Spinning My Wheels

Doreon,

I saw one other person on here suggested it, but I have to restate this as it is so important. www.flylady.net

This woman is wonderful, saved me when I had 4 children running around the house all under the age of 10! I still stick to it to this day.

Good luck to you
M.

I have 4 kids ranging from 12yrs old to 15 mos old. I rather spend my time with them then cleaning the house. But I can't live in a clutter house. My soultion is everynight for 30 mins. everybody (including my hubby) has to pick up. We set a timer once 30 mins is up we stop. What's done is done and what's not can wait until tomorrow. Unless I feel like picking up some more after the kids are in bed. This works for us. I hope you find this helpful

hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahAhhahahahhahhahha!If there any real answer to this? Mine are much older and I am still spinning my wheels and tonight hubby got really frustated and dumoed toys and boxes and just started throwng things out. Maybe that is the real answer. Throw out all the stuff and live with nothing. Than there is nothing to do.

I definitely think that at three, if she takes out all her toys and spreads them around, she needs to be the one to clean it up. I run a daycare, and here's what I do. I bought a set of these bins and it has saved my life!

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=7679397

Then, I took a picture of everything that belonged in each bin (I took a picture of the blocks that belonged in the block bin and a picture of the barbies that belong in the barbie bin, etc.) Then she is able to clean it up after she starts spreading around her toys. We also have a rule that you take out one toy at a time. If you are done with a certain toy, you put it away, even if that means that even if you forgot, you have to put down the currently toy you're playing with and come back to it later

From a grandma: Lots of good ideas here, but I just wanted to share one of my favorite quotes: "Trying to keep a clean house with a toddler is like shoveling the sidewalk while it's still snowing." Enjoy your child. It's easy for me to keep a clutter free home now that all my children are grown and gone. I miss them!

Rule at our house is that you have to put away the toy/activity you're playing with before you get something new out. If I have to put it away, then it gets put away up high for the day and my kids can't play with it until the next day. My kids are 4 1/2, barely 3, and 12 months. The 12 month old doesn't walk yet, so she doesn't really know how to put away toys yet. We started this routine when my oldest child was about 2 1/2. It has worked GREAT!

One thing I wish I'd done with my now adult children is to enforce the practice of one old toy leaving for every new toy that comes in. It would have helped with the clutter, and kept the amount of stuff to a managable size. Most of all, your kids will be grown before you know it--take time to enjoy them. Do you want them to remember having fun times with Mom or M.'s meltdowns?
Good Luck!

Engage her in helping you clean up. I think our job is to help our kids learn to help. It helps them learn they are part of an important family. Also remember not every day is it posible to keep a house or schedule perfect. No one is Mary Popins. We are all great moms though.

I straighten up once a day and that's it. If I have to live with rice on the kitchen floor or an overturned laundry basket for an afternoon, so be it. It's not worth losing my sanity.

As soon as mine could walk I started them picking up their own toys. Periodically throught the day we spend a few minutes cleaning up the toy room....which is our formal dining room since we don't have the money for a table and chairs. I insist that toys stay in the room and when I see one that has somehow made it out of that room, I call my children over to pick it up and take it back.

At first you will need to stand over your three year old and tell her to pick up one toy at a time. Tell her which one and then where it goes. It will take awhile, but it is worth the effort to teach her that things need to be picked up and put where they belong. I'm presently at battle teaching mine to pick up each time they are done with something before they move on to something else. Probably should have done that from the beginning but I didn't think about it that way. It is possible to teach your children to clean.

Mine are always the ones that will jump right up at Sunday School or regular school and start to clean when it is time. They don't fuss, complain or procrastinate and their teachers always compliment them.

My two year old, and my six year old for that matter like to do the same thing :) Drives me nuts LOL!! Especially since I have recently become a SAHM so not only do I notice this more, but we are also home more to make messes. I noticed on your profile it says you have a two month old as well, so first of all congrats on your new addition, and second of all, give yourself a break and time to adjust too. When I had my second,it was a HUGE adjustment, maybe even more so than the first baby. I think my house was a gigantic mess until around then LOL. Anyhow, one thing that has always helped me, whether or not I was working outside of the home, was individual cubbies. I LOVE THEM!! I have them for both of my children, and when they are done playing wioth one ting, they have to put them back into their cubbies, and then they may take out another. Now granted, my two year old can dump three in under five second LOL, bt I make her help me clean them up. Also, say my daughter wants to feed her dollies, I will let her take out her dolly cubby, her dolly high chair, and her "food" for them, when she had lost interest, then we sing the clean up song and have at it. t he other thing I do id have several clean up times throughout the day. One before morning snack, before lunch, after afternoon snack, and before dinner. The other thing I do for both of my kids is rotate toys. I have two big storage bins that I toss toys they have beccome bored with in, or toys that may be better suited to a different season in. When they seem likethey are just tearing things out all of the time in search of things to do, I rotate them out. Hope this helps, and hang in.

My daughter is almost 16 months now and she knows where things go. I believe that children can learn if they are consistantly taugh how to do something. She doesn't always put it away the way I like, but she knows the general area to get it to. She also helps with the placemats before and after dinner. Giving one task at a time is good, and modeling a lot helps. Don't pick up the toys yourself, have your kids help you, then eventually, they will do it on their own! Good Luck!

Doreon

Before I had a child I was a clean freak and obsessively organized. I even had a menu for a month on the fridge....well that was BC (before child). AD (after delivery) I learned really quick that you can't do it all. While I have seen lots of good advice in these responses and I agree its great to start teaching them where things go and to help clean up...if I were you, I would help your kids make the mess first and worry about cleaning it later. I spent many nights after he went to bed putting toys back together and counting the darn mega blocks to make sure nothing was missing....13 years later I still have every one of those stupid blocks and I would give anything to be sitting on the floor playing them again with him instead of worrying about what he might see on the computer or whether or not he is going to pass the Constitution test. They'll be plenty of time for a clean house later....enjoy your kids!

I would let her have 1 room (maybe her bedroom or family room) that she can spread her little toys out. Let them stay there for a day or so, then have her help you put them away before bed time. Tell her that the living room & dining room are not the places for her toys & games. This way she gets to have her space & you have the common areas of the house free of toys. If you live in a small apartment & don't have a place for her to call her own, then I would not do cleanup until right before bed time. This way you're only doing it once a day. I have several different bins labeled by catagory (princesses, animals, dolls, etc) so she can find exactly want she wants instead of taking every toy out. It helps to save time on cleanup as well.

I have a split level house and I keep a basket on each level. As I find things throughout the day that belong in another room I put them in the basket. At the end of the day I empty each basket. This keeps things off the floor and only takes 10-15 minutes to empty each basket at the end of the day. This works well for alot of the non-toy items that my kids drag about the house.

One thing that I think helps is to have an area (having an area rug is good becuase it visually creates an "area" for this) or a room that is just for toys and play. Make a rule that the kids can play in the play area and it's ok to have a lot of toys out there, but only there. I've read that it's good for them to be able to play in clutter if that is how they want to play. But because it is within a limited space, the rest of your house is free of clutter. We also have certain cleanup times too, before naps and before bed and everyone helps. We sing a little cleanup song too to try and make it fun. If I get resistance, then I remind them that M. gets whatever toys are left out! I hope that helps.

Good luck,

Denise

The other suggestions are great. Here is another idea; www.flylady.net It is all about freeing up your house/life of clutter and making life more manageable in easy steps. Good luck!

Doreon,

My dtr is nearly 3 and we have her put away her toys when she is done playing with them before moving on to a new activity. That way the clutter doesn't get out of control. To make it fun we sometimes make a game out of it like "who can put the toys away faster". (Think Mary Poppins). I also use a timer and let her know that when the timer beeps it is time to put her toys away and do xyz(lunch, get dressed ect..). That is a great help. Finally if she absolutely refuses she loses the toy and only gets it back when she puts away other toys. Hope this helps.

I have heard of other people doing this and am thinking about doing it myself as I am in the same situation with the clutter and toys/little parts of toys getting everywhere. Take a large plastic storage bin for every day of the week and divide the toys into those bins. Rotate them and only get that one bin out for the day. Then at the end of the day, put all of the toys back with your child's help. That helps with the clutter and keeps them from getting bored of toys.

My son is 3 and he is old enough to understand to pick up now on his own. I've really started to make him help before he drags more things out. The trick is being right there all the time to stay on him until he gets into more of a habit on his own. I did this with potty training. We kind of did it for several months, but then for one week I just stayed on him like glue and he was completely trained in that week. It is exhausing staying on them constantly to help pick up, but it's worth it! Best of luck!

Wow! This certainly sounds familiar. My 3 year old does the same thing. I feel like I'm constantly cleaning up after her. I am going to read some of the suggestions from others. Good luck.

It sounds like a lot of moms have some great ideas, and although I can't really help with the "during the day" things, I do have 1 suggestion. My children (3 and almost 2) share a bedroom and they used to use naptime as a time to pull out their bucket of small toys and throw them around as well as their big foam blocks. Now, we make sure they stay in bed, which is helping, but if they do go in their room to play, then at night before they go to bed we clean up their floor. We are still teaching our almost 2 year old, but our 3 year old loves it! She tells us it's tome to clean up. I also have them help put things in their room/away before daddy comes home from work.

The flylady.net. That is good. One thing I did to help incourage pick up was, do you want to pick this up or do you want me to? The rule was if you picked it up one could play with it later. If I picked it up, then you would have to wait one day before you played with it again. It really makes them think. After the first couple of days and there wasn't much to play with, they wanted to pick up. I did one day, because I was the nanny and had no control of what happened when I walked out the door. Toy rotation is not a bad idea if you have room to store toys in a rubbermaid container. Then you can rotate how often you want to, once a week, once a month, etc.

Good luck.

I have a messy 4yr and 18mth old... they pick up most stuff by themselves when asked... but I have baskets under the living room coffee table for them to toss their stuff in and those colapsable cloth drawer things for the rest of their stuff in the basement family room.. it helps keep to keep their toys, books and other little games and stuff picked up and organized.. it doesn't take long to clean up when needed and doesn't feel overwhelming to them.
good luck xo

First, at 3 years old, your daughter is completely capable of helping clean up when shes done with her toys. Get some clear drawer-like bins from Target or Walmart and stack them, then she can put away the little toys instead of leaving them all over the house. Plus the bins are easy to move from room to room if you want her playing where you can keep an eye on her!

I make sure I have enough containers/room to hold all the toys. Then, I let my 3 year old go crazy all day. Then at 4:00 we pick up the toys and start cleaning up the clutter, then make dinner together. It looks like I did something that day. :)

If I'm ambitious I'll pick up the toys before going to bed too.

I watched my niece go thru this with her 2 girls and wanted to tear my hair out. Why she wouldn't train them to play with 1 or 2 things at a time and not let her take anything else out until the first two things were put away. Give a little treat and big hugs for her doing what she's sopose to do. 3 is not too young to learn to be neat. I'm sure you don't want her growing up to throw her clothes all over the house; let her learn now. Good luck M..

We only clean up before bath and bedtime. That way I feel a little saner when I have my quiet time with my husband after my 3 year old goes to sleep. Its also nice to wake up to it all cleaned up.....It makes me feel better.

With that being said...I have come across these canvas bins at Target, Company kids or Land of Nod that fold up when you don't need them but will hold lots of toys. Everything at least has its spot. If you really want to get organized, put pictures of the type of toys that go in that bin and try to have your 3 year old help you put the toys away before bed.......

I've learned to let go and deal with clutter during the day. I do minimally straightening during the day and do a good once over at night. Although my house is not nearly as neat as I would like, I had to prioritize.