Just before the holidays is a great time to declutter your children’s toys because most likely they’ll be getting some new toys for Christmas! Now, I understand you probably feel super busy already and like you don’t have time for that. But remember, my motto is simple and easy. So, I’m sharing with you 5 easy steps for how to declutter toys before the holidays.
How you accomplish your decluttering is up to you, but here are a few suggestions to help you get started.
1. Dedicate 15 minutes per day to declutter until the job is done
2. Get a babysitter for 2 hours and knock out as much as you can at once
3. Commit to decluttering during nap time until the job is done
4. Have the hubby or Grandma take the kids out on a Saturday while you work on the toys
These are just suggestions if you don’t know where to start. If you have a different method that works for you, then go for it. However you decide to tackle this job, I would suggest that you MAKE A PLAN for how you’re going to accomplish it. Instead of just saying “I’m going to declutter the kids’ toys before Christmas”, decide how you’re going to declutter the toys.
How to Declutter Toys Before the Holidays
If you have a small child or a child that is super attached to everything in their room, I would do the first few steps without them around. I would however encourage you to include your child at some point before this process is all over.
That may seem a difficult task, but it’s good for children to learn how to manage their toys, and it is almost always less traumatic when the child helps make the decisions instead of toys just disappearing all of a sudden. These 5 steps lay out how to declutter toys for your children. I highly suggest doing this in the order listed below.
1. Throw Away Broken Toys
This should be the easiest and quickest step. There’s a good chance you already know what toys are broken. If not, it should just take a quick run-through to pick out the broken toys and throw them away. Don’t worry about the other toys at this point. Even if the toys are a huge mess. Just do a quick scan for the broken items.
2. Get Rid of Small Random Toys
We’re talking little toys from the McDonald’s Happy Meal, the prize box at school, and random toys that may have originally come in a set but now all the pieces are lost except a few. Gather up all these items in a pile and quickly scan through them. I suggest getting rid of most all of this type of toy, but if your child likes to play with or carry around small toys, choose a few to keep that you know they love.
3. Get Rid of Toys Your Child Has Grown Out Of
I would suggest doing this one without the kiddos as well. Collect all the toys that your child has outgrown. If you plan on having more children you may decide to box up some of the good quality baby and toddler toys and keep them for later. If not, this is the time to start your donate pile.
4. Separate Remaining Toys Into Keep and Donate Pile
I would start this one out on your own. Make 2 piles of all remaining toys. One pile of toys you think you should keep, and one pile to donate. After this is when I would bring the kids in. Let them go through the donate pile with you and make sure they are good with donating these toys.
Now is a good time to have discussions with your kids about children that don’t have as many toys as them and how they can donate their toys to those children. Another great discussion is “less is more”. To be honest, if your children have less toys they will most likely play with them more often and let their imagination run wild.
If there are a few toys your child want to keep, add them to the keep pile. Maybe they just aren’t quite ready to part with them, and then later on when they realize they don’t play with those toys they’ll be ready to give them up. This happened with my daughter and her Barbies. When she was ready, it was completely her idea to give them away to another little girl that she knew would love to play with them.
If your child wants to keep ALL the toys in the donate pile it may take multiple conversations to convince them to give some away. Reminding them that Christmas is coming, and they need to make room for new toys may be an effective method also. If all else fails, you are the parent, and you can decide to get rid of toys you know your child does not play with. It’s best to include your child here, but if this step is really difficult for your child, you might choose to take them out of the house when said child isn’t around.
5. Sort Through Keep Pile
Lastly, you and your child should go through the keep pile together. It may surprise which toys your child says they want to give away to someone else. Sometimes as parents we have a sort of sentimental attachment to a certain toy, and then we find out our child could care less about it. This is where you as the parent have to let go and add it to the donate pile.
If you get to the end of step 5 and feel that your child still has way too many toys, repeat steps 4 and 5 until you get the toys to a manageable amount. These 5 steps are simple and actionable steps for how to declutter toys. They can be used to declutter toys at any time during the year. Once you’ve gone through this process once it will be much easier to do it again. I highly suggest making this a regular routine in your home (seasonally, annually, whatever you decide). The more you do it the more your children will get used to it. And before you know it, they will start suggesting toys that it’s time to donate before you!
If you feel you need a little more direction, support or encouragement in this area please feel free to reach out to me on my contact page. Also check out these other posts that are very helpful.
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