Christmas has come and gone (wow, how is it FEBRUARY already?!) but if you have kids your house is likely home to a few more toys now. In today’s post I’ll be doing two things. I’ll share some of my favorite tips for organizing and managing toys (common sense stuff!) and then I’ll show you some pictures of what’s working for us right now.

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Tips for organizing and managing toys

Cut back

The first step to managing your kids’ toys is to be willing to cut back if you need to (and you probably do need to.) According to this article, just 3.1% of the world’s children live in the United States, but those children own 40% of the world’s toys. Wow!

Take inventory of what your kids have. I can guarantee you that there are some things that can be purged!

Cutting back also includes refraining from buying toys regularly. Your kid doesn’t need a new toy every time you go to Target!

Finally, when you do get new toys, get rid of a few old ones! In with the new, out with the old. Gift, sell, donate, or throw away!

Choose classic toys

When you decide you do want to buy some new toys, choose toys that build the imagination and can be played with in multiple ways. These are some of our favorites. Toys like this are worth your money, unlike a lot of faddish toys that lose their charm after a few weeks or even days.

Determine where you’ll keep each toy before purchasing

“A place for everything, and everything in it’s place.”

If you don’t have a good place to keep it, don’t buy it!

Organize toys in categories

This probably goes without saying, but keep your toys stored together in categories: duplos, wooden blocks, kitchen items, dolls, stuffed animals, legos, plastic play animals, little people toys, trains, etc. It’s overwhelming for kids to play in a room full of RANDOM toys with no categorization at all. Keep like things together.

I will say that I do keep one storage cube for random stuff – because there will always be some random stuff – but once it’s full, it’s time to purge. Make sure you take the time to purge regularly, otherwise the random stuff can quickly get overwhelming.

Store toys where they are easily accessed and easily put away.

Make it easy for the kids to get their toys out and put them away on their own! Easy-to-put-away is especially key. 😉

Rotate toys

If you have a lot of toys even after cutting back, consider rotating them. Choose some toys to store up in the closet or elsewhere, then switch the toys out every few weeks. Nothing makes a toy more exciting than when it’s been off limits for awhile.

What’s working for us

We don’t have a ton of room for toys in our current home. The good thing about having less space is that it forces you to stay on top of the toys and cut back when you get new ones.

We have two rooms where we can store toys in our home: the kids’ shared bedroom and our main living area. Here’s what’s working well for us right now.

Cube storage

We’ve used cube storage as long as we’ve had kids and we love it. Our cloth containers (similar to these) are a little worse for the wear now after about 5 years but they’ve done the job fantastically!

Plastic bins

Plastic bins are so cheap and make great storage. We grabbed a four-pack of basic ones with lids for just a couple bucks at Walmart. We’re using them to house legos, kitchen items, and some miscellaneous toys on the shelves of our changing table.

As you can see in the above picture, we also utilize the space under the furniture when possible. We store the kids’ Melissa and Doug vehicles and their magnetic dolls under the changing table.

The plastic bin below stores the kids’ megablocks and slides easily under the crib.

Drawers

One of my favorite tips for organizing and managing toys is to find storage where the toys are accessible but also hidden. A drawer makes a great place to store all Lucas’s baby toys without being an eye-sore in our main living area.

Mesh hamper

A mesh clothes hamper (similar to this one) makes the perfect storage place for all my kids’ stuffed animals. When it gets too full I know it’s time to let some go. We hide the hamper behind the glider in the kids’ room – it works great!

What are some of your favorite tips for organizing and managing toys in your home? Let me know in the comments!