How To Organize Your Toys Using Toy Rotation
Ah, the post holiday cleaning mania has officially hit our home. The combination of reading Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and the fact that Brody and Isla were spoiled rotten this Christmas have me in a tizzy organizing our house for the new year.
After doing a little reading on different methods, I decided that a toy rotation system would be our best bet. I spent nap time this afternoon setting up the system and I am already feeling so much better more organized. I'll share the steps to setting up your own toy rotation system below, but first here are a few benefits.
Benefits of Using a Toy Rotation System:
Easier clean up
More creativity
Less overwhelm (for baby & momma!)
Excitement over toys as they are reintroduced
How to Start A Toy Rotation System:
1. Gather
Gather all of the toys (yes, all). Check under your couch, in the drawers, in the backseat of the car and every other nook and cranny. Put every toy you come across into a big pile. It's best to do this while your littles are napping or you make make backwards progress.
2. Sort
Decide what general categories your toys best fit into. Don't over analyze, 4-5 categories is plenty. Some examples would be building toys, balls, creative toys, stuffed animals etc. We even decided to use this method with all of our books.
3. Par Down
Go through the piles with a fine-toothed comb. Par down any piles that have too many of the same type of toy (for us, stuffed animals). Pick a couple of favorites and put the rest in a donate pile. Any toy that is broken, any toy that your little one has outgrown, any repeats, and any toys that they are just not into should also be placed in this pile
4. Divide
Pull out the storage containers you are going to use for the toys not in rotation (I love these striped bins because they are the perfect size and sturdy). If you need suggestions, this post on toy storage has other great options. Decided how many containers you want to rotate and how frequently you will rotate. We are going to rotate weekly and try to maintain a max of three containers. You may need more containers depending on your rotating frequency and number of little ones. Once you have your containers, separate each of your category piles into the containers evenly. For example, we had 4 different sets of blocks, so each container received at least one set of blocks.
5. Rotate
Each Sunday night, take the toys that are out and swap them for a different container of toys. We have a few bigger toys that are always out in his play closet (ie: ball pit, rocking horse, and Jellybean racer) since we use them on a daily basis, but everything else is in one of the rotating containers. Their little Radio Flyer Walker Wagon is the third "storage container" where we will keep toys that are currently out for play. Every night I am hoping to toss the toys that they've played with back into the little wagon to keep them contained (plus they love pulling things out of the wagon).
So that's our strategy for the toy rotation. How do you keep your toys from taking over your home? Do you use a toy rotation system?
