Too Many Toys? What to Do When You Want to Toss Them All

Is your house drowning in too many toys?  Before you twist an ankle on Lego on the floor or give away all your kids’ toys, read this for ideas on how you can downsize and organize all those toys.

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I generally love our frugal little house.  We live in a cute brick bungalow with hardwood floors and a brick fireplace with set-in bookshelves on either side.  Our home is cozy and warm and charming.  It’s also 850 square feet.

Which means toys can get out of control pretty fast.

If I lived by myself, I would have a much sparser house. 

I like empty space, and just less stuff overall.  But I have a preschooler and is simplicity harder when you have a family? 

I think so.  

Living with other family members means figuring out what works overall for everyone.

I have a few systems in place that work well to prevent the buildup of too many toys, while still having a warm, playful, real-life home.

(If you want to skip ahead, this is my absolute favorite way to store toys)

What Are Too Many Toys? How many toys does the average child have?

In the United States, many people have an abundance of toys.

The online toy sales for the U.S. in 2022 was $31.6 billion.

Many children today probably have way more toys than they need. 

Kids make toys out of anything. 

I am a huge supporter of the idea that it is okay for kids to feel bored some of the time. 

I think the fact that I don’t always rush to cure my daughter’s boredom makes it a tiny bit easier on me when we go on long family road trips.

It’s not bad for them or detrimental to their well-being – in fact it’s the opposite. 

Letting your children develop their imaginative play and have an independent play experience helps them develop important skills.

Unstructured play is quality playtime that fosters their creativity and imagination and helps build resilience.

Kids don’t actually NEED a lot of toys, and could probably be just as happy with much fewer toys than they have.

Related posts:

• Best bath toys for toddlers
• Easy board games for family game night
• Why sensory play is so important for your kids

Is Toy Minimalism Possible?

I know for us, I aspire to have less clutter and less toy clutter than we currently have. 

But I am not aiming for toy minimalism. 

If I was single without a partner or a child, I would absolutely want less things around me. 

I like a minimalist look with empty space.  That makes me happy.

But I share a house with other people and one of them happens to be a preschooler. 

I want to live in a house that’s full of experiences and play for her. 

Kids learn through play so yes I want toys around, even if sometimes to me it feels like clutter.

How many is too many toys?

This is very individual and only you can answer this. 

If it feels like you’re suffocating in toys, it’s too many toys. 

If you constantly trip over toys it’s possible you could use better toy organizing but it’s also possible there are just too many toys.

People with smaller houses (like us) or space issues won’t be able to comfortably fit as many toys as a house three times our size. 

For celebrations that involve an upcoming influx of gifts (birthdays, Christmas) it can easily lead to toy overload if we don’t do something about it.

With lots of toys, it’s easy for kids to perceive less value in the toys they have.

If you have more areas than just toys you need to organize, this post on how to organize your life is SO helpful!

3 Ways to Prevent Your Home from Accumulating Too Many Toys

Here are some things we’re trying, to prevent too many toys from overtaking our house:

1. One in/one out policy

A good first step to slowing down the increase in number of toys that seems to accompany younger children is the one in/one out strategy.

The one in/one out policy is a little rule I have liked to live by for many years. 

Clutter can stress me out and this policy helps so much. 

Whenever I buy something that is not food, I get rid of something of my own that is already in the house.

If I get a new purse, I donate an old purse. 

Same goes with books or clothing. 

I’m pretty reliable with this because I get pleasure from not living with (too much) clutter, and again, we live in an 850 square foot house.

Related reading: Minimalist homes: People are buying tiny homes online through Amazon!

My hope is that this is something my daughter will see me doing and will want to do herself when she gets a bit older. 

I have no idea if this will work, but all I can do is set the example, and try to encourage her. 

During the holiday season last December was the first time I started really telling her about this one in/one out game (because a game sounds much more fun than a policy!) 

I told her she would be getting new toys for Christmas and was there one toy she could pass along (to her little cousin). 

She thought about it, looked through her toys, couldn’t find anything.

I didn’t want to push her so I just waited to see what she would do. 

She picked out a large orange plastic arrow that was barely a toy, handed it to me and said “this.” 

I wanted to support her because even though to me this looked like not very much of a toy sacrifice, to her this was probably hard parting.

In the workings of a young mind, this toy donation was a big deal. 

It was the first thing she ever volunteered to get rid of, to let go.  

I thanked her and we tucked it away to give to her cousin.

You can also donate used toys in good condition to some local charitable organisations.

2. Tell people no gifts: Stop too many toys from happening in the first place

This is a way to prevent too many toys from even happening, but it’s not easy.

I have mixed feelings about this one even though we do it. 

For my daughter’s 3^rd birthday party we invited people and told them no gifts. 

That way we still celebrate her, she gets to party with her little friends, but we don’t have as much excess afterwards. 

We will still get her gifts and immediate family will too. 

There is no way my parents would ever not get their granddaughter a gift on her birthday or during the festive season – the thought would upset my very festive mother so much!

I’ll be honest, part of me likes the idea of her getting gifts from her birthday party. 

It’s never obligated of course but opening gifts can be a fun part of parties. 

If our house was a bit bigger I might feel differently about this point. 

We also might change this when she’s in school but for now this works well for us to prevent too many toys from overtaking our home.

3. Rotate toys

Having a toy rotation system can really help with the visual clutter of too many toys.

This is something we do that I love. 

I bought these big plastic bins and filled them up with old toys, books, and games that were lying around.  Then I stored them away. 

I was not super intentional about what toys were put into the bins. 

At first I was going to curate the bins based on how old they were or how much she currently plays with them. 

While all that is great, I just didn’t have time for it and I knew that would delay me starting a toy rotation system. 

So I just took an area of a room, and put those toys away. 

If she missed certain ones, I took those ones out and replaced them with something else.

Rotating toys is not 100% foolproof for us because now that our daughter has gotten older she knows where all the other toy bins are. 

And can help herself to the ones at her level. 

But whatever, the idea isn’t to deprive her of her toys, but to cycle through them so they are not all out at once. 

If there is a single toy she wants and asks for, I will get it down for her.

How to Declutter and Organize When You Have Too Many Toys

Here are my three favorite smart storage hacks to neatly organize when you feel like you have too many toys in your home:

1. My hands-down favorite toy storage hack

This stuffed animal storage beanbag chair is my favorite toy organizing hack!  I absolutely love this stuffed animal storage idea and looking at the over 1,300 5-star reviews on Amazon, I am not alone.  It is amazing for hiding stuffed animals, keeps them clean and out of the way, AND it becomes a comfy chair for your child to lounge on.  I can’t say enough good things about this storage chair – I love it!!  The fabric is strong, the zipper is strong too, and it’s held up well with our very enthusiastic (subtext: not always gentle) preschooler.

This stuffed animal storage bean bag chair seriously holds a crazy amount of stuffed animals.  It’s also a great place to store extra quilts and blankets and even extra pillows.

I bought the extra-large beanbag chair and doing it over again I probably would have been fine with the large.  Our house is small, our rooms are small and the large would have been big enough for us.  But I’m sure she has more stuffed animals in her future and this chair will accommodate that!  If you have more space, the XL would probably be great for you.

I love the grey and white pattern of the one we bought and there are lots of other great colors too.

2. A storage solution for puzzles

We are super into puzzles over here with our preschooler. 

Our daughter adores puzzles and gets new puzzles for birthdays and Christmas. 

If you have a lot of puzzles, a puzzle storage rack is the best way to keep puzzles organized.  This metal wire puzzle storage rack holds up to 12 puzzles.

3. A storage net for stuffed animals

This storage hammock for stuffed animals is a genius idea for keeping fuzzy friends off the floor and out of the way. 

The stuffed animals stay cleaner and your child has more floor space. 

This is a great toy storage idea for too many toys in small rooms.

Though I might aspire to have a minimalist kid’s room for our daughter, it’s probably not going to happen in our household. 

So I try to be mindful of the toys that come into our house, and have smart toy storage solutions to prevent our house from being overrun by too many toys.

Too Many Toys: The Book

Too Many Toys is also the name of a children’s book by author-illustrator David Shannon.

It’s one of the best children’s books to get young readers to realize that there is such a thing as too many toys.

In the book, young Spencer’s mountain of toys becomes overwhelming. It’s time for Spencer to give away some of his mountain of goodies, but you’ll have to read it to find out the one thing Spencer just can’t give away.

Too Many Toys is a Caldecott honor book and one of David Shannon’s bestsellers.

Shannon’s sardonic wit just might convince young kids that tons of toys isn’t necessarily a good idea.

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What are your ideas on dealing with too many toys?