I am shocked at how many toys we came home with after all of the family gatherings. I just went through the house in November and got rid of about 60% of our belongings and all the stuff is making me feel really overwhelmed. I already picked several gifts to donate and picked several older toys to donate as well, but it's still a lot. I can also tell me 2 yo is acting out a lot with all this stuff around. Don't get me wrong, we always have toys in the house and I'm very grateful that my children were gifted so many things but it's just way too much!! 
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I felt better once I got everything organized! We don't leave all of our toys out at once though, so that helps a lot.
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Yes! My husband and I just did a giant purge of toys to donate or store for baby #2 and finally got it to a manageable place. But then we remembered we had not brought in a giant garbage bag full of toys he received from dh's family. I am not sure where we are going to put everything and we have not even seen my family yet!
Eta- plus the grandparents all seem to think the bigger the toy the better!
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A little! We were beyond blessed to get so much! Her 1st bday was last week and Christmas!!!!! Our spare room looks like Toys R us! I plan giving them to her slowly! Thankfully we were given things she can grown into too! So those will come out later!!!
It is a blessing, yet yes overwhelming! -
YES! We got so much, plus DS's birthday was on Thanksgiving this year, so we have all those newer toys, too. And now we're moving, and I am super stressed about all the toys.
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I feel like I currently live in a toy store. DD's first birthday was two weeks before Christmas and between both of those events we are drowning. I am so grateful to our family and friends for wanting to gift to her but, honestly, it's too much. We live in an apartment with very little storage so the toys are just piled in our living room.
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We had two birthdays and Christmas in the last month and a half. DH is feeling the same way you are, but my oldest is definitely too old to just hide her things. I think we're going to spend next weekend organizing and perhaps packing up/giving away some older toys.
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We feel like this and DS is only a month old!
We put some things away for later and honestly some new toys, clothes, blankets, etc. went right to the donate to charity pile.
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I feel like this pretty much after every birthday/holiday. I end up going through all the toys every couple months or so- make sure everything is organized, fix things that are broken/need batteries, and of course store and/or get rid of some. I did an organization day recently, but still need to pack up a box to get rid of hopefully this week!
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Yes! It's out of control. I feel kind of bad, but we never gave B a few of his birthday presents from November. And now the new stuff is building up. It doesn't seem healthy to hand him a new toy every day, he just doesn't know what to do with them all.
I guess we'll keep some presents wrapped to regift to someone. I wish there was a better solution to all this waste, short of never inviting people to birthdays and holidays!
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@bloved: ditto about grandparents!
I need to organize all his stuff and I think it will be okay. It's the physically large items that will have to take turns going in and out storage and be donated someday.
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It looks like a toy store exploded in our playroom. I filled up 5 paper sacks and a bucket with toys I'll sell or donate in the spring. We didn't even give our own kids gifts, they got so much from their grandparents...way out of control. Every toy they got that has multiple pieces I'm adding to the donate/sell pile too!
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Yes until we organized and filled 3 trash bags to donate. We also put 3 smaller totes in storage.
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So many toys. LO1 even asked if we could return or donate specific toys.
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Yup. We didn't get THAT many presents but with all the toys we already had, it's just too much. We are on a trip but when we get back I think we're gonna purge.
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Yep. I packed up two big boxes and feel better! I need to be better about rotating toys.
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I feel that way and baby isn't even here yet
FIL keeps joking about buying an 8-foot teddy bear when LO is born. They did that for each of their other grandkids. I smile and tell him he can do that, but it will have to stay at his house. The ILs don't seem to understand:
1) I don't want spoiled or materialistic kids.
2) I don't want too much clutter.
3) We don't have a basement OR an attic; and we have a one-car garage. We have a 3 bedroom, 1300 sq ft house. -
Once we get organized it won't be so bad. Right now we don't keep toys upstairs, but after Christmas we are going to put a toy shelf in his room with some toys he can easily play with on his own.
Also going to pack away some babyish toys or things he doesn't really ever play with.
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I routinely donate/throw toys away. I hate clutter. For Christmas, we only got her one toy. I purposely told grandparents to get her specific one thing. At first, I wandered if she would be "missing" out from the big Santa thing but she likes what we got her and I can keep my sanity.
I see pictures of friends and their LO with all their new toys and I get anxiety for them
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Yes! I've been cleaning and organizing all day. I feel a bit better but I had to sacrifice some living room furniture to accommodate the big stuff. Oh well.
I still need to purge a lot of old toys but I haven't found time yet.
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I usually get super overwhelmed too but this year the parents from our frienda/family group all collectively agreed to do a kids secret Santa. We all drew a name for each kid so that every kid walks away with one gift. I was hesitant but it was the best thing ever! When we got home we had a couple toys and some outfits - no more wasted toys floating around! My and I did get the kids a few toys that we wanted them to have but it's much more controlled. Definitely worth considering for family or friend gatherings with a lot of kids!!!
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Yes! Ugh, totally overwhelmed.
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Yup, after her 1st birthday in March I'm going to start doing toy rotation
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We got a manageable amount of toys but DD got 8 or 9 dresses including 4 costume dresses. She has been changing outfits hourly. They are hanging up and organized but I'm regretting giving her the two I did.
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Yes! We had birthdays in September and October, and even after we did major purging and donating I really need to organize things!
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We just did a big move and had to leave a lot of their stuff behind so Christmas was great because now they actually own stuff again. Bit worried about organising it all in the space we have, but generally pleased.
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@misolee: agree! I was worried my kids wouldn't have enough to open on Christmas but it was actually nice they could focus on their one toy without distractions and being overwhelmed by too much stuff.
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TBH I intentionally did not get our girls a lot of "stuff" this year. Small items only and the biggest thing was prob the 3.5 year olds ukele and it has been getting a TON of use. Once my inlaws and BIL came over it was crazy. With her cousins there it was just a flurry of wrapping paper. I absolutely hated that part. Her cousins were opening gifts left and right at an insane pace and she was mimicking. It just made me sick in the pit of my stomach. I'm not sure how to combat that because I don't want to tell people how to spend their money. But my MiL prefers to gift quantity of quality. But this year BIL's GF did all the shopping so the girls got a lot of stuff that will get a lot of use!
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A little bit. But DH is good at helping me organize things.
@regberadaisy: you just described Christmas with my ILs. Quantity over quality and kids open as fast as possible. It's always made me so overwhelmed and even more so now that I have my own LO. DH sat LO in his lap and just let him open things at his own pace. What makes me even more stressed is that they ask me for suggestions on what to buy, but end up getting what they want anyway. And the past two years LO has received gifts that scare him.
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Not overwhelmed yet, but we dropped off a bunch of presents from the in-laws and then left the next day for my parents' house. We only gave a small amount of presents this year, luckily. I'm off all week so I'll probably take a bunch of toys out of the playroom and add in a few new presents. Every so often we'll take a new toy out over the next several months.
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I'm a little overwhelmed by all the pieces! I'm nervous we're going to lose pieces left and right! He got a Hotwheels set, kitchen with play food, and a bunch of dinosaurs and zoo animals!
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We are still organizing. LO's birthday is next week, and we requested no (or one) presents from family. It's a good prompt for me to store or donate her old toys.
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Yes! Especially because I don't let myself buy LO a lot of things so I feel like most of his toys get decided by other people! I just don't want to be wasteful and buy more stuff when he's already inundated, but he rarely gets stuff that I'd choose, my MIL and I especially have really different tastes and ideas about what kids need.
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No, our families don't gift and we don't buy the girls a lot of things so it's all under control!
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Yes! She loves Frozen so it looks like Frozen threw up in our living room. I can't wait until Tuesday to purge and organize it all, and put together a lot of her old toys to donate. She still has toys from LAST CHRISTMAS that have never been opened!
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I did until we organized and purged. Now I'm ok
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The day after Christmas I went through and donated new toys that were repeats and old toys that aren't played with, reorganized both girls rooms and the livingroom and it feels much better. They still have a lot but it looks nice and gets played with more when everything has its place.
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@MoonMoon: this is a theme in our house too....
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Yes, and we didn't even get THAT much really. Now that my oldest is 4 he is remembering more and more so it is hard to hide things - but in previous years we've put away almost all of the gifts, I either get them out at different times throughout the year or give them as gifts when we're invited to kids birthday parties. Or donate them sometimes.
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Yes! Excessive consumerism makes me feel a little sick to my stomach every Christmas. We really want to raise kids who appreciate what they have and find creative ways to use simple things, particularly things that can't be bought in stores. But consumption is deeply ingrained in this culture. Retail therapy is a strong drug; I know I'm guilty of using it as a crutch.
From World Watch:
The United States, with less than 5 % of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources—burning up nearly 25 % of the coal, 26 % of the oil, and 27 % of the world’s natural gas.
As of 2003, the U.S. had more private cars than licensed drivers, and gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles were among the best-selling vehicles.
New houses in the U.S. were 38 % bigger in 2002 than in 1975, despite having fewer people per household on average.
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