SBP-My house looks like the latter. It looks very montessori inspired. My kids don't need a lot of toys to be happy. Honestly as long as we have a huge bin of crayons/markers/scissors/glue/paper and some lego and magnatiles they are happy.
Meh. My house is small. My dd's toy collection looks more like the organized second pic of sbp's. It probably seems like she's "light" on toys, but she's really not, she just doesn't have all of them out at one time all the time. We don't currently have room to have all of her toys strewn about like you would see in a dedicated toy room. Call me a bad mom or whatever, but I really don't think that you have to surrender to a massive toy mess when you have kids. Whatever. I do what I want!
Post by meshaliuknits on Feb 19, 2013 11:52:40 GMT -5
I think we have too many toys. I think this mainly because BabyLiu only plays with a handful of them. The rest I'd really like to chuck, but I'm certain the moment I do she'll be screaming for the Winnie the Poo doll that I have never seen her play with. We have too many board books too. They can be found in random piles all over the house. But they don't annoy me near as much because she actually looks at all of them.
But nothing in my house has ever looked like the second picture pre or post child. That level of organization/neatness is something that I'm simply incapable of achieving. Also, I don't really care that much so I'm not trying very hard.
DD legit plays with about 50% of her toys. They were gifts she simply wasn't interest in, or frankly, they are sort of monotasking toys that are useless unless you are really into do the one thing you can do with them. If I was a decor/organizing nut I'd probably have gotten rid of a lot more by now but I'm lazy.
I don't think its good practice to have a room of toys where you can barely walk 2 steps in a straight line. I get it - its 4pm, your tired, it happens. But that doesn't mean that it should stay that way 24/7. I have to say I think some people's issues are coming from, dare I say, being too used to the idea that tri-colored plastic everywhere = fun is being had.
DD IS a girly girl so she does things like set out a picnic brunch for her dollies in the living room and lay blankets all over the HOUSE for them to have their nap time. When there are no blankets she uses her princess dresses. But if you aren't "girly" then you aren't going to necessarily be doing these activities. I don't think there is one "right" way for her DD to being playing.
And what about out growing toys? I put toys up in the attic every few months that are too young for her. I need to get rid of a bout 20 stuffed animals if I'm being totally honest.
Some of those toys photographed are toddler toys that a 3 year old isn't going to find interesting. You don't need to keep those around.
Post by stephm0188 on Feb 19, 2013 11:58:59 GMT -5
We fall somewhere in between.
Board games and Playmobil sets with a billion tiny pieces are in a cabinet in our living room. When the doors are closed, it's all out of sight. We keep a big6 drawer organizer of Legos in the family room, but it's tucked into a corner and you don't really notice it.
Everything else is in his room. He has two nine cube organizers, and all the toys are neatly divided into fabric cubes. His trains are in an under the bed box. Bigger stuff is in the closet. It's neat and accessible.
I don't think it's a secret to anyone who visits us that we have a kid. He comes with kid stuff.
SBP-My house looks like the latter. It looks very montessori inspired. My kids don't need a lot of toys to be happy. Honestly as long as we have a huge bin of crayons/markers/scissors/glue/paper and some lego and magnatiles they are happy.
That's really all you have? Even so, that's a "messier" list than the blogger. This is the list of toys that the blogger states outright she does not have:
Play house, play kitchen, doll house, barbies (has one ken doll), doll clothes, art supplies other than a chalk board (though apparently kid "takes over Mom's easel" ), no toys in the bedroom or family room, toys only in the "studio."
That seems restrictive.
I have a bin of art supplies in the family room tucked in a cabinet.
upstairs I have lego and magnatiles. They have books and stuffed animals in their rooms :-)
Post by EllieArroway on Feb 19, 2013 11:59:19 GMT -5
Most of my son's toys fit in a 4x3 cubical shelf and in three bins under his bed. When his room is clean the only toys you see are a stuffed monkey on his bed, a wooden rocking horse, a bookshelf full of books and puzzles, and his train table.
eta: our yard is another story. He has a bicycle, swing set, ride on tractor, basketball goal, t-ball gear, soccer gear, sidewalk chalk, inflatable pool in the summer... There is no mistaking the fact that a kid lives here if you see our back yard.
Post by stephm0188 on Feb 19, 2013 12:01:45 GMT -5
We are also in a somehwat unique situation. We don't have any family aside from my MIL, and she doesn't buy him toys. Everything he has comes directly from us, so we're able to control what is coming into the house. I'd say that while he has fewer toys than a lot of his friends, he has more stuff that is meaningful to him. He plays with everything.
Ok I'm not a parent yet, but there has to be some sort of middle ground. I mean toys should be accessible by a child, but I don't think it needs to look like something exploded.
Then again, we had a dedicted basement playroom growing up. I don't have that luxury in our house, since no basements and an inaccessible attic.
As a non-parent, that top picture totally stresses me out. As a non-parent, the other picture also stresses me out.
Isn't there a middle-ground?
We fall into the middle ground area. His toys fit into a couple of bins in the living room, a fairly large storage chest in his bedroom, and a few shelves of books and puzzles. It is not perfectly neat on a daily basis, though we do clean up the floor each night so we don't step on legos in the dark. Those suckers hurt.
I was prepared to hate on this blogger but really, her kid seems to have plenty of toys, including some ugly ones, like the red tent. But generally this is where I think house bloggers have jumped the shark (Hi YHL!). Their integration of kids to their perfect aesthetic is often tortured and unrealistic.
I always think I have too many toys, then we have play dates or family over, and it seems like the right amount. I try to purge before every birthday or holiday, which is spread out in a way that it gets done quarterly.
DD always tells me that her friend has no toys. Yet DD loves going over there. Then that same friend comes over and proclaims our playroom is a mess. Yes, our playroom is a mess, but that is why we have it-to have one location where the kids can do their thing and I don't have to stress about it. I guess my take away is that for the most part, excluding extremes, kids are going to be happy with what they have access to and make do. That is going to look different in every house.
As a non-parent, that top picture totally stresses me out. As a non-parent, the other picture also stresses me out.
Isn't there a middle-ground?
Another non-parent here.
The first picture makes me freak out a bit. Holy jesus that is a ton of crap just exploding everywhere. And I spy you play-doh, you shouldn't be where little heathens can crush you into the carpet.
The second one, and all of the link, look completely acceptable. There are toys that are available to play with, they are just contained when they aren't being used. They look completely fun to me. You have a train set, building blocks, cars, balls, you could easily put legos in one of those. They are mostly toys that encourage imagination and building and less of the type of toys that you press the red button and it makes noise.
Maybe my opinions will change when I actually have children, but I was raised to go outside and explore and play outside, and playing inside involved a play kitchen, building blocks, and an awesome teepee that my dad made for me. I was encouraged to explore and use my imagination not press a button to make the cow moo.
Post by SusanBAnthony on Feb 19, 2013 12:26:25 GMT -5
Eh. I see both sides. On one hand I think plenty of type a parents, myself included, make toy decisions based on what they want, not what their kids want.
On the other hand, I think most kids have way to many toys.
Our last house and our current house both have built in storage in the living room. This results in most toys being tucked away out of sight, simply because the storage exists, and it has doors! But their room looks more like yor pic, sbp. And our dining room is a combined playroom with a toy kitchen and doll high chair at one end.
As a non-parent, that top picture totally stresses me out. As a non-parent, the other picture also stresses me out.
Isn't there a middle-ground?
Wll, you have a whole nother person entering your household. Of corse they have their own stuff. If you have space for a separate room for the new family member's stuff, great. But most kids want to play in the me physical space as the parent, so either you have to sit in their bedroom or the playroom, all day, or you can invite the kid stuff into the main living spaces. Most people start out with plan a, then quickly decide they want to be able to cook a meal sometime in their life, and let the kids have toys in the main living spaces.
As a non-parent, that top picture totally stresses me out. As a non-parent, the other picture also stresses me out.
Isn't there a middle-ground?
Another non-parent here.
Maybe my opinions will change when I actually have children, but I was raised to go outside and explore and play outside, and playing inside involved a play kitchen, building blocks, and an awesome teepee that my dad made for me. I was encouraged to explore and use my imagination not press a button to make the cow moo.
LOL. Please report back when you do have kids. Not to be snarky, but I'm all about exploring and learing and my kid has a bunch of toys she LOVES that have buttons to make noise on top of blocks, crayons, letter/number flash cards and couch cushions to make forts. And sure, I'd love to go outside and explore with my 18 month old, but it's 20 degrees out right now and she has the attention span of about 15 minutes. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do to keep a kid occupied and happy. I've had some of the most fun with my kid when the house is a mess with noisy "make the cow moo" toys. There's more I could say, but I won't because...yeah.
SBP-My house looks like the latter. It looks very montessori inspired. My kids don't need a lot of toys to be happy. Honestly as long as we have a huge bin of crayons/markers/scissors/glue/paper and some lego and magnatiles they are happy.
That's really all you have? Even so, that's a "messier" list than the blogger. This is the list of toys that the blogger states outright she does not have:
Play house, play kitchen, doll house, barbies (has one ken doll), doll clothes, art supplies other than a chalk board (though apparently kid "takes over Mom's easel" ), no toys in the bedroom or family room, toys only in the "studio."
That seems restrictive.
That does seem restrictive, but then they go on to say that two of the three sections in that cabinet shown are her toys, and the train is in the basket in the family room or another room on the same level too, so she does have stuff outside of the studio. I think she spends a lot of time in the studio though, so it would make sense that she has toys there.
There can easily be a middle ground, but different kids have different interests and needs. Play is part of learning, and there are different learning styles just as there are different play styles. My grandsons play a lot like my kids did, (and have a lot of toys), and there is magic amongst the clutter. They learn from their toys and books, and then they use all of their knowledge and their imaginations to have great adventures. They are very hands on.
My son in law has said that he is a bit jealous of the boys sometimes, because he never played like that and it seems like so much fun. My daughter told him that it is not to late to learn, so now he joins them sometimes instead of just watching them.
I may be in the minority, but I don't think that first picture looks bad or stressful. There are toys out and about, but there are also five or six kids having a great time. Looks like a normal playdate to me. The key is to have lots of easy storage like those shelves I see. When the kids go to bed, you just spend 10 or 15 min tidying up, or if you are a better parent than me, your kids clean up before bed.
If you try to fight to keep the kids toys in line with your decor style, and try to maintain order in what naturally should be chaos (like that playdate pictured above), youll make yourself nuts. There's a time for cleaning up and a time for letting kids be kids.
I'm all about the Montessori inspired playroom and all, and we've got plenty of montessori schooling/toys in our lives. but bins of Legos and magnstiles and train tracks and cars and playmobile also have their place.
Also, my kids live the play kitchen and blocks and classic toys. But holy crap they also LOVE the plastic toys with lights and sounds and lots of plastic. They love it, so you learn to embrace it.
Maybe my opinions will change when I actually have children, but I was raised to go outside and explore and play outside, and playing inside involved a play kitchen, building blocks, and an awesome teepee that my dad made for me. I was encouraged to explore and use my imagination not press a button to make the cow moo.
LOL. Please report back when you do have kids. Not to be snarky, but I'm all about exploring and learing and my kid has a bunch of toys she LOVES that have buttons to make noise on top of blocks, crayons, letter/number flash cards and couch cushions to make forts. And sure, I'd love to go outside and explore with my 18 month old, but it's 20 degrees out right now and she has the attention span of about 15 minutes. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do to keep a kid occupied and happy. I've had some of the most fun with my kid when the house is a mess with noisy "make the cow moo" toys. There's more I could say, but I won't because...yeah.
I don't believe I was saying "NO BUTTON TOYS EVER IN MY HOUSE", but if that was how it came across I'm sorry. I'm posting in spurts at work. I started my response right after 315 posted and then bam theres a lot more going on. When I was a kid I didn't have any of those, now granted that was a different time and technology has come along way. Also the closest stores were 45 minutes away to buy any of these toys so yeah...none of that. Sometimes you need to plop a kid down and say "look this button makes it sparkle" and have a glass of wine, I get that. But I don't think that kids need 50 different toys that do this. I was using the two images that were posted above as my references since everyone can see them.
If there's more that you could say then say it, you don't have to hold back. I'm not a parent. I don't have kids. I'm not planning on it for a few more years at least. That being said I have a ton of friends with children and a family loaded with little ones. I have a toy shelf in my house (we say its for the kids, but really T is a kid at heart) and all the kids that come over know where it is and know that they have to clean up when they are done. Will my opinions on parenting decisions that I will make with my children change after I have them? I'm sure. But that doesn't mean that I can't start making plans and decisions on how I would like to do things.
Meh. My house is small. My dd's toy collection looks more like the organized second pic of sbp's. It probably seems like she's "light" on toys, but she's really not, she just doesn't have all of them out at one time all the time. We don't currently have room to have all of her toys strewn about like you would see in a dedicated toy room. Call me a bad mom or whatever, but I really don't think that you have to surrender to a massive toy mess when you have kids. Whatever. I do what I want!
This. When I redid my sunroom, I cleared out about 75% of the toys and of the ones that remained, DD still plays with only a portion of those. I could probably clear out another 50% of what's left and she would still have plenty to interest her.
I do think that age plays a huge factor into the whole "toy explosion" thing though. Up until about 2, there is a whole "dumping" phase where they don't play as much as they like to just dump things out of bins. At 4, DD plays a lot of pretend, coloring, plays learning games on the laptop. She also does legos on occasion. She's selective. She doesn't take everything out for 10 seconds at a time, the way her younger friends do. She'll play with one thing for an hour. My son plays video games, board games, card games and he reads. Basically, both my kids, at their current ages, make minimal mess and are capable of picking up the small messes they do make. The only time my sunroom looks like an explosion is when we have playgroups with the 2-3 year old set.
Post by stephm0188 on Feb 19, 2013 12:48:08 GMT -5
There's a lot of value in "the cow goes moo" types of toys for young kids. I wouldn't discount it. Toys with sounds help with language development, motor skills, and understanding cause and effect. Toys that light up help with visual stimulation. Kids have to figure out what they need to do in order to get that effect.
Our occupational and speech therapists have bins full of noisy obnoxious toys for a reason.
LOL. Please report back when you do have kids. Not to be snarky, but I'm all about exploring and learing and my kid has a bunch of toys she LOVES that have buttons to make noise on top of blocks, crayons, letter/number flash cards and couch cushions to make forts. And sure, I'd love to go outside and explore with my 18 month old, but it's 20 degrees out right now and she has the attention span of about 15 minutes. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do to keep a kid occupied and happy. I've had some of the most fun with my kid when the house is a mess with noisy "make the cow moo" toys. There's more I could say, but I won't because...yeah.
I don't believe I was saying "NO BUTTON TOYS EVER IN MY HOUSE", but if that was how it came across I'm sorry. I'm posting in spurts at work. I started my response right after 315 posted and then bam theres a lot more going on. When I was a kid I didn't have any of those, now granted that was a different time and technology has come along way. Also the closest stores were 45 minutes away to buy any of these toys so yeah...none of that. Sometimes you need to plop a kid down and say "look this button makes it sparkle" and have a glass of wine, I get that. But I don't think that kids need 50 different toys that do this. I was using the two images that were posted above as my references since everyone can see them.
If there's more that you could say then say it, you don't have to hold back. I'm not a parent. I don't have kids. I'm not planning on it for a few more years at least. That being said I have a ton of friends with children and a family loaded with little ones. I have a toy shelf in my house (we say its for the kids, but really T is a kid at heart) and all the kids that come over know where it is and know that they have to clean up when they are done. Will my opinions on parenting decisions that I will make with my children change after I have them? I'm sure. But that doesn't mean that I can't start making plans and decisions on how I would like to do things.
I just don't want there to be a misconception that electronic toys with buttons are bad or are simply there to be "look at the shiny thing!". I mean, a lot of the electronic toys dd has have taught her something whether it's motor skills, animals, sounds, shapes, numbers etc. She does have some cheesy cheap ones that really do just make noise and don't serve much more of a purpose, but whatever. She's very smart and very happy, so I'm happy. And you should absolutely start cataloging kid stuff now, but there will always be a time when you need to adapt and keep an open mind to what you previously envisioned as a parent.
I don't believe I was saying "NO BUTTON TOYS EVER IN MY HOUSE", but if that was how it came across I'm sorry. I'm posting in spurts at work. I started my response right after 315 posted and then bam theres a lot more going on. When I was a kid I didn't have any of those, now granted that was a different time and technology has come along way. Also the closest stores were 45 minutes away to buy any of these toys so yeah...none of that. Sometimes you need to plop a kid down and say "look this button makes it sparkle" and have a glass of wine, I get that. But I don't think that kids need 50 different toys that do this. I was using the two images that were posted above as my references since everyone can see them.
If there's more that you could say then say it, you don't have to hold back. I'm not a parent. I don't have kids. I'm not planning on it for a few more years at least. That being said I have a ton of friends with children and a family loaded with little ones. I have a toy shelf in my house (we say its for the kids, but really T is a kid at heart) and all the kids that come over know where it is and know that they have to clean up when they are done. Will my opinions on parenting decisions that I will make with my children change after I have them? I'm sure. But that doesn't mean that I can't start making plans and decisions on how I would like to do things.
I just don't want there to be a misconception that electronic toys with buttons are bad or are simply there to be "look at the shiny thing!". I mean, a lot of the electronic toys dd has have taught her something whether it's motor skills, animals, sounds, shapes, numbers etc. She does have some cheesy cheap ones that really do just make noise and don't serve much more of a purpose, but whatever. She's very smart and very happy, so I'm happy. And you should absolutely start cataloging kid stuff now, but there will always be a time when you need to adapt and keep an open mind to what you previously envisioned as a parent.
I have no misconception that they are all bad or useless, I see a ton at friends' houses that are completely useless, they spent serious money on, and they sit there with a collection of other completely useless high dollar electronic toys, and the kid doesn't have a single building block, lego, etc. There needs to be a mix, that's where my feeling are. Life is never what you envision it to be, my dreams / concepts of my life have been completely smashed quite a few times. This is not the life I planned to be living, but I am and it isn't terrible. Roll with the punches.