Separating Toddler toys from older Preschooler type toys

I'm having a real hard time containing my twins to 1 to 2 rooms where they are "safe". They are getting to the age that they want to explore more and I need to figure out a way to make that happen. HOWEVER, our house is small (upstairs are the bedrooms, and downstairs is the kitchen, living room and family room). The twins can go in family room and kitchen but I have the living room gated off because my 4 1/2 year old plays in there and her toys are way to dangerous for the twins to get into. I don't want to "banish" my older daughter's toys to her room...that doesn't seem fair for her at all.

I like the idea of somehow splitting that room in half, but don' know what type of baracade I could use that would be sturdy. It's a wide room...about 15 to 20 feet so I don't think a gate would do it.

Any ideas or how do you all address the keeping the older kids toys away from the twins without seeming unfair to the older child?

Thanks!

 

Right now, we wing it. In our basement, the main play area, we have a Superyard around my older son's train table that houses all of his legos and playmobile small parts. Everything else, is pretty safe as long as an adult is watching the kids. If we can't be there to watch, we take the twins upstairs where it is more baby friendly (no choking hazards allowed). WE are also actively teaching the twins not to put things in their mouth. Whenever they put something inappropriate in there, I say "yuck, yuck" and they seem to respond to that. Now I can just say "yuck" before they touch something and they will stop and look at me to see if I mean it.

 

Like the PP I've heard that some people have success using a gate to put around the *older* kids toys, so they can go in and out to play, but the youngsters can't get in. :good:

 

We banished the big kids toys to their rooms Actually for the first 16 months we kept the dining room gated off, so lego's, crayon's, and any other small toys could be played with safely in there by the big kids. Now that the gate is down, any small toys have to be kept in the big kids room. But our bedrooms are right off the living room so it's not a big deal for my kids to play in there while the twins are in the living room.

I like the idea of putting a barricade maybe around a corner of the room for ally's toys. Would a superyard be big enough? You can look for used ones on craigslist or a local twins club. We stretched one out across our dining room opening (around 10 feet wide), and braced one end behind our couch, and the other was tied to the hallway gate.

 

FWIW, we strategically placed things, like the train table and playhouse (yes, we have a playhouse in the basement) so that they elongated the barricade. We've also used furniture as part of the barricade. It stops mine, now.

 

For those of you who use the Superyard to gate off the older kids toys...how do your older ones get over it to get to their stuff since it doesn't have a door? Ugh!

 

We have one end accessible so he just pulls that away from the wall and scoots around it.

 

Just watch out with this though, at 14 months my two knew how to pull it away and get through.