Our infant development specialist came over today and said that LO should really be putting away a toy before getting out another one. I feel like this is unrealistic...he's 2! What do you think?
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If she’s done playing with something, yes. Otherwise, our house would be a disaster!
She’s 2 also.
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Nope. I've started pushing more clean up times but not to the point of one toy at a time. I don't even clean up every single item I use RIGHT after I use it. That seems like a lot of unnecessary interruption for both child and parent to be chasing them around for each and every toy, plus my kids both combine toys. I know we need to work on getting our kids to clean up more but that just seems too much.
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It depends on the toy. Basically toy kitchen and bitty baby stuff is all over the living room at any given time. But if she plays with duplos and wants to instead play with mega blocks she has to put the duplos away first. Dd is 2 but will be 3 in December.
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@2littlepumpkins: This is exactly how I feel. I feel like I would be micromanaging his play because he switches toys like every two minutes. If he's playing with his art stuff, that goes away but I would feel weird saying, "you can't play with your police car until you put your helicopter away."
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If a kid is playing one messy set of things and wants to switch to another set, I ask him to clean up the first thing. If they are playing together or if it's random things being played with together, I leave it for pre-bedtime cleaning they have to do most nights. I want my children to bond together and I don't want to disrupt imaginative play. I do think order and being tidy helps them play better because it's hard to value your toys or even know what you have if it's sprawled everywhere, but generally I let them make a wreck and clean it up all at once. I also don't allow mindless messes, like just dumping stuff for the sake of dumping it out, so there's that.
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My 5yo claims she doesn't want to go to school because they make her clean. I ask what they make her clean, she says the toys she's playing with. Yeh, we really should enforce it more at home. But she makes these elaborate make-shift towns that she often plays with the following day and all her small character toys are compatible, so Jake from the Neverland Pirates is waiting by the Brio train station operated by generic brand Lego compatible Hello Kitty with a heavy mix of Sylvanian Family and Magic Clip princesses. Barbie sized characters are their parents. It's messy, but she actually plays with all of it.
Getting her to play with just one thing might have worked when she was younger, but there's no way that's possible now. And I made sure that I bought compatible toys that we can build on and so in a way, we encouraged this type of play. The mess factor never occurred to me ... until now that I see it everyday
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My DH actually locked the toy cupboard and each set of toys is sorted into bins so that our guys have to have one bin cleared up before we will open the cupboard for them to select new toys. It has kept our living areas SO much more manageable. We started this system when our LOs were 1 1/2 and 3 1/2. They are used to the routine now.
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It depends on the toy. She has a couple of expensive Melissa & Doug toys that have a ton of pieces. All other toys must be put away before she plays with those and when she is done she has to clean them up.
Any other toys she is encouraged to play with other toys. Like mixing Duplo and Little People... it is two different toys but sometimes she likes to build stairs for the cow to climb up.
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Not all the time. Sometimes I will start putting toys back and LO (18 mos) will help. He gets upset if I try to tidy up his toys.
Now that I think about this I paired the toys we keep in the living room way down because clean up was getting out of hand for me! lol
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Hahah. No. My 14m DD’s favorite thing to do is systematically pull all of the toys out of the bins and throw them on the floor. Occasionally she finds something she likes, like a Little Person or giant wooden screw, and carries that around the house. That’s how she plays.
We could probably do a better job of this with my almost 4 year old but we haven’t bothered. We have a playroom that contains the mess and everything easily gets put away in 5-10 minutes max.
The only thing I try to enforce putting away for are the duplos. We have a massive container of them and when it seems like the kids are done they need to get put away.
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I will say that it is totally possible. My sons montessori classroom is ages 16 months to 3 years and I observed recently. All 9 children were selecting work, using it, and putting it back before selecting new work. Some had to be reminded, but they all did it because they knew what was expected. At home, my husband feels strongly that he wants our son to be able to be creative and mix toys- right now he uses blocks as trash for his garbage truck, for example. But we either clean up at transitions (meals/ snack/ before going outside) or when it gets too crazy to play. He knows that if he doesn’t help put things away and Mom or dad has to do it, that toys goes away until tomorrow. He also knows play doh gets put away immediately because it will get ruined if it stays out. He’s 2.5.
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@MrsBucky: I can get on board with that (and it's similar to what we do) but I can't imagine enforcing putting away a single toy when you are done with it because D'S also does a lot of mixing and matching.
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We do cleanup before bed (or when it gets too messy to play). We also feel strongly that my daughter should be able to mix toys and play creatively with her things. So she builds structures with magnatiles and lego and her my little ponies live in the structure and take a journey on the Hoot Owl Hoot Hoot game board.
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No way. Def not at 2. DD is now just about 4 and I do make her clean up certain activities but not all toys. We actually usually leave most toys out unless or until it gets to be too messy. I'm just not a stickler for it.
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Certain things, yes. Like the reusable sticker pads, puzzles, and board games. Art supplies are required to stay contained on the table when not in use. But other than that we do a clean up before nap and before bed of all toys. She definitely uses all sorts of various toys together. She is required to actively help clean up all toys but we do it with her.
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It depends.... If it takes up a lot of space or is messy then yes cleanup before the next thing. If it's not, we do a big clean up at the end of the play session.
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When my son was a toddler, we didn't have a dedicated playroom, we kept small toys in his room. In order to create a relaxing environment for naps, I tried to keep it as orderly as possible, which meant that most of the time, he would play with one thing at a time, and then when he was done with it, we'd put it away.
I am much less strict now, as I've experienced the same phenom as @SugarplumsMom where all the toys are used to create some kind of elaborate village. Where it's intentional, I allow it. I never tolerated just dumping toys on the floor. I paid too much money for that stuff for it to be treated that way.
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Nope. I feel like that's when creativity happens--when she takes out multiple types of toys and figures out how to combine them.
However, I do instill the habit of cleaning up at the end of the day. My limit is basically, "What's a tripping/stubbing your toe hazard?" If I can't safely walk through the room, the toys need to be cleaned up or put away until I can.
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Absolutely. It drives me nuts to have toys everywhere. And then if they're not put away, pieces get lost or separated and they just become junk. So we instituted this rule very early on and it's just become routine. DD actually loves cleaning up and will be the first to volunteer to do so in group settings. She's 2 yrs, 9 months.
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My two year old is literally a tornado with hands. He goes a mile a minute pulling out all of his toys/books - trying to get him to clean anything up or even cleaning things up myself when he refuses makes him so upset!
I really need to work on having him understand that we only do one activity at a time...
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@ShootingStar: that's how my 16 month old plays too 🤦♀️
I just make them help clean at the end of the day!
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should i? yes. do i? no. only when it's really getting crazy.
She’s 2 also.
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