For moms with little ones, toy organization and storage can be a daily struggle. Recently, Cali, a new Virtually Organized reader, contacted me to ask for tips on dealing with toys in a small space with kids of different ages . . .

Dear Debbie,

I saw you had answered a question about organizing toys in your blog post “Multi-age Toy Storage”. I have a very similar situation I was hoping you might have some ideas for me.

I have a 3-year-old daughter who is starting to become interested in smaller toys, art supplies, and regular cardboard puzzles. I want her things to be easily accessible to her, but not to her mobile, 10-month-old brother. For Christmas she received a handmade dollhouse that her brother would completely demolish if he gets his hands on it. It is quite large (3 feet wide and 2 feet tall) and not something you can store easily.
We live in a single wide trailer and the kids share a bedroom (it’s their only option). I don’t think it is fair to her to have to play with baby toys, and since they nap at the same time every day, and go to bed at the same time every night, there is no available time for her to play freely without her brother around. It is also a pain to get things out and put them away considering how indecisive preschoolers are about what they want to do. One minute she wants to color, then do a puzzle, then play with a doll, then it’s back to coloring. By the time I put something away, she’d want it back out.

We have considered everything from building a loft for her to buying an armoire to creating a gated space for her. The main problem is preschoolers aren’t responsible and they are often forgetful. I shudder to think of the damage her brother would do if she forgot to close the gate or armoire and he got into her stuff, especially that doll house.

I have seen many different ideas across the internet but most of them involve keeping things in the older child’s room, which we can’t do, or in a special place in a playroom, which we don’t have. Aside to buying a bigger house, are there any suggestions you might have that we may not have thought of yet?

I would appreciate any feedback you may have. Thanks so much!

Cali

Thanks for your question about your kids’ toys, Cali. My kids are spaced apart in age about the same as yours, and I can remember the challenge of keeping things away from the youngest one!

Let’s start by addressing your daughter’s toys with small pieces. One idea is to first sort them into similar categories, and then store each category in a separate hanging tote bag. The bags don’t have to be fancy or expensive. I was just at Old Navy and they have some cute reusable shopping totes that are regularly just 99 cents. Pier 1 Imports has some fun shopping totes that would work great for this, too.

For this system, each bag is for a specific activity: one for coloring books/crayons, one for Barbie dolls, one for beads, one for puzzles (My tip for big-kid puzzles is to store the pieces in a Ziploc bag. Cut the picture of the puzzle out from the box and store it in the bag, too. This takes up less room than lots of boxed puzzles, that always seem to fall apart anyway, and several of these baggies of puzzles can be stored in one of the hanging totes).

Next, you’ll need a place to store these bags. You could install an inexpensive peg board or individual hooks in your kids’ bedroom. Make sure the hooks are at a height that’s out of reach for your son, but accessible to your daughter. Be sure to hang hooks that are beyond her reach to hang the bags of toys and arts supplies that you don’t want her to have total access to. If you get creative with the placement, these hooks can be useful for other things as they get older, thus making it a system that will grow and develop with your children.

Now, this system won’t necessarily help with your problem of constantly needing to get things out and then back away all the time, but by utilizing your vertical wall space, you won’t have to take up your valuable floor space with more furniture. If she wants to play with something in another room, it’s easy for her to transport the entire activity on her own. Plus, you’re planting the seeds of organization, which will hopefully help her to continue to work towards organization and simplicity and she grows.

In terms of the dollhouse, that’s a little tricky. If it’s handmade, it sounds like it might be an heirloom someday. Is it too large to display on a shelf? Keeping it just for “show” might be one way to preserve it and protect it until both kids are little older and can be trusted not to break it. Another option is to keep it at a nearby relative’s house, if that is possible. If your daughter visits a grandparent or an aunt that would be able to keep it for now, it would be a special treat for her to play with during her visits.

Another idea is to store it away until the weather is warmer and she can play with it outside, in an area gated off from the little one. I would try to avoid buying a piece of furniture just to store it in, though, unless you can justify how you will use this furniture in the future and if the expense and loss of floor space is worth it.

Hope this helps you out a bit! Let me know how it goes!

Debbie
Thank you so much for your input; you have given me a LOT of great ideas!

We had talked about the dollhouse staying at her grandparents’ house (who lives right across the street), so I am thinking that may be our best option at this point. There are many times she visits without her brother that she would be free to use it without restrictions.

I love the puzzle idea! One box has already come to its demise and I had it stored in a Ziploc bag, which I will now do with the rest of them as well. It will be easier for her to open the baggies than the boxes anyway, and I am sure they will last longer and will be easier to store.

Right now we use those 1 foot square collapsible bins for their toys but they are so big and bulky and you would have to buy so many of them to separate things out by activity as you had suggested. Using a wall system saves us from trying to cram even more furniture into their bedroom or having to install shelving. I think the bags will work great and will be easier to organize. That will make it simple for her to participate in cleaning up. They will also have less objects in each one, making them easier for her to transport and quicker to clean up. She is a typical preschool who dumps everything out on the ground in order to find the one toy she is looking for.

What I will do is put the bags which she needs supervision to use (such as paint) out of her reach so when she would like to do one of those things she would have to ask help to get it down. I think I will put a picture on the outside of the bag to represent what is inside as well as the name of the activity, which will boost her reading and picture recognition skills. This will really help with her picking an activity, too, since she often just doesn’t know what she wants to do and looking at the pictures on the bags can give her ideas without me having to list off a bunch of different things to her.

I truly appreciate everything, thank you so much!

Cali

So glad I could help, Cali! Thanks again for getting in touch, and good luck with the toy organization!

Simply yours,
Debbie

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2. Multi-age Toy Storage
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4. The Organized Nursery: Creating a Bedroom That Grows With Baby
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