6 Useful Tips on Storing Toys in Your Home

One of the most persistent challenges that every parent will experience in his or her lifetime is dealing with toys cluttered around every surface of their homes. Most parents take on the task of picking up every single toy and organizing them until the entire home is free of clutter but some parents teach their children how to pick up and keep their toys after using them. 

Regardless of what you do with your children to make them keep their toys after playing with them, there are several other ways to organize your children’s toys and to keep them that way. Many of these tips will apply for both families that have separate playrooms for their children and families that only have small living spaces. This article will outline these useful tips on storing toys.

• Group toys based on categories

Organizing toys and keeping them together based on certain categories ensure convenient and proper toy storage in your home. Storing your children based on certain characteristics encourages children to develop a key cognitive skill that enables them to think based on categories. Aside from that, keeping your children’s toys all together in a single box or space without considering what they look like or what they are used for simply does not look good and does not help your children when they need to look for a specific toy later on. It is best to use storage materials with compartments such as cabinets, racks, cubbies, and even bins to group toys separately such as play foods, toy cars, toy weapons, and puzzles. 

• Use baskets or containers without lids

While containers and baskets with lids are useful in organizing toys and keeping them from being stolen, they are difficult to use for children especially if you are pushing them to learn how to organize their toys on their own. This will lead to them placing their toys everywhere and not being incentivized to use these containers, baskets, or boxes to store their toys after using them. Hence, it is highly recommended to use a basket, bin, or any other type of container that does not have any lid in them. These tools make it easy for children to store their toys after using them. When using these types of containers, you may place them on the top of a low cabinet or even beside the bed of your kids so that they could easily find them. 

1. Use space under beds to store toys (or lift them to add more space)

If you want to maximize the space inside your children’s bedroom, you may consider installing rolling drawers under their beds where they could store toys that they don’t use much, such as school supplies, board games, and train tracks. These spaces tend to be under-utilized in most homes, yet using them to store your children’s toys is something that you should try considering.

On the other hand, you may also lift your children’s bed if you got the chance to add more space in their bedroom that could be used for various purposes, such as storing toys and even serving as a hidden space for playing and reading books. This added space also allows bigger toys such as remote-controlled cars and stuffed animals to be stored under your children’s bed. 

1. Consider using a toy hammock

If you want to use something to store your children’s toys that take little to no space in your home, you may try using a toy hammock for your kids. This hammock can be easily hung up on any corners or walls of your home and they work well with small living spaces, but they work in any kind of home. Toy hammocks are also great for kids who love collecting and playing with stuffed animals although they could also work with other types of toys, especially small ones. 

• Limit how many toys your kids will have

The term “quality over quantity” applies in various situations, but it is true when it comes to children’s toys as well. Having a lot of toys for your kids does not always mean quality play-time, and your kids will surely have their favorites. When it comes to having toys, make sure that you get one that your kids will play for a long time. It is also best to get toys that do more than just one function. If you have excess toys in your home, you may keep the toys that your kids want to keep and play with for a long time and send the others to a donation drive. 

• Throw away the packaging of your children’s toys

Most of the packaging that comes with children’s toys, such as plastic bags, boxes, and containers, adds clutter to your homes and it is best to have them thrown away, repurposed, or recycled. You may cut out the pictures in these boxes or containers if possible to help with sorting out toys as well as the instructions on how to use them if there are any. There is an exception when it comes to puzzles and board games, where it is possible to keep the packaging with the toys. But if you wish, you may store the individual items of a puzzle or board game in a separate plastic bag with labels before putting them in a storage bin.

Takeaway

Storing toys is one of the biggest and persistent problems that every parent will face especially when having young kids. Aside from the tips mentioned in this article, there are a lot of other techniques that parents could follow to make toy storage more efficient and effective. No tip is better than the other, and it is possible and even necessary to follow more than one toy storage technique at a time. From buying useful materials like toy hammocks to maximizing existing space in your children’s bedrooms, the tips outlined in this article could surely help to store toys and parenting much easier.