How to Organize Your Child's Toys

If there is one thing that we have heard time and time again it’s that to keep an organized home everything must have a place. No matter how hard we try there are areas that are a big problem and our children’s room seems to be one of those areas. Children always hate to give up their outgrown toys so they can tend to get a little out of control real quick. These tips will show you How to Organize Your Child’s Toys in order to keep floors clear and to reduce clutter.

How to Organize Your Child’s Toys

With so many games, art supplies, stuffed animals, and legos it’s really hard to keep track of things let alone find an organizational system that works on a daily basis. If your children are anything like mine, they tend to shy away from the mess in their room and end up bringing the toys they want to play with into another room that is not so cluttered. The first step in how to organize your child’s toys will be to get rid of any outgrown or broken toys so you can begin to make sense of the ones you are going to keep and start finding a place for them. You may find it easier to do this while your kids are away on a play date or visiting family. It’s kind of sneaky to do it that way but cuts down on a whole lot of fighting with the younger ones.

Getting control and finding a way to organize your stuffed animals will really help clear up a lot of space in the room. Stuffed animals (or stuffies as my daughter calls them) can add up and multiply right before your eyes. Start weeding through the stuffed animals and figure out which ones should stay and which ones should go. If they are in good shape but you are ready to part with them there are plenty of organizations that can put them to good use. In our area they are often carried in the truck of a police car to help sooth a child who has been in a traumatic accident or used to hand out to children after a natural disaster. For the remainder that you want to keep you can find really cute organizers to hang them in corners or from the ceiling to keep them from getting under foot.

Now that you have the stuffed animal monster tackled it’s time to organize the rest of the toys. Every child is different and it can be quite challenging trying to find a system that works for your child. Below are some simple storage and organization ideas that that are sure to help you out.

Over the door organizers are great for keeping little items up and out of the way. These are good for storing art supplies, Barbies, action figures and other small toys. It is up and out of the way and can free up some valuable space.
Utilize under the bed space by picking up some storage boxes or better yet use some wooden boxes and mount wheels to the bottom to make it easier for your son/daughter to pull them out and back in again. This is a great place to store toy cars, train sets, blocks and puzzles.
Invest in a good shelf unit for grouping toys together. This can work great when storing different sets of items like food, Dr’s kit, balls, blocks and cars. Having clear plastic bins that your children can see into will make it much easier to find what they are looking for. We also take a picture of what goes into each bin, laminate it and attach it to the outside of the bin and it makes clean up time a breeze.
Use fabric pencil cases or zip-lock baggies to store puzzles in. They will take up a lot less space and can be easily placed in a drawer until ready to use.
Utilize wall space by attaching a cubbie system or shelving unit. A lot of times we think we have to have the toys down on the floor level so they are easily accessible by our children but there is a ton of unused space if you just look up. You can invest in a small stool to help aid your child in getting the toys down from up high.
Avoid toy boxes if at all possible. These things can turn into a monstrosity and things get lost in them very easily. They quickly become an overgrown tower of toys that fall all over the floor and can quickly overwhelm your child.

Once you get everything in its place and organized you will want to work on a system of teaching your child how to keep it that way. This takes a whole lot of time from you and patience but it will be worth it in the end, I promise.