How to Declutter Toys: Tips from a Minimalist Mom

Intentional Living

Feb 5, 2021

I’ve often seen people who enjoy a more minimal lifestyle not know what to do when kids come into the picture. The question quickly becomes: can I still be a minimalist and be a parent? Heck. Yes.

As your kids become toddlers and pre-schoolers, you can declutter toys and even involve them in the process.

Read the post and watch the video for my tips on how to declutter toys and get your kids on board to minimize their belongings.

Pin for later

My Minimalist Mom Approach with a 2 and 5 Year Old

The decluttering process is quite different depending on how old your children are. I can only speak to the ages of newborn through pre-schooler, because my boys are just about 2 and 5.

The younger the child, the less involvement they will have when trying to simplify their toy collection.

As a kid gets older, you can start to explain to them that simplifying their toys can have many benefits.

Decluttering Toys with Toddlers

Toddlers are easy. They’ll probably squeal with delight as you dump out their buckets of toys onto the floor to sort through them. (More on that part of the process below.)

For the most part, they treat their toys with the “out of sight, out of mind” attitude. Once you identify toys they no longer play with, you can tuck them away for some buffer time (more on that below) or you can donate them right away.

Decluttering Toys with Preschoolers

Of course, preschoolers will want to be move involved, and they may put up more of a fight as well.

As a parent, you have the choice to raise your child per your own values. Oftentimes (and I won’t go into this too much, because it can be a slippery conversation slope…), our job as parents is to instill values that are countercultural.

And yes, minimalism is countercultural, especially in the United States.

With toys and licensed gear lining popular stores in the US, it can be hard to steer your child away from them.

Anyways, I digress. The way to get my preschooler on board with decluttering is to remind him of the benefits of doing so. As we participate in decluttering together, I remind him that by downsizing his toy collection, he can:

Enjoy and appreciate the toys they decide to keep
Help other kids who is less fortunate by donating
Start to recognize how broken toys or incomplete toy sets might not give him joy anymore

My Tips and Process for Decluttering Kids’ Toys

Decluttering anything really comes down to the same set of steps for me, so decluttering toys isn’t that much different of a process in our house.

Step 1: Prepare for the decluttering event

Gather your kids. They will benefit from being a part of the process, no matter what their age.

Grab some bags and boxes for sorting. These can be miscellaneous containers so that you can group toy sets together, put toys away for donation, or trash toys that are broken.

Step 2: Dump everything into one area

This is where kids go bonkers. By dumping all your toys into one spot, you and your kids can immediately see the abundance of toys they own, which will be especially helpful when negotiating what to get rid of.

We currently have about 4 bins of toys scattered throughout: two in the living room, and two in the bedroom. By bringing them all into the living room and working through the toy collection there, we will be able to reunite toy sets during the clean up and declutter process.

Step 3: Put toy sets together

Oh—how quickly toy sets get separated from one another. Anyone else love the simplicity of a toy that has one or two parts? Sheesh.

This is where your bags or containers come in handy. Put toy sets back together and put them to the side as you do so.

Step 4: Identify toys that are no longer used

You’ll have to make judgment calls here, but you have to be the one to pick out toys that your kids no longer use.

Put them to the side to sort through later.

My guess is that your kids will still be distracted by the huge pile of toys you’re still sorting through as a family, so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Step 5: Negotiate with your older kids on toys to declutter

If you have older kids, this is where the reasoning comes into play. Use the benefits I listed above to help them realize that the unused toys will be better off in another home.

Step 6: Put toys in purgatory

I know a lot of adults that do this too when decluttering, but sometimes it can give you peace of mind to put belongings into a hideaway spot (like the top of a coat closet) before you get rid of them for good.

This can benefit your kids too, because if within a week they ask for a specific toy, you can grab it for them with no harm done.

Of course, you’ll have to secretly hide the toys away before donation, or else your older kids will definitely ask to have their toys back.

And quick hack: set a reminder on your phone a week later to get the purgatory toys out of your house, so that it doesn’t sit there for months or years.

Step 7: Donate or sell old toys

I bet a lot of the toys you put aside are in great shape and have all the pieces, right? Time to donate them!

I personally love using swap groups on Facebook (one of the remaining reasons I’m on Facebook anymore). By posting a quick picture of the item, someone in your school district or neighborhood can quickly claim the item and drive by your house to pick it up. This way is great because then you know your item is going to be loved.

You can also sell your toys that are in good shape to a consignment store. Check to see if you have a Kid to Kid in your area; that store is really great for selling in particular because you can use your trade-in points for some high quality secondhand clothes for your quickly growing children.

And finally, of course you can just plain old donate them. Just make sure to package the toy up so that the donation center will be able to keep the pieces together.

All Done! Enjoy The Benefits of Decluttering Toys

Notice how nowhere in this post did I say to take away all or most of your kids’ toys… believe me, after this exercise your kids will still have plenty of toys.

Now that you’ve decluttered your kids’ toys, you Minimalist Mom you, everyone can enjoy the benefits of a decluttered and simplified house:

Less to clean up
Less to organize
More enjoyment from the toys that have personal value
More mindful toy purchases in the future

Enjoy the video below, and head over to my YouTube channel to subscribe to be notified of new videos about intentional living.

  
    Click to Read Video Transcript
  
  So I have a lot of friends in my life who are minimalists or just want to have a simplified life, but they're like, Jenn, can you be a minimalist and have kids? And the answer is absolutely yes.
Hey everyone. I'm Jenn Palandro. Hello Brio is a community of conscious creatives. If that sounds like you hit, like on this video and subscribe to the channel for weekly videos about intentional living.
Of course, I can really only speak from the zero to five year range and anything beyond that, I'm not really sure how that pans out, but I'll give you an update when my kids are older.
The decluttering process is going to be very different depending on the age of your kids. For a kid who's a newborn to a toddler, it's going to be a lot different than a kid who is a preschooler, and obviously has a lot more cognition and negotiation skills. Anywhere from a newborn to a toddler, you will just be able to donate a toy without them even noticing, so the decluttering process is going to be a lot easier for that age range. When kids get to be three to preschool age, things get a little bit more difficult. I will go through a couple of tips on how to negotiate with a preschooler later in this video.
My process for decluttering toys is a seven step process. It's really easy.
Step one, prepare for the decluttering process. This goes for decluttering toys or anything else in your life, but you want to have bags and boxes ready so that you can sort things into donation piles, have them just be better organized or even send them out the door to the garbage.
Step two is to dump everything in one area. What this looks like for us is that we have two bins of toys in the boys room and two bins of toys in the living room. So I will bring all the bins into one room and dump it into one pile. And yes, you want to make sure that your kids, no matter what their age is involved in the decluttering process, the more that you involve your kids from an early start, they're going to be able to see that you value organization and decluttering and keeping things tidy. So the repeated process is going to become part of their routine. Also, when you dump the toys into one spot, like a huge pile on the living room, they're immediately going to see like, "Oh my gosh, I have so many amazing toys." And that… that feeling of abundance is going to be a tool that you can use later when you're trying to convince your older children to get rid of some of their toys.
Step three is to put toys sets back together. So that means putting back together Lego sets, things that might have multiple pieces, et cetera, just making sure that they're all grouped together so that if you keep them or donate them… either way, you'll have the complete set together so it's ready to go.
Step four is to identify toys that are no longer used… and your kids might still be distracted by the huge pile of toys on the floor. So you can quietly put these aside so that you can figure it out later.
Step five is the optional negotiation process. For the younger kids, you can just quietly put them out the door and they won't notice. But for your older kids, they're going to want to know why. Why should we consider getting rid of this toy? You know, what, what is going to happen with it? Why are we just getting rid of it?
So this is really your chance to start instilling your values on them. You can first explain to child that by having less, they can actually get more enjoyment out of the toys that they ended up keeping. This might not resonate with your kids as much as the next tip, which is that a toy that is in great condition can be donated to someone else who's less fortunate who might not be able to afford to buy toys. This is definitely worked for my older child and he really likes the thought of donating his unused toys to kids who might need them. The other thing is, if you are starting to put toys that's together and you realize that you're missing a few key pieces, this is a good chance to remind them that, "Look, you're not going to be able to get much enjoyment out of this toy because you don't have the main pieces that are needed to have fun with it."
Step six is to put these toys that you want to get rid of in toy purgatory. What this looks like for us is that we'll put it in a brown paper bag so the kids can't see through it and put it up on top of our coat closet for a week. If the kids within a week recognize like, "Oh my gosh, this toy is missing… where did it go?" We have that week to get it out a toy purgatory and give it back to them. Usually out of sight, out of mind… that they won't even notice. And at the end of the week, we can safely get rid of those toys. If you're going to do this, I highly recommend setting a reminder on your phone so that the toy bag doesn't sit there for weeks, months, even a year.
Step seven is to donate or sell old toys.
So now that you're done decluttering your toys, I hope you realize that you will have less to clean up, which just means more quality family time. And that is really amazing. Your kids will get more enjoyment from the toys that they do have. And I noticed that I didn't say to get rid of all the toys, I want to make sure that they have enough toys to play with whatever enough means to you. 
And this will also help you make a more mindful toy purchases in the future. When you're in the toy aisle at Target, you'll be able to say like, "Hey, remember how you had that one toy before, but you never played with it? So we donated it to someone in need." Then there'll be able to think like, "Hmm, do I really, really want this toy?" 
And I know, I know a lot of these strategies will only go so far, and it really depends on the child.
But again, if… if you're watching this channel, I truly believe that you want to have a more intentional and streamlined lifestyle. So by starting early with these values and instilling these values on your children and doing it for yourself as well, you'll start to see the benefits of streamlining your household in every respect for every family member. 
I'd love to know if you are thinking about decluttering your kids' toys, or if you're wanting to have a more streamlined lifestyle. What questions do you have about decluttering or what has worked for you in the decluttering negotiation process? Just leave a comment below.

  
  