My House Is Being Taken over by Toys

i recently had this problem, and i decided that it was a little ridiculous to have so many toys and so little children to play with them. so i had a talk with my son and explained how lucky he is to have so many toys of his own, and how some well deserving children aren't so lucky. i then put a laundry basket in his room and asked him to fill it with toys he won't miss and thinks another child will enjoy. it made him feel good about himself that he could bring other children joy with the toys he rarely plays with. we are donating a bunch of toys to the ywca, and his room looks organized... we all win!

Shelves, shelves and more shelves. if your kids are to young to go play upstairs alone i would assume most of their toys are of the infant toddler variety and shelves work great, everything is in sight and you can see what is where, i'd start in their bedrooms though, get as much of the toys as you can up there and have a home for them, then keep your baskets downstairs and nightly take toys back up. or if your kdis are old enough to at least treck upstairs alone they can get a toy out and bring it down to play and then take it back up when they are done, it's a tough task, i myself am having the smae problem but i have 6 berooms and a toy room and still have toys in my dinning room. so anyting they don't play with is goen the next time they got to their dads, i've been making alist of the things they have gotten out for the last two weeks. good luck.

We have a split level with an open floor plan and I can see the family room from the main floor. When we moved in here I designated the family room as the kids room and the living room on the main floor as the adult room. It is mind over matter for me but if the family room is a disaster I can't worry about it. Since the family room is not 'out of sight, out of mind' each day the kids have to spend some time cleaning up the family room which obviously helps.
~RachaelB

T.,

I think the toy rotation idea is great! However, there are probably toys your kids don't play with anymore, and if your child is willing to part with them on their own, great! But some kids have a hard time with this dependeing on their age, especially if they are in the "mine" stage. So you can take some of these toys and put them in a box in the closet or somewhere out of sight. If the child asks where the toy is, you can "magically" find it for them later when they are asleep or otherwise distracted. If they don't ask for the toy in a month, you can safely get rid of it to Goodwill or a day care center. Other toys can be packed away if your older child(ren)is not playing with them anymore for when your littlest one is ready to play with them.

Of course the obvious thing to do is to limit the number of toys that come into the house. You will need to tell family and friends that your kids have enough toys or to only buy them toys for Christmas or their birthday, you might also have to use self-control if you are the one who keeps impulse buying toys for them. A good rule is for every new toy that comes into the house, one must go out. This will help control the problem once you feel you have it under control.

We have the same problem at our house. I have five children. I do the swap. But I have also been known to get rid of toys. Small pieces that the children don't even play with, Toys that haven't been touched for a few weeks. They go. Trust me, it is much easier and the kids don't even notice. Your their mom, so you will know what is a keeper and what is a loser. We have just two small baskets of toys, and two put up.

I read this in an article and have no clue if it works, but maybe it's worth a try?

Get 7 plastic bins/tubs with lids. Label each of them with the day of the week, and store the bins in a closet or the garage. Rotate the bins according to the days of the week. Not only will this help with organization, it could possibly also decrease boredom (hey - new toys!). You can also help your children learn better how to 'clean up' by putting the toys in the bins, and learn the days of the week. I'm not suggesting that EVERY toy you have be put in a bin; that would be tedious and no fun!

I have an in home childcare and what I do is have a toy rotation. There is no way the kids can play with all the toys anyway and they get sick of them after a while. So I put half in a closet and the other half out... then after about a month or two I swop them out. This is great for the kids and it should help you condense down a little.
Also Target sells some great wire organizer cubes that are 6 wide by 2 tall (or vis-a-vers-a) and very inexpensive compared to other organizers.
Hope that helps. Good luck!