Toy Rotation

As a parent, I am sure you are familiar with with sea of toys that can overtake the living room, the bedrooms and everywhere in between.

We use toy rotation as a way to keep Philip entertained with his toys and to keep the toys in our home minimal.

So there are several ways to rotate the toys, one way is to simply rotate the locations. For example, you may store the books in the bedroom for a while and the stuffed animals in the living room and then switch them ever so often. Another way is to keep the toy bins half way filled up. When the toy bin becomes completely full it is overwhelming to children and they actually tend to not want to play with that bin. Finally. keeping the toys within arms reach and easy access for him. We have a shelf that we store the toys on, we don't have many bins as my goal is to keep everything out and "ready to be played with" or out where he can see all of his toys.

How did we start toy rotation?

At first we did not have a lot of toys so we just simply changed the locations of where the toys were kept. We rotated toys from the diaper bag, car, bedroom and living room.

Then Christmas and Birthday time happened and our collection of toys grew exponentially. So we decided to make 2 sets of toys and begin only keeping one set of toys out at a time.

1. We gathered all of the toys from everywhere, his room, the car, under the couch...you get the point. This may seem overwhelming, but it is very necessary.

2. Then we divided the toys into 4 categories: musical, art, learning, and motion. Okay, well 5 because we also made a pile of favorites toys and stuck them to the side.

3. From each category we chose 2-5 items per set of toys. The goal is to make multiple sets of toys you can rotate through from the toys that you already have. We were able to start with 2 sets.

Note that the favorite toys stay out and don't get rotated. Favorite toys are counted by the ones that he plays with daily and carries around with him. His favorite toys change as time goes on so at each rotation the "favorite toy" section looks a little different.

4. We displayed and setup the toys we were keeping out and we packed away the toys that were going away for a few weeks.

5. I then set an alarm in my phone for 4 weeks and rotate again.

Side note: 4 weeks is my personal goal. However, if I notice him not playing with his toys much and seems to be getting into things he doesn't need to be playing with, I will rotate early. Same is true if he is still happy with his toys at the 4 week mark, I will leave them out a little longer.

There are multiple ways to toy rotate. You can do it daily, weekly, monthly. This is just what we have found that works the best for our family.

The benefits that we have found with toy rotation so far are:

-Clean up time is a breeze. Bonus: everything has a home and mostly can all be seen at the same time. -Less toys out equals more and deeper engagement -Everyday objects are reinvented and turned into toys -Overstimulation is easier to avoid -He has learned how to play on his own

We are absolutely enjoying toy rotation. It is a little more work for a lot of extra amusement.

I cannot recommend it enough. <3