[dalynnrmc]

Okay, btdt moms or anyone else...

Now that both babies are walking, there is stuff. Everywhere. All. The. Time.

Now, I do need to go through and toddler-proof the house in some areas. But some of this stuff just is where it is. There's nowhere else to put it. And some of it, of course, is baby stuff anyway. But it's everywhere. All the time.

This week we've moved to a "zone defense" strategy. Just in case company shows up unexpectedly. (Yeah, right. You never know though....) Each of the older boys has been assigned one of the major rooms in the main part of the house. The living room, foyer, and kitchen. If the boy sees something in the floor in his "zone" he is to pick it up. All day long. No special "clean up time" as usual. Hopefully this will mean we don't have to clean for 2 hours every evening. Kids aren't huge fans of this method just yet....

But it's a must. The house needs to be in such condition that if hubby's boss showed up at the door, I could get it clean before he could get in the house.



What do you do to prevent the clutter??? Anything and everything, even if it seems obvious, and especially anything creative or novel that you do or have heard. Share!!!

[Celry]

We just moved most of our play things into the basement. I was sick of our family room looking like a toy bomb went off. Our front door opens into our family room, so it doesn't matter how clean the rest of the is. If the family room is messy that's the impression of the house. We started making A&E clean up their own toys when they were pretty young. Obviously it wasn't very successful, but they got the idea and started to help. We just stop a few times a day and clean up. We are now to the point where they have to clean up before we'll read books and they want to read books a lot throughout the day.

[MarieJ]

Yup, just moved everything to the basement-its a $15k toy room is pretty much what I paid for.
I keep very few toys on the main floor, and we have two pseudo leather benches that those are kept in. Toys migrate upstairs but every few days they get hauled back down there. I find its much easier to keep tidier that way.

[dalynnrmc]

LOL! Wish I had that luxury.

It's not really all toys though. It's... couch cushions. And pots and pans from the cabinet (I don't mind a few out, but not all over the house). and laundry from the hamper. and books. and... anything and everything they can find. Some we can help some, some we can't. *sigh*


Zone defense until further notice.

[April Flowers]

We gave up. We have a two bedroom house with only one living space. There is literally no other area to put things. I try to keep the main floor picked up and vacuumed at least once every other day, but the majority of the toys just get tossed into the babyjail.