Hellobee Boards

- Donate some to family / grandparent houses that you visit
- Store some in the car and/or work if your kids ever visit work
- Store some outside even if they aren't outside toys
- Don't buy gifts for your kids, let them just enjoy family/friend ones (this part is sad to me.)
- Donate some to new moms or a church with baby/kid classes or a small preschool
- Re-gift or sell unopened items that you/kid doesn't like

Basically everything that @DesertDreams88: said. We take stuff to the grandparents’ houses because they live close by and we’re there a lot. I purge before birthdays and Christmas and try to donate the toys either on my neighborhood’s free Facebook group or to the organization Play it Forward.

Everything that @DesertDreams88: just said. The toys the kids love the most are in our main play area on the ground floor, and the non-favorite B-level toys I throw in a canvas bin in our (finished) basement. Now whenever we're in the basement they play with those toys, whereas when they were upstairs competing with the good shit they literally never got played with and just created extra clutter. I also throw out anything half-broken or anything with missing pieces.

But when family give the kids tons of stuff, I take half of it and put it brand-new into charity boxes, which is 1000x nicer than slightly used and makes the aggravation over waste feel better.

I actually don't think it's that bad. We don't have a huge house; I hate clutter, so if something comes in that I can't find a space for; something has to come out! It also helps that I have 2 girls 2 years apart; I imagine it will be more difficult once DS3 adds on his own stuff.

Nov is actually our big toy purge month because both my girls have Dec birthdays plus Christmas time. We usually take an hour, go through all our toys and purge together. I also can anticipate the need to purge something big; for example DD1 is asking for a big-ish toy for her birthday so I've already warned her we have to find a way to make room for that, otherwise she is not getting it!

And the honestly really only get new toys once a year, this time of the year. I also make wish lists for them on Amazon to share with family so they don't go and get completely random things the girls won't play with.

-rotate toys
-let the kids consign stuff they are done with (and buy new/smaller/less toys with the money they earned)
-ask gift givers to add to collections that can be stored together (duplos, trains, dolls, kitchen food, etc)
-have gift givers babysit and realize the kids have plenty then request activity gifts (zoo membership, special outing with Grandma)
- let gift givers know of specific non toy needs (clothing, bike, helmet, etc)