Sorting The Kid’s Old Toys

Pre-children, we had a nice clean tidy house and a relatively empty loft, then as soon as kids come along…..your life, house and its contents gets turned upside down. I have no real problem with this, as a messy house is often a sign of children, fun, family time and happy times. However, there does come a time when you have to do something about it.

Messy bedroom

Our loft was crammed full of children’s old clothes, toys and equipment. It got to the point you could not put anything more up there. I’m surprised the ceiling didn’t come down!

Children go through so much stuff, from needing new clothes every 3-6 months as a baby to equipment only used for a short time. That’s not mentioning all the toys children have! Where does it all go when it’s finished with?? Yes, the loft!

With one child you need a lot of stuff, then with a second child you add to it, but if you have twins (of a different gender to the first) you have even MORE stuff!! It’s unbelievable what you accumulate without realising it.

Therefore, this week has been focused on sorting! I spent ages at the weekend sorting everything out and brought down all the baby equipment and all the children’s clothes. Our spare room now is crammed full to bursting! I am trying to work out what to do with it all.

A couple of friends came round in the evenings to take some items, so things are improving, but, still loads to go. I would really like it all to go somewhere it is needed, but I think I may have to opt for several trips to the charity shop.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I would love to hear ideas.

What do you do with all your old baby equipment, clothes and toys?


7 thoughts on “Sorting The Kid’s Old Toys”

  1. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff to sort! Have you looked at local charities for young mums? They’re always grateful for things, as are local playgroups.

  2. Holy moly that’s a lot of stuff. If you fancy an early start, you could probably make some money from a car boot sale.

    Otherwise as Iona has said Playgroups are always on the hunt for old toys.

    Also might be worth speaking to your local doctors surgery as sometimes they have bits for kids to play with, and they’d almost certainly take old books.

  3. That is a serious amount of sorting! We have recycle bins near us that take books and clothes to charities, and we’re lucky to have a re-use centre next to our tip so a load of toys went there before Christmas, too. I tend to do it in stages, so it never gets to the loft.

    That said, I know there are some of Little Man’s clothes up there that I still haven’t sorted!

  4. Unfortunately I think slow is always better with these things otherwise it can become totally overwhelming!

    Big/decent things offer on freecycle… and once it’s done try not to just put stuff up there – think ‘will i need this again?’ and if yes ‘WHEN will i need it?’ if it’s not anytime soon do you really need to keep hold of it? – smaller items you can get 4 empty boxes and as you’re going through sort into ‘keep, give away, throw away’ unsure’ and when you’ve finished make sure you sort out the unsure box before doing anything else!!

    Think – have I used this in the last year? Do I love it? Does it improve my life? Will I definitely be using it soon? If no to them questions get rid, even though it may be painful!

    Plastic boxes are awesome. I think we have one for everything in the house! They also still work in attics etc because you can get the same type in different sizes, so we stack them up widest at the bottom getting narrower at the top to fit with the slopes.

    We also label them all and put them away in categories. So all my Christmas/Halloween/birthday stuff boxes are together, the kids clothes boxes are together and all labelled like 3-4, 4-5, memory clothes, outdoor clothes, shoes and boots.

    We mainly get rid of clothes the youngest has worn but keep lots of future clothes (we have boxes up to 7-8 and our eldest is 4!).

  5. Wowzers!

    You need to be ruthless, set emotions to the side and just plough through.
    Separate everything in to ‘keep, donate, recycle and bin’ and take the items to where they need to go straight away before you get emotionally reattached to anything!

  6. Oooh I love sorting! I keep all the clothes my children have grown out of to pass on to possible future babies I may have. I don’t really have a problem with toys because I got fed up with them a long time ago and threw them out!

  7. You could try your local Freecycle page which is handy as people actually come and collect it from you. Or how about your local hospital. They are always after toys for their waiting rooms.

    Sorting is so therapeutic isn’t it? x

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