First of all… Otis’ smile in these photos… THIS KID IS TOO MUCH I CAN’T HANDLE IT. I of course say that in the most positive way possible. I might have fainted when I saw these photos of Otis leaning in for a kiss to his Mama. It’s honestly everything I dreamed of and more. I love this kid so much. Oh man. I could gush for hours about him. But! The reason for today’s post is to share some things about toy storage with you.
Once the first birthday hits, I feel like in terms of baby/toddler stuff things start to explode in the house. You just start accumulating so much stuff and it’s near impossible to not have your house look like a literal toy shop. A friend of mine came over one day and said, “I am impressed by how your house still looks adult.” I think it’s because we have become creative with how we store Otis’ toys.
Tips for Toddler Toy Organization
Rotate and Store your toys: What I started doing was grab a few Tupperware bins (I bought these) for the garage and cycle out some of Otis’ toys every month to inspire his playtime. I am going to be honest, sometimes it’s longer than a month when I remember to switch them out but the point is I don’t have everything we own out in our living room. Our house is small and we don’t have a playroom so everything that Otis plays with is in our living space or his room. If every toy we owned was out… our house would look insane. Rotating toys has been a fun way to surprise him with some “new toys” that he might have forgotten about it.
Match toy storage to your decor: This might seem pretty straight forward and obvious but I think sometimes when it comes to toy storage, you automatically look for specific toy storage solutions for kids and they don’t necessarily blend with your own home aesthetics. For instance, I wanted to utilize the storage space under our bench so I choice these baskets from the citizenry. They are modern and blend with my decor theme and aren’t a typical kid toy bin. But in reality, they are SO practical. Otis will even grab a bin, drag it over and then we have 1 thing to play with. I recently separated them into different categories: legos, trains and other. It makes cleaning up easier knowing that everything has a place and a home. Also it’s great to hide it… at least a little bit.
Utilize low shelves for kids toys: We have a small cabinet with a normally useless bottom shelf but I was able to store Otis’ books and puzzles on it. It’s at a perfect height for him to sit and pull what he wants out. It’s also out of eye view for the adults so it’s a hidden toy gem if you know what I mean. I encourage Otis to put them away also. Yes the way he does it is messy but I applaud his efforts and then I straighten it up so it looks good again. It makes a huge different creating stacks of books and puzzles to give the illusion of order. If you have low cabinets that are concealed, you can dedicate one to your toddler and open it up for play time and then close it up when playtime is over. I have crafts and other toys hidden in my media console.
You can find all the sources for my living room decor HERE.
Kim outfit // top: cotton on (similar) / jeans: jbrand
Otis outfit // sweater: old navy / jeans: h&m kids
toy baskets: the citizenry
shelve cabinet: target painted with Behr cappuccino froth
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