Dear Dr. Renee,
I’m feeling overwhelmed. There is SO much to keep track of now that we’re on child #3. All the toys, clothes, shoes, and accessories are just one big mess. Help!
Feeling Swamped
Dear Feeling Swamped,
No one warns you when you get ready to have children just how much stuff accompanies them!
Here are two of my favorite tips for helping to sort things.
1. Toys: Organizers will tell you that the less you have, the less you have to clean up and organize. That’s true. However, if you get things for your kids and other people get gifts for your kids, you can end up with a lot of things.
For what you do have, I would recommend big bins or drawers for children to dump the toys in. I think in the ‘olden days’ having a toy box accomplished this same thing – and children seemed to have a lot less than they do now.
You can attempt to have one bin for trains and another for barbies, etc. However, sometimes, just letting your kids dump things into bins makes the area seem so much cleaner. Having specific or general bins will depend on your comfort and energy levels. Whatever you choose, remember that it doesn’t have to stay that way forever.
Also, having your children clean up what they are currently playing with before they take out the next thing will help keep things neat. While it is so worth it in the end, this does take a watchful eye and lots of education & reminders on your part. Since you are feeling overwhelmed, I would tuck this idea into your back pocket until you have a little more energy to be able to use towards this strategy.
2. Clothing: Pick a color for each person in the family. When I was growing up, my mom would put blue dots on the toes of my socks and green dots on my sister’s socks. I think it was because they were all the same socks, but we wore different sizes. It certainly made it easy for us to help sort when she did laundry.
I have a client who took this color coding a step further. She chooses mostly ‘that’ color for each of her child’s clothes. For example, one child wears mostly blue t-shirts and the other wears mostly green. She uses these colors for accessories such as barrettes and ponytails and also for bathroom towels and cups/plates in the kitchen. That way, there is no fighting over the ‘cool’ plate at lunch.
Even though it feels like an impossible task right now, it does get easier.
Take a deep breath and choose one of the tips above to get you started.
You can do this!
–Dr. Renee
Dr. Renee, It’s so interesting coming across this post today…. the day after we did a big clean up and decluttered some of my kids toys. We had three piles, keep, give away and throw away. Now we’re down to one tub with all their toys! Next up clothes! I’ve found that the more kids I have the more I’m willing to just get rid of stuff! #blogboost
Yay Hilary- Clean on! I have my kids better trained than myself when it comes to passing things on to share with others. I remain a bit too nostalgic. It is much easier to clean with less stuff, that’s for sure. Glad you had a successful day. 🙂
Books are another item that can quickly get out of hand!!
Oh Kate – I am guilty of that one! And I instilled the love of (too many?) books in my children as well…
We have been delivering books to our local “Little Libraries” , Women’s Shelters, and the local food bank as we try to reduce our number. That said, we still have books that are double stacked on the bookshelves so I’ll continue to think of this as a work in progress! 🙂
Color coding is a great idea!
Isn’t it?! Will give full credit to my mom for the dots on socks idea. I didn’t go as far as my client who dressed her kids in the same colored clothing – but I have seen it work wonders for families with twins and triplets! 🙂
My husband believed that it would be easy to keep little kids or even teens neat when we got married. We were in premarital counseling and the counselor and I tried to prepare him for the reality. It was a shock LOL We use the toy box one but I will have to think about the color-coding the kids. LOL
Tee hee! Unless you have a born-organizer, most kids don’t care about being neat and tidy. Color coding takes one more decision out of the day, but at some point, kids have their own strong opinions and might insist that the color you chose is their most favorite in the world or might let you know they will never wear that color again. 😉
You are right…so many parents were already feeling overwhelmed. Not to mention that parenting through a pandemic takes their burnout to a whole other level. Hope they find some relieve in following your suggestions.
Thank you Rachel for your kind comments. Parents, teachers, and first responders have been SUPERHEROES this past year! 😊
Oh God.This is a pain point.Great tips.Bins are saviours
I know, right? My dreams of everything being in its ‘perfect place’ went out the window when my first daughter never slept and the 2nd one was a bundle of energy! We grew into it, but I learned pretty quickly that the “dump and go” was much more effective when they were little. 🙂
We had bins for our kids, too. However, once the fifth child was added to our brood (with a chasm of years difference), we noticed that any old bin would do. Separation was less followed- which meant when they wanted to find something tomorrow, there was always a ‘vision quest’….
I love that! I will have to add “vision quest” to my bag of tricks. I work with some parents who would fall apart if things weren’t in their designated bins – but for others, it is not worth the extra effort and stress. If you look at it as temporary (you can move to categorized bins in a few months -or years), it’s much easier to live with. 🙂