Toy Rotation Can Save Your House…And Your Sanity

I’ve been up to my eye balls in diapers, sleep training, breastfeeding and pumping and bottles, tantrums, discipline and potty training for the past three years. With two kids 18 months apart. And we’re having another in just two short months.

Gluttons for punishment.

There are so many things that my husband and I haven’t encountered yet as parents. We have a long ways to go. But I’m one of those mamas that once I’ve found something that works, you better believe I’m telling every one of my friends about it because this is hard work! Rewarding, and amazing, and we can’t imagine our lives any other way, but still really, really hard. So if there’s something that can make it easier…ohemgeeeee, DO IT!

Want your kid to sleep through the night? I’ll let you borrow my copy of the sleep book that completely saved us when Ham was six weeks old and not napping and not happy about it.

Tired of negotiating with your toddler day in and day out? Let me tell you about 1,2,3 Magic because our pediatrician did and so did one of my girlfriends from playgroup, and it was a game-changer for our very defiant tot.

Your kid keeps crapping his underwear? Blllleeehhh, the thought of going through this again makes me want to vom. But this too shall pass! First, pour yourself a glass of wine…better make it a big one because you’re also having some for me right now. Then I’ll empathize and strategize with you to get you out of the misery of potty training.

And my latest must-know because it’s really so good I think all parents need this in their lives to make even a sliver of the parenting gig a bit easier…

TOY ROTATION!!

I don’t care if you breast feed, bottle feed, sleep train, or co-sleep, make your own organic baby food or buy it from the store, spank or give timeouts, home school or public school.  We can all agree as parents that we deserve to have a little time to ourselves every day in an adult space that isn’t littered with blocks, tractor wheels, a pretend wooden banana lodged between couch cushions, and Barbie shoes forgotten in every nook and cranny.

You don’t live in your kids’ house. They live in yours. You are absolutely entitled to feel that way and not feel badly about it and definitely not feel like your child is deprived.

We currently live in a house where we don’t have a designated, isolated playroom, so as our kids have gotten older and started acquiring more stuff, we’ve had to get creative with our multi-purpose family room so that it’s kid friendly by day with toys both displayed and/or easily accessible, but quickly transformed back into adult space at night.

Even though we try to manage the influx of toys into our house with a strong emphasis on quality over quantity, gifting books when possible, and not buying toys outside of the holidays, birthdays, etc., it starts to pile up. And quickly.

After Nelle turned one, and we celebrated Christmas this past winter all within just two short weeks, our lone cabinet in our family room couldn’t handle the amount of stuff our kids had acquired.alisonmoorephotography1

I found this great reference post on Pinterest, and modified it just a bit to make it seem manageable for me to implement and maintain:

I only have three tubs of toys , and just consider our fourth the toys that started out “on the floor” in our rotation.

I haven’t separated toys by gender or age, but may consider that as our kids grow and our family grows.

We rotate as close to every two weeks as possible. Usually it’s a bit longer than that because I forget to change them. You caught me.

I didn’t record our inventory. Because hi, that’s crazy time consuming.

And we also have a semi-play space downstairs where I work to store some of our bigger items – rocking horse, train set and table, slide, tepee, etc. I rotate the bigger items up one-by-one every few weeks or so and trade out favorites the same way too, i.e. the Duplos are upstairs now, but I might switch them with the wooden blocks downstairs next time I rotate toys.

I’m not exaggerating, our clean up after the kids are in bed is at least half of what it used to be if not better. Both of our toddlers play infinitely better without an avalanche of toys rushing at them when they open the cabinet every morning after breakfast. They play with more toys, for longer periods, BY THEMSELVES.  And that makes everyone happy.alisonmoorephotography4

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And I feel like we have our house back.  Every night after 7pm when the kids are tucked in tight.

Alison Moore
Alison Moore has been growing roots in Wichita for over seven years now with her high school sweetheart turned husband, Andrew, and their three kids, three and under. She's a work-at-home mom that spends naptime editing away the beautiful families she captures through her premiere photography business and is constantly battling an overflowing laundry basket and too much dog hair on the hardwoods. She's blogged for the better half of a decade transparently sharing the natural ebbs and flows of life. She spends a lot of time wishing she'd gone to bed earlier the night before and traveling to Manhattan to brainwash her offspring to love K-State. So far it's working.

1 COMMENT

  1. Nice post! With a small house with 4 people we are constantly running out of room. I have tried this in the past but not stuck with it. I will definitely try again! Anything to make life less crazy!

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