An Easy How-To Guide for Rotating Your Child’s Toys

A Guide to Rotating Your Child’s Toys 

In our house, the toys have become a bit of a problem. Between grandparents that love to give gifts, random toys my son sees and wants (I’m a sucker, I know), and holidays, our house is stuffed to the gills. 

And the worst part of this is that my son wasn’t playing with half of his toys. He gravitated towards the same few toys each day and his attention span was getting shorter and shorter. 

I was getting frustrated with the clutter and having to clean up a hundred mismatched or semi-broken pieces each day. I knew there had to be a better way. That’s when I discovered toy rotation. 

What is Toy Rotation?

Rotating your child’s toys is the intentional act of cycling through toys periodically. This means that all of your child’s toys are not available all at once. Using lidded bins, you can ‘put away’ toys so that your child is more focused on the toys that are available, and is therefore less likely to become bored with them. This also keeps you from having to clean up all the toys that usually get strewn about daily.

How to Get Started

Like I mentioned above, I like to use lidded bins so that I can stack the toys both in storage and in our playroom. Because they are clear, this makes it quick work for me to pull out whatever I am looking for. When my son got old enough to make decisions for himself, it was helpful in letting him choose what toys he wanted to play with. I also got this shelf from Amazon that is great for stacking those bins in a closet. 

Declutter

Before you can start rotating your child’s toys, you need to get rid of the excess fluff that is getting in the way of your kiddo actually playing. You can read my post on how to declutter your child’s toys for an in depth guide. 

Clean

Before tossing all of the toys that are left into a bin, make sure to clean them. This is important because:

• Little kids are germ factories and it’s just good practice
• You don’t want cruddy toys going into your clean bins
• You’re already doing the work to initiate toy rotation, might as well do it right

How to Organize Toys

Start with the toys you play to keep around regularly and then categorize everything else. 

Keep Certain Toys Always Available

There are certain toys that it just makes sense to keep out all the time. My son is obsessed with his Batman Lego Set, and doesn’t ever get bored with it, so it stays within his reach daily. 

Other educational tools like letter boards or counting toys stay available because although he may not play with them every single day, repeated access to those types of toys is beneficial to his overall learning in my opinion. If you want to learn about how I am preparing my son for preschool, check out this post!

Categorize

I categorize toys by play type, rather than by actual toy. This means things like pretend food, dress up clothes, or a play tool set are all types of imaginative play. Blocks, legos, and Magnatiles are all STEM/building toys. Painting, Play Doh, or coloring are all artistic. 

So when I am pulling out a round of toys to play with, I might do dress up clothes, Magnatiles, and coloring books. That way, my kid can play with a variety of things, rather than the current toy selection being all one style. This can keep your child entertained for longer.

Label Your Categories

You can separate toys however you like but some common categories are:

• Art Supplies
• Imaginative Play
• STEM
• Building
• Educational
• Soft Play
• Puzzles
• Music
• Character Play (Bluey, Paw Patrol, Spiderman)

I use my label maker to stick to the outside of each bin, so I know exactly what I am grabbing. Something like “Action Figures – Imaginative Play” works great. 

How to Implement Toy Rotation

Decide how many toys you will have out at once. This could be one bin from each section you create. For us, four bins fit on the shelf in his playroom, so that is what is rotated out each week. 

As I mentioned above, there are some toys that stay out all of the time, either because they are super popular, they’re educational, or simply because they are too big to fit on the shelf where I store his other toys. 

How Often to Rotate Your Child’s Toys 

Then decide how long you want your toy rotation to be. If your child stays engaged for multiple weeks, you may decide to change out toys each month. For us, I am circulating my son’s toys each week. With the amount of toys he currently has, this means that he basically sees all of his toys each month, but they don’t stay in his playroom long enough for him to get bored with them. When his attention span grows a little longer, I may extend how long toys stay in rotation. 

Tantrums and Consequences

If I notice there is a toy my son is having a super hard time leaving to do other tasks, or he can’t share without getting upset, that bin may be pulled out of rotation for a few weeks until he cools down. If you notice your kids are fighting over certain toys, this may be a good idea for you as well.

After you have been rotating your child’s toys for a while, you may notice they aren’t as into some toys as others. If there have been multiple rotations and your child hasn’t asked for a certain toy in all that time, it may be a good idea to pull it from rotation (and donate it) so that you can make room for something your child is interested in. 

Equally, if you are putting said toy into rotation and you notice it isn’t being played with, it may be a good idea to get rid of it as well. This happens naturally as children get older. They grow into new interests and leave others behind. 

Have you tried rotating your child’s toys? What are some things that worked for your family? Share them in the comments below to help another mom out! PS: If you are interested in learning how to teach your child to play independently, I’ve got some great ideas in this post.