Organizing Children’s Toys – Life: Simplified

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Learning how to live simply with children and their toys is HARD. Organizing children’s toys is one of my biggest undertakings and I will tell you why. I have a hard time letting go of kids’ stuff. I see their toys and think we should keep them for the next baby, or that was a toy they got for their first birthday. I get all sentimental and have a hard time letting go. I get distracted and give up on organizing children’s toys.

organizing children's toys

Well, the toy clutter is making me crazy. They now have so many toys they don’t even know what they have to play with and everything ends up a jumbled mess all over the floor. It’s time to let go of some of the toys and organize what we have left.

I started on my daughter’s room first. Her room is my favorite room in the house. She has a beautiful matching bedroom suite that was given to her by my grandparents. Her things are a little bit easier to organize because she has so much storage space. When we began her floor looked like this…

organizing children's toys 2

Not pretty. All of stuff was mixed up and she was just throwing it in the floor willy-nilly and not cleaning up when she was done. I separated all of the baby toys from the toys she still uses and put them out of the way. I also threw away all of the little junky toys that don’t do anything but take up space. Then we started separating items by category.

Dolls for her dollhouse went in one bin, little stuffed animals went in another bin, and all of her dress-up clothes went into a drawer into the dresser that is not currently storing clothes. Baby doll clothes and items went into another drawer in that same dresser. We put the baby dolls into a pretty hamper. Her toy box houses large stuffed animals and a toy castle that we may be getting rid of soon. I put her favorite stuffed animals on top of the toy box. 

I explained to her that once she was done playing with a certain bin or whatever, that she needed to put the items back into the bin and put it back. Her room will be much neater and her things easier to find if she keeps them picked up and put away where they belong. It’s been a few days and she is actually doing decent with this. I do remind her if she does not automatically do it, but it is making things so much easier for all of us!

Unfortunately I ran out of time to get updated pics of her now organized room, but I would like to do a room tour of her ballerina/princess room soon and can show you how I store her stuff then!

I am currently in the process of working on the boys’ room. Eeek! There is a lot to do here. They have all kinds of small cars and little action figures and just more STUFF to go through! Their room is still a mess. My youngest is 15 months, so actually getting him to consistently put things away won’t happen for a while. He loves to dump everything out while I am organizing! We will get there eventually. I didn’t even take before pictures. It’s going to take me a few more days to sort through everything in there, but hopefully I will have a good update soon!

After I get all of that sorted and taken care of I have to work on their clothes. Yet another massive undertaking!

Follow me on Pinterest to see all of the great toy organizing ideas I have been pinning for my boys’ room & follow our Life: Simplified board for more inspiration on simplifying your life!

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What have you been doing to simplify your life this year?

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8 Comments

  1. Joanie, one of the ways we tackle some of the toy clutter is to sort everything out, but only leave out 2 or 3 types of toys. Then they can clean their room and trade a bin of one kind for a bin of another kind. The bins not currently being used are stored on the top shelf in their closets.

  2. Sounds like you have a good organization plan for your daughter’s room. We just underwent some organization too. After Christmas there we just too many toys. Like you, I am very sentimental about LO’s toys. We too put away baby toys, and I got a shelving unit with bins for the smaller toys. Stuffed animals are always a challenge, but we have a dog hamper for them. The current ones float around the house, but ones he is not playing with go in the hamper. I don’t worry about cleanup until bedtime. LO is pretty good on putting some toys away when we start singing. Will be following for more organizing tips!

  3. Organizing my kids’ toys always makes me feel so on top of things…consequently, when their room is a disaster (b/c of Too Much Stuff…a fabulous Berenstain Bears book 😉 I am miserable.
    Great job, it sounds like you’re well on your way to getting your kids’ stuff under control!

  4. I LOVE your daughters quilt? Did you get that recently? I’m looking for something similar for my girl. Thanks!!

    1. Hi Tiffany! My grandmother gave that quilt set to my daughter. I think she’s had it for years! It is beautiful! Sorry I don’t have a clue where she got it!

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