Purging Your Child’s Toys

Shocking Truth #1:

No matter how many limits you put on the playthings that enter your home, you will find yourself amazed by how the toy paraphernalia builds up.

Shocking truth #2:
Although you may beg people not to shower your tiny infant with a million rattles, shiny singing doodads and plastic xylophones, they will.  Then they will do it again annually.

Shocking truth #3:
Your child will play with just ten to twenty percent of her toys.



Am I wrong?  I hope so, but in our household we have been amazed by the sheer quantity of stuff that entered our lives with our children’s arrival.  I co-wrote The Eco-nomical Baby Guide, a book in which we clearly state that voluntary simplicity is the way to go with baby for a myriad of economic and environmental reasons.  And yet, somehow gifts found their way into our lives and my son’s room was overrun with clutter.

What’s the magic answer for toy purging?  For us it was talking about one (hypothetical) child who doesn’t get playthings because his family can’t afford it.  We talk about what  he might like, and how happy he’ll be to get it.  If my son wants to give this imaginary boy toys but feels that he can’t get rid of them himself, he’ll even let his dad sort through the toys that aren’t being played with so that we can ship them off to Goodwill.

We also do a toy rotation, so that the items he doesn’t want to play with can be shifted out every month or so.  It feels like he’s constantly getting new toys and there’s less to trip over and clean up in his bedroom.

As for the limiting of the gifts, for our baby we specifically asked for no presents at her first birthday party and will probably limit gifts for her until she’s about three and can actually know she’s getting something.  For our son, we do ask family for gift certificates to children’s museums or swimming so that we can have experiences instead of stuff.  It doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a try!

Any other ideas?  Have any of you had success with actually keeping the wave of shiny new toys at bay in those first few years?