Mom of 2 Little Ones Looking for Maintaining the Home Advice!

My best advice would be to keep all the toys with multiple parts in their own containers up on a shelf where you ahve to get them down, this will mean that only 1 such toy is out at a time. for the bigger toys get a couple baskets that you don't mind looking at and a toy box, use the baskets for toys in various rooms like the living room ect. for fast clean up, then just dump them in the toy box at night.

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I've had too much experience with toy management over the years and found a few things that work well.

First - less is more! Sort through the toys and put 3/4 of them away. Yes! That many of them. Out of sight, out of mind in a closet or garage or attic or wherever. Then every few weeks, put the toys away and bring out a few more "new" ones. Your kids are young enough that it'll be like getting new toys every few weeks. They'll actually play with them... have you noticed they don't really play with the tons of toys that are sitting out? My advice is to do this when they are sleeping, though, or you'll hear the 3 year old cry "but I LOVE that toy"... to every single one you try to put away. :-) If a toy has sat in the closet for 6+ months and no one has asked about it, you could probably sell it without much fuss because they've forgotten about it. :-)

Remember that in 1950 the average 5 year old had 5 toys. Yes - 5 - and they were happy. And they had to use their imagination (open-ended toys are the best). At any one time, we have 3-4 toys in our family room - the rest are either in the basement toy room or in the (locked) closet of the toy room.

Second - bins are best but NO LIDS. Kids hate putting lids on and it's harder to see what's inside. It's easy to toss stuff into bins when cleaning up. Toy boxes are good for the big bulky things like Little People sets but small toys get lost in the bottom. IMO, shelves are best... bins sit on the shelves and the bigger toys like Little People sets just sit on the shelves.

Other random ideas.... over-the-door shoe hangers (with clear pockets) are good for storing things like matchbox cars and Barbies (ours are inside the bedroom closet doors). Make some toys supervised toys only.... things like puzzles, crayons, markers, play-doh, board games, etc -- stuff with either lots of pieces or is messy. We have 2 of the white 'towers' with 7 clear drawers (4 small, 3 big) you can find at any store like Wal-Mart or Meijer for art stuff. Everything gets a drawer and it's labeled... crayons/markers, coloring books, playdoh, workbooks (1 for preschool/K, 1 for 1st/2nd grade), color wonder, paints, general craft drawer, plain paper/construction paper, etc. If the drawer is full, we don't buy anything else or we toss... otherwise we'd end up with a mountain of coloring books.

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1. Enjoy your small children FIRST and worry about your "clean" house later!
2. DO NOT buy/keep any toy that has a million parts or pieces at this stage!!!!!!(until they are able to pick up such toys themselves!)

There are plenty of appropriate toys out there that do NOT involve parts and pieces.

The length of time that children are small is so short.....so make sure that you enjoy it!
The housework will be there long after they have grown out of toddlerhood......and then they will be able to help you with the household duties as any family member should be trained to do.

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Several people have mentioned her already, but I cannot express enough how much FLYlady.net will help you. She is great. She teaches us to take care of business and not be a perfectionist about our houses! She helps keep you on track in terms of cleaning and if you get behind she's a loving voice that reminds you to jump in where you are and simply get back on track.

I am in the same boat as you and I have to remind myself everyday that things are not as bad as I see them. I am truly a perfectionist and the stress of that is hard to handle sometimes! With 2 kids, 3 and 2 and another on the way, I just don't know how I would do things without FLYing!

I also think it helps to make a game of cleaning up the toys with the kids too! I play the "I spy" game with my kids, I tell each one what I spy and they have to find it and they either hand it to me or I'll tell my 3 yr old where to place the toy. It may take a tiny bit longer, but it's less stressful, more fun and gets them involved so they know what it means to pick up after themselves.

I feel like you. I've always been a neat person, but now my house is always a mess. My kids are just barely 4, 2, just barely 1 and I watch a 20 month old. So yeah, messes everywhere. A lot of things you just have to let go, until they're old enough to be responsible for cleaning. My best advice is to keep up baby gates for the rooms with all the toys if possible. More than keeping my kids in, they at least keep the toys in so they aren't strewn all over the house. Toys in the kitchen are my pet peave. I swear a few weeks ago we had at least one Barbie in every room of our house. AHHH!

many people like flylady.net I find a friend to swap assistance is a great way to tackle big projects. The family working together is great for the day-to-day items. Just because you are home more does not mean you should have to clean so much more!

I like using baskets to organize toys. It's also easy to pull out the basket when it's cleanup time and have the kids help drop things in. It's also a good habit to teach them to put away one toy before getting out another. That requires staying on top of them and noticing as soon as they finish with one thing. This is the constant struggle I have with my four. I still have to remind them to put toys away after several months of being consistent with it.

BAskets... Fewer toys mean less mess.. Only allow a few at a time and then they must be out back before any more are brought out. This teaches them to be organized and helps you out. If you have to make a game out of it.

Hi, B.!

Definitely bins or baskets. I prefer bins with lids, myself. I tape a picture of what is supposed to be in that bin (duplo blocks, train tracks, balls, etc.) on the front of it, and then the kiddos know where everything goes when I say, "Okay, everything in its place!" They no longer can say, "Well, I didn't know where to put it." And it's really not difficult (and it's even kind of fun!) to gently toss the toys into their respective bin. Rubbermaid makes bins with lids that have a kind of "locking" thing on each end, so if the bins get knocked over, the lid stays on and the toys don't spill everywhere.

Good luck!
Blessings, J.

Also, what is your spouse doing to help you out? Kick them all out for some bonding time every now and then so you can clean without having to deal with their needs too.

It's already been mentioned, but flylady.net is the way to go. While I still have a long way to go, following her advice has made life a lot less stressful.

I think that these times we're in came with waaaaaay too many toys! When we were young, we didn't have NEAR as many toys as our kids do. My mom told me one time that my favorite thing to play with when I was a baby/toddler was tupperware and cups! So, if I were you, I'd keep out enough toys to fit in one toybox and then box up the rest. You can label each box with what exactly is inside. In about 6 months or so, when they start getting a little bored with toys they have out, switch the boxes. Plus, when they outgrow toys you already have them all boxed up to donate. Don't buy so many toys either, if you do. We only buy literally a couple of toys a year for our kids outside of their birthdays and Christmas. Whenever they say they want something I tell them either to save their money or to wait until birthday or Christmas. Kids just don't need so many toys. I go through my kids' stuff about once every 6 months to weed stuff out they don't play with or is broken. As far as organization, those rolling carts with drawers are great. You can tape a picture of what goes inside on the front of the drawer and pretty soon your 1 year old will be old enough to pick up after himself.

I will pray for you!

One thing I figured out a long time ago was pets, children, and a really clean home aren't always going to work out the way we want them too! I vacuumed my floors and mopped every day when my daughter was a baby, owned a styling salon, worked 4 days a week and 2 evenings and checked the salon out the 2 days I was open and off and that had to be cleaned daily. I was a basket case! We had a cat and two dogs. Then when she was 23 months old I had my second child. I almost had a breakdown!

This is what I learned. The children's toys should not be in the living room or family room for the most part. Only a basket of toys and these must be picked up and put away with their help before they go to bed at night. These are not toys with a million pieces. Their playroom/bedroom is their playroom/bedroom. Yes, it should be picked up so there is at least a pathway every night but tossing the toys and/or pieces into a couple of baskets or toy boxes is fine they don't have to be reconstructed to be off the floor leaving me a path. Dusting and vacuuming can be done 2 times a week in most areas. Yes, mop the kitchen floor if the pets leave a dirt trail or something gets spilled. You do not have to mop the whole floor for this either. Dishes do not have to be washed, dried, and immediately put away after every meal.

My pets were there to be enjoyed as were the children. No, they should not live in filth, but they are going to eat some dirt and dust in their lives and I can't enjoy them or life if I am distracted by having everything clean and organized all of the time. If they don't get their ration of dirt and dust in the house they will eat it in the yard. My daughter was caught several times eating dirt while I was planting flowers and my son took great joy in eating the heads of dandilions and clover and any other flower he could find including rose buds which I am sure included chewing on a few aphids! I caught him eating an earth worm once and almost lost it.

I would rather look back in life and remember the picnic in the backyard, on a blanket tossing a ball with them, sitting with them reading a book, cuddling while we watched a cartoon, letting them help bake cookies at 3 and up, and coloring pictures and letting them fingerpaint at the kitchen table, teaching them to make melted crayon pictures, putting a puzzle together and playing cards and board games with them then remember I was so busy cleaning I didn't have those other precious memories.

I trained myself to write my name on the end table and put their names their too than to worry about it shining and that there was a finger print on it.

We were all happier, including my husband! I am not saying this is right for you, but you might consider it.

I agree...limit the toys and now is a good time to start teaching them to help clean up. Teach them the "Clean Up" song..kids love to sing it and it also helps make it fun while picking up the toys
And sometimes, just some "old-fashioned" toys would make them very happy to play with..like bowls,spoons,even boxes...As crazy as this sounds..I am trying to teach my 16 month old grandson (we are raising him and his sister) how to play "music" using different pots and pans. I did that with all of my 5 kids..and altho it was noisy, it was all of their favorite thing to do..and I always knew where they were..LOL

Number 1: remember that almost every adult alive has at some point eaten either dirt, a bug, or pet food, and that's whether they grew up in a shack or a museum. So don't stress if better homes and gardens would run screaming from your house. If you need to feel better about how you house looks make time to watch Clean House on the style network. If your place looks better that that weeks episode you're still doing fine.
Number 2: Simplify and mean it. Get a bunch of different sized plastic containers that you can stack and a couple of bookshelves. Dedicate one room or decent sized area in your home as the toy zone. Go through all of the toys your children have and group them together based on their similarities. First ditch the duplicates and then start putting like items into containers. cars go in one container, blocks in another, stuffed animals in bookshelf, and so on. Any big toys that won't fit in a container go perfectly on a bookshelf, so do toys you'd rather they only play with when mommy doesn't have a headache, just put them out of reach. Little toys that don't go with anything else (read Mcdonalds toys) get rid of. Keep purging until the seeing the containers and the amount of room they take up takes you to your happy place. Then stack your containers around where they can get to them or not depending on your preference, and start enforcing the one toy at a time and no toys anywhere but this room rules. Make sure that when people are asking what to get your little ones for birthdays and christmas you take the time to make a list, and keep in mind how you plan to store the new things before they ever make it into your house. Also do a purge with your children and encourage them to give at least as many toys as they will probably be getting to charity a few weeks before christmas. When my daughter got old enough to start understanding money I encouraged her to select several of her outgrown toys for a garage sale, and let her take the money she made and buy one big toy.
I currently have a six year old daughter who has about 40 stuffed animals and dolls, the whole Dora the Explorer Doll accessory line, 25 dress up outfits, books, doll clothes, playdoh, about 12 Little People playsets complete with people and furniture and cars, barbies (be glad you have boys) Ponyville (My Little Pony as a choking hazard) buiding blocks, arts and crafts, 35 assorted card games, board games and puzzles, toy cars and trains, the list is endless. I also have a baby on the way.
The trick is that I have containers in every shape and size, from little christmas tins that hold her rock and pinecone collections to milk crates that hold her little people, to bookshelves that hold the Little People playsets and her stuffed animals. Everything that she could possibly need to play with one particular game or toy goes into a container that has a lid, and when she wants to play barbies she can get out the barbie backpack and play with them in her playroom. When she's done, the barbies go back in the bag, the accessories back in the little pockets, and the bag back on it's hook. Then she can get out the block box, or the crayons, or whatever. But I've been teaching her the one toy (or type of toy) rule since she was a year old, and I've always kept the amount of things in one container manageable for her to pick up on her own with me just encouring her from the doorway. Now after she's had friends over and they've strewn toys here there and everywhere she still knows she can pick it up because all she has to do is look for all the things that go in this box, then that box, and so on til all the boxes are filled.
On a final note, If you happen to have that one relatives that insist on overbuying toys for your kids, or gets things that take up too much room, next time you visit their house take the most recent obnoxious toy they've bought with you, and set your children up to play with it in the middle of where the adults are trying to talk. Annouce when you're leaving that the boys wanted to leave that toy at there house to play with when they visit, and keep doing this until they get the hint.

Hi B.,
Oh how I can relate! There was a time when I felt like I couldn't think straight if there was too much clutter. Everything had a place and I had days of the week that I did household chores. ie..every Tue, clean bathrooms, every Thur change the bedding. Things like that. I would each night go through the house pick up all the toys and try to keep all pieces and parts to things together. Three boys later, things have changed, I realized I was spending more time tidying up than playing with the kids. Creat a clutter free space somewhere in your home and use that as your mellowing out place, try to find one or two central places for the toys and get a couple toys boxes and give up keeping things together. The kids will end up finding the pieces they want or they will make new games combining different pieces of different things. Every few months or so we as a family spend a few hours in our basement (which is really just a big toy room) finding all the things we can that go together and organize them. I bought a bunch of clear plastic storage bins and wrote on the end what it was for..match box cars, legos, farms stuff, action figures things like that. Use a larger toy box for the in between times and just fill it up, have the kids help you, make a game out of it. I know it's hard to believe but you really will get use to the toys around. As long as I don't have dishes falling out of my sink and the floor doesn't crunch when I walk acrossed it, I consider my house clean. :) Good luck!

I highly recommend Flylady.com . This website helps you with daily and weekly plans to keep up with housework, while still taking care of yourself and your family. I will warn you they send out LOTS of emails. But the information is good and helpful. Try it out.

i love the Flylady. She has changed my life

I can relate to your situation very well. I highly recommend flylady.net. She helps me keep up with the actual cleaning of my house. The toys are a constant battle, but teach them early to put away before pulling the next toy out. I use fabric bins and shelves. I label the bins to keep like toys with like toys. You do have to let go of complete organization. It is not going to happen until they are in college. One last piece of advice: make cleaning a fun activity that you share with your children.