internalize that even if they like something, not all things are equal.

Can you say more about how the toys are bothering you? No room for all of them? Kids don't help put them away? If you help them start understanding that everything has to have its own place to go (e.g. not all crammed into a jumble somewhere) it might be a starting place. You could quietly remove some and see if they ask about them, but it's better in the long run if they can be in on it because they get a better understanding of what fits and what doesn't fit, rather than relying on someone else to regulate that for them.

I have 3 kids and we just have so much crap in our house. They play with a toy for a few days and never look at it again. Then if I want to get rid of it, it is their favorite toy. Other kids love to come over and play. I just cannot stand all these toys. My kids tend to get everything of one thing like we have so many dinosaurs, cars, legos, paw patrol, my little pony and pj masks. My older kids have a million beyblades, Pokémon cards and nerf guns too. Our house is just overflowing with kid stuff.

What do you do with all these toys?

We host often and other kids play with the toys.