For those with older kids

Hi all! I guess I'm barging in early since my peeps won't be one for a couple more weeks.

I have a 4yo and a modest-sized house. We pretty much have one main living area (the LR - no dining room or anything). I'm having a hard time figuring out how I'm going to keep my very mobile, very curious 1yo's from getting into all of DS toys...all of which are NOT 1yo-approved. Right now we have a 6x9 "fenced" area that the babies spend a lot of time in and I regularly make my older son keep the dangerous toys put away for a little while so the babies can crawl around and explore.

I'm starting to feel a little guilty about always having the twins "penned up" like that, and I don't think it's fair to expect my oldest to not have toys out on a daily basis. He lives here, too, and imo shouldn't be banished to his room if he wants to play with his toys.

So what do you guys do to get around this? Is this bad attitude I have about continuing to keep them in the fenced area (we call it the gated community ) just my own hang-up?

 

Hi there,
We have a similar family make-up. My older son is 4 and his brothers are 19mo. We have a 1400 sq ft house - so not huge, but comfortable. We have a play room downstairs - all toys in theplay room are for all to play with. My older DS has his special toys upstairs in my DH's closet - where he can go play in peace whenever he wants. Since it's upstairs - and the stairs are gated - he can do this. We don't really keep toys in the boys bedroom - since oldest shares with one twin (other is in our room). Eventually all boys will share the bedroom (fingers crossed) - intended for naps and nightime sleeping not playing. This generally works for us, but the twins are very active and into everything, sometimes they get into the closet and this creates some havoc. I do think it is important to give the older DS some space of his own to play with out restrictions. My guess is you will have a hard time keeping your little ones in the gated community much longer. Ask yout older son for suggestions on what would work best for him - you may be pleasantly surprised.

 

I don't have older children, but I heard an idea from another TS mama that I thought sounded good. She took the play-pen and put the small, hazardous toys in there to make a protected play area for her older child. That way the older child can play with their toys without having to leave the living area, and the small toys are kept out of the toddler's way.

Whatever you decide on, I agree with the PP that you won't be able to keep the twins in their "gated community" much longer!

Good luck!

 

currently my little ones are 16 months and my ds is 6. we just enforce the rule that his 'big' boy toys stay in his room and anything brought out to the common area has to be approved or have no parts.

 

Can you put the dangerous toys in your older son's room? I'm lucky enough to have a family room and a finished basement so the girls are required to keep all of the toys with small parts out of the family room. Safe stuff can stay in or be brought in, but the dangerous stuff is promptly confiscated and lost for a week.

 

I just wanted to second another's suggestion. My three year old often plays with "his toys" in the pen, with the twins outside of the pen and roaming free. This also allows for lego towers, and other projects for the older child to work on, without having his siblings knock them down, etc.

Also, I've been kind of picking up small pieces on the sly and putting them away. You could put small pieces/toys away in a box and bring out the box in a supervised manner, and have the older child play with them at the big table away from the littles. My son plays with stringing beads, playdoh, markers, etc. at the big table; the materials are supervised (I take them down when he wants to play with them, and put them back up when he's finished). Generally this works pretty well. But a lot of small piece toys are in his bedroom, which sounds like wouldn't work in your situation.

Just some thoughts if they help...

 

My older two are allowed to play with any of their "safe" toys in the living room, all the others, like playmobils, lego, bakugans... are to stay either in their playroom (on the same floor) or in their bedroom(upstairs). The arrangement works quite well as when they want to play with their big boy toys, they don't really want the babies around, the rest of the time, they just come in and play with us in the living room, or if they want to draw or play board games, i just set them up on the dining table, that way they are with us and the babies are safe.

 

We try to make a baby safe zone-we moved all the big girls' toys (5 and 7 year old) upstairs in their room or down cellar in the play room. The living room has only baby toys in it. That's where the babies play. Every once in a while I'll let the older kids play with their toys on the kitchen table but then they need to put them right away. It's so hard to keep the house baby proof but this has helped.

shannon