kids picking up after themselves

i am DONE with cleaning up ALL DAY LONG!
what can i truly expect my almost 3yo's to do? should they comprehend that toys need to be put away? that when i get the garbage bags out, bag up literally everything and they're screaming that the stuff in the bag needs to be put away?!

sorry - vent over but I'm sick and tired of cleaning up their playroom ALL DAY LONG. you literally CANT WALK IN IT! i clean it and then just a few hours later - STUFF EVERYWHERE!!

thank you!
:-D

 

My girls could pick up their stuff at that age (with a lot of help and encouragement from me). One suggestion (if you have the space) is to only have a few toys out and available. That way there is less to clean up and all of you don't get so overwhelmed. Good luck!!!

 

I think at 3, you have to expect that you will be heavily involved in toy cleaning and toy management.

I would start be limiting the amount of toys available. That way, even if everything gets dumped, the mess is limited. Rotate the toys so something fresh appears every once in a while.

I would also plan supervised clean-up time into the routine. I found that when my kids were little, if I told them to "clean-up", I got funny looks and not much help. If I was specific and asked Sarah to pick up books and Timothy to pick up the Thomas trains they could easily do that. Also, by building it into the routine, it really did teach them.

My kids are older now. By about 6 or 7, they were truly able to totally clean-up their rooms or the playroom by themselves. They sometimes need a bit of reinforcement on standards, but they can really do a fine job. I find that my part in this is still in keeping the clutter down and weeding out the toys that aren't played with anymore.

Marissa

 

TY for the replies
i just LOST it on them and i feel awful but i'm just beyond sick and tired of not being able to walk into the room.
all their toys are in the room, so it's difficult to limit their toys, lol

 

By limiting, I'm talking about packing 1/2 of it away in a box in the basement, garage or attic. I found my kids played far better when they had fewer things. I still do that now. Not all toys that are in the house are out continually. I have no problem putting things away and then magically having new toys or activities for a rainy day. Too many toys is not the fault of the 3 year olds.

Marissa

 

Thats what I meant too. I rotate toys all the time (I keep them in our attic or in my closet). Now my girls are old enough to know things are put away and if they want a particular toy they can trade for one that is currently in the den.

 

I agree with limiting toys. Before Emmett arrived we did a huge toy purge. I couldn't believe the difference in a) how much less mess there was & b) how much more engaged the girls were with the toys that remained. I even asked that no one get the girls toys for Christmas. My ILs didn't listen, so those toys just stayed at their house. Now I'm trying to follow a one toy into the house, one toy out routine.

 

I purge every few months and that helps with the mess. They now have their own rooms so toys are now spread out verses when it was just in their playroom and I could just close the door.

Be happy that it's just their playroom. I have been pounding "toys stay in your rooms" for months now. I am tired of finding their toys EVERYWHERE in the house, including the stairs (which I step on and break). Just last month one of them left their Vtech Mobigo on the stairs and I stepped on it and broke the screen. $60 down the drain. :aggressive:

 

We don't have a playroom, so you can imagine what it's like out here.

In my experience, they can clean up, just a few things at a time. Like, blocks. Or cars. So you pretty much have to be on them all the time to make sure they clean up, and pick up regularly, otherwise it just piles up and up and you end up like my house. Really, if you pick up at the end of the day, it should take 5-10 minutes tops... we're just too tired and lazy to do it in my house... we're just DONE by the time they are in bed.

You can't really blame them when you think about it... when you see the mess, do YOU feel like cleaning up? I sure don't, that's why it gets worse and worse, lol.

So, I hear you. It drives me nuts too. And yes limiting toys is the best thing to do, I put a ton of stuff away, then there was Christmas and their birthday and now it's a disaster again... My main issue really is toys with small parts. They inevitably end up all over the house. And as my kids like mixing things (playing with their little ponies in a Little People airplane that somehow has survived the toy purge because they still love it, for example), so it's hard to actually make them take one thing out at a time etc. We just pick up a few things daily but pretty much end up picking it all up every month or so...

So I sympathize!!!!

 

If they have a playroom, I wouldn't even be trying to clean it up more than once a day. Kids need a space where they can leave their toys out for some period of time & come back to them. I insist that any toys they bring into another part of the house be cleaned up as soon as they are finished playing with them and their bedrooms are tidied before bed every night, but the playroom is their room & I only insist on it being cleaned about once a week. I will help them & we will sort everything back into the proper bins, baskets, containers, etc. and they will start all over again. It is a whole lot less headache for me if I just give that space over to them than to stress over it being clean all the time.

 

I agree Tina... that's pretty much why we gave them the living room and only tidy up when we have guests, lol!

 

My kids are 4 and they do pretty decent with clean up. But we do limit and rotate toys around the house. We have no playroom either, so some toys are limited to the living room, the not quite a family room, and their bedrooms. The living room, we ask them to clean up before bed, it's where we spend most of our day.
At 2-3, I did a lot of motivating. Who can put more blocks away then Mommy? Let's put all the red toys away, all the blue ones, etc. And even though I ask them do it, I thank them for doing a good job and helping me out. My kids LOVE to help, so if you tell them they are helping, they are all into it.
I agree with Tina, with a playroom, I would have them clean it once a day or once a week. If you find the mess is too much, then I would definitely pull some toys out and put them away and just rotate the toys periodically.

 

My kids started being able to help pick up right around age 3. They still don't like to pick up the entire family room by themselves (at almost 5). The biggest thing that helped me implement help picking up when they were 3 was giving each toy a place and labelling those places. We have a huge shelf from Ikea with 10 different toy bins that sit on it. I made big labels for each bin with the word and picture of what goes inside. So the doll clothes bin has a picture of a doll dress and the words "DOLL CLOTHES" on it. The Lego bin has a picture of a Lego and the word "LEGO". It is a lot easier to get kids to clean up if they can clearly and easily see what they're supposed to do.

 

I totally agree less is more.

Other than that I've found that bins work well. Because then you get to play the game of tossing everything in the bin to clean up. My two year old currently loves that almost more than playing with the toys.
We also have a one bin out rule--if they want to take out another bid (blocks in one, play food and dishes in another, etc) they have to put the one that's out away.

 

I agree with limiting the toys that are available. We do not have a playroom so everything goes on in the living room. There is a tiny closet off the living room where I store some toys on a rotating basis. They know they are there and ask for them. If things are too messy I will ask them to help me clear some space for the new toy before I bring it out. That usually works.

We also have a funny energetic tidy-up song and we clear everything before lunch and before bedtime. We sing and do it together. I saw how well that works at daycare and have adopted the idea for home. We do the same with the outdoor toys every evening before we go inside.

It is also about not letting the task get too overwhelming - they see DH and me regularly clearing away stuff too (our house is small and both DH and I get really antsy if there is too much stuff out), they see me do it with them several times a day, it is usually quick because we do not let mess and stuff accumulate, and they are starting to sometimes clear at least part of the floor by themselves before bringing out something new. So far they do not leave building projects out to work on later but prefer starting all over, the one exception is the train set which may stay put up until I need to vacuum the floor.

And I agree about telling them what a great help they are and thanking them! Mine love helping around the house and thanking for their help is a good motivator.

 

Bins are magic; I rotate out bins of toys every couple of weeks and it works like a charm. And at the end of the day clean up is easy; everything gets thrown into the bin. I also agree that letting them have a space in the house where toys are is good; we just dedicated a play room in our house so they can mess it up and have it their way, but I still plan on limiting the amount of toys in there because I find they will play longer with their toys and get more into it if there's less available.

 

We don't have a play room, our living room and their bedroom is our playroom. Honestly, I let them make a disaster of the living room during the day. We try to tidy up a bit before supper, and then after supper/before bed we clean everything up. All I ask is that they put all the small stuff onto the train table or into one of the bins of the storage thing we have in here. About once a week I reorganize the whole storage thing back into categories "Little people, trains, trucks/cars, balls, my little pony's...etc".

Last night was reorganizing night, so my living room is pretty spotless still! I know it won't last :lol:

When they go play in their room they usually have all the stuffies off their beds and a bunch of toys out of the toy box. We clean that up before bed.