The toy rotation realisation - you need to do this!!

In the back of your mind you sort of realise that a baby is bound to take over your house a bit, but in reality it ends up being more that you could imagine, at least that's how it is in our house. At this stage Lylie doesn't have a set playroom, this may change when she reaches an age where she is likely to have independent play. However at the moment our whole house is her play room. 

It drives my husband up the wall, it actually bothers him a whole lot more than it bothers me (I am so used to being in the middle of a pile of brightly coloured toys at this stage) He is always asking me when we can 'get rid' of this or that, she doesn't play with half of it anyway. Although I have purchased the majority of Lylie's toys from charity shops and therefore have no emotional attachment to them it is still difficult for me to give them up. What if she decides to play with them later?

The other evening I was watching back to back mum videos on YouTube (my new fave) while attempting to make the house look slightly less like an exploded Argos catalog when I realised why Lylie only plays with a few things. She was just so overwhelmed, I had everything out and readily available, it's too much choice.

BAM realisation of the toy rotation. 

Everyone is so much happier now the toy rotation has been put into place. My husband because there is less clutter in our lounge, me because he isn't whining as much and Lylie because once a week it feels like Christmas. Here is the deal, once a week usually on a Tuesday night, because my mum looks after her on a Wednesday, I put away the majority of Lylie's toys and get out a whole bunch of new ones. I currently have three rounds of rotations. One lot hidden within boxes in my hallway and one lot in a cupboard in her room. There are always squeals of delight on the morning of toy rotation day, things she had forgotten she had, different variations of things that can be played with together. I can't believe it's taken me a year to do this.

There are certain toys that she has out all the time, these are her favourites and I know are needed each day. But the rest are put on their weekly rotation. Perhaps it might even be beneficial to do this more than once a week, and maybe as I get more organised it could be an option. I realise this seems like such a simple thing and honestly once it had clicked in my mind I was kicking myself, obviously this is the answer. So I really hope if you are struggling with toy storage, or your little one is getting bored of their toys super quickly this post has given you that light bulb moment that I needed.