The GREAT Toy Swap!

Have you heard of the concept of swapping your children's toys out so that they don't get bored with them? I was aware of this concept long before we ever had children... in fact, there is even some company that you can join for 200 dollars that sends you new toys every month and at the end of the month you send all the toys back... thus, always having different things for your children to play with.

Might sound extreme, but it is something we've often done. Once the children stop being entertained by the toys we have out... we would make the swap. However, it was always time consuming as we tried to figure out what we should put away, what we should bring out, and where it should go. We noticed that sometimes after a swap the children would still seem extremely bored with the new selection. It ended up being something that was more frustrating than helpful.

All until last month! In the midst of a nesting frenzy... I decided to tackle the basement. Okay, not all of it, but some of it. Our basement is completely unfinished and so we use it only for storage. Anyway, Jason and I spent several hours one day going through every single toy in our house and sorting them into categories: baby toys, riding toys, "little people" toys, stuffed animals, electronics, puzzles, books, games, etc. We ended up creating five piles (the four corners of the room plus a pile in the middle of the room) and would put one to two things from every category in each of the piles. This created 5 rotations for the toys and each rotation had a little of everything (I think one of the reasons the children were sometimes bored with the new toys is because they were all too babyish or something). We then boxed up each pile of toys and have them spread out across the basement. This makes our toys swaps easy... we end up taking everything that was upstairs to its assigned spot in the basement and pick out the next box and bring all the toys in that pile up.

We decided in order to lengthen the life of each rotation we would keep it upstairs for only a week. Friday is our day of choice to swap out the toys. A process that used to take days to complete now takes less than 15 minutes. Today we brought up the fourth (out of five) of the piles and it has been a wonderful few weeks. The children seem interested in the new toys all week long which helps them to entertain themselves. In the few weeks we have been doing this we've seen a very big difference in our children - they are reading the books, playing with the toys, and using their imaginations instead of looking around the playroom and seeing the same toys they have played with all month long. A week seems to be a great amount of time because it keeps everything fresh!

New Toy Friday!

This post really has no point other than to share with you all this wonderful tip... I don't often feel like Jason and I come up with great ideas to help make this parenting journey smooth, but this one I'm really enjoying. It makes the swapping of the toys easier and it helps to entertain and stimulate the children throughout the week. Jason and I joke that it is like Christmas morning once a week! Anyway, just thought I would share this idea if you all are feeling in a "rut" with any of your current toys.  :)