June 30, 2024 • 12 mins
Send Katie a Message with Your Questions/Thoughts! :)
Hello, Mamas! Welcome back! In this episode, I'm sharing my personal journey and insights on how to create a more peaceful and organized living space through the power of toy rotations.
If clutter and disorganization make you feel stressed and overwhelmed, you're not alone. I'll walk you through the step-by-step process I used to set up a successful toy rotation system for my 3.5-year-old son, transforming our home into a calmer and more creative environment.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Setting Up a Toy Rotation: I'll walk you through sorting toys, creating a fun & engaging visual guide with your kids, and establishing a clear timeline for rotating toys.
- Sustaining a Clutter-Free Home: I'll share tips on staying consistent with your rotation, managing gifts during birthdays and holidays, and responsibly donating toys your child has outgrown.
- Maintaining a Peaceful Environment: Discover how to involve your child in the process, making it a positive and empowering experience for both of you.
Don’t miss this chance to reclaim your space AND foster creativity in your home. Tune in now and start your journey towards a more sustainable and stress-free life today!
P.S. Please subscribe and leave a review if you found this episode helpful. It's such a quick and easy way to support the show! ✨
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Katie Kurpanek (00:00):
Hello Mamas, Welcome back to the show. So I
(00:02):
don't know about you but when myliving space or my workspace is
a mess, I feel super stressedand dysregulated. Like, it is
harder for me to focus on a taskwhen everything around me feels
disorganized or just cluttered.
And like I actually feelclaustrophobic in these moments.
And in these spaces, it is sohard. And then it's not just me,
I have noticed that thisactually has an impact on my son
(00:25):
as well. So he's currently threeand a half years old at the time
of this recording. And I havenoticed that when his play space
is like cluttered, there's justlike toys everywhere, I don't
know we've taken a while toclean up or he's just gotten a
whole bunch of like, new toys orgifts or something, he gets
overwhelmed and irritable withhis space. And I can imagine
(00:48):
that it's hard for him to playfreely if he doesn't have enough
room, or there's like anoverwhelm with choices, right,
he has so many options that itfeels kind of chaotic, and he
just kind of bounces around fromthing to thing. And he doesn't
actually stick with one toy oractivity for very long. So
storytime, this past holidayseason, and my son's birthday is
(01:09):
right before the holidays. Afterthat, I was just feeling so
overwhelmed and was seeing thesame like symptoms, like I
discussed with, you know, justoverwhelm for my son, because we
had all these new toys, allthese new activities we had had,
you know, friends and family intown, so everything was kind of
chaotic and messy, our house wasdisorganized. And so as a sanity
(01:30):
saver for myself, and a tool oflike empowerment and peace for
my child, we ended up doingsomething called a toy rotation,
and I will never look back, ithas been a game changer. So
today, let's get into some ofthe most helpful things that you
can do to declutter your livingspace, and foster more
(01:51):
creativity in your own kids.
Okay, so number one, if you areinterested in setting up a toy
rotation, here is what I wouldrecommend whether you are
setting this up before your kidseven like know any different,
maybe they're a baby right now,and they have no choice in the
matter. Or if you are making achange to your child's currently
(02:13):
established routine like I didfor my son and this is
different. Either way, I wouldhighly recommend to involve them
as much as possible, right,depending on how old they are.
As your baby grows, you caninvolve them more. But in the
process, if you can sortthrough, start by sorting all of
you know, their toys, theirgames, their activities, this is
(02:35):
going to take a little bit oftime. So maybe plan, you know,
half of a weekend day to spendon this with your child
together, make it like a reallyfun thing. You could have
special snacks or somethinginvolved. Then once you've
sorted that, you can create aposter and this is really fun,
you can make this super fun withyour kids, create a poster that
(02:55):
you're going to hang up anddisplay somewhere on your
fridge, on the wall, on the doorto the closet, wherever it is
create a poster with thesecategories. In our poster, we
have a category for cars, wehave another category for trains
and train tracks, we have acategory for dinosaurs, you know
all the different toys that likemy son has been given or we
(03:17):
bought. So you can build thatout together, you can make it
colorful, engage your kids incoloring with you. And then
you're going to put on thisposter a timeline. And you get
to establish what this lookslike for your family. So do you
want the toy rotation to be likerotating on a weekly basis? Do
you want it to be a monthlybasis? Do you want it to be
(03:38):
seasonal, maybe the categoriesthat you made were like, these
are toys that are really greatto bring out in the winter.
These are toys that are reallygreat for the spring, the
summer, whatever it is. So puton the poster, a very clear
timeline so that it is like avisual cue for you and your
child. And then you just need toput up this poster and take the
(03:59):
organized groups of toys, maybeyou're going to need some bags
or some bins, some cardboardboxes would do just fine.
However you want to organize itand put the toys somewhere where
you both acknowledge, or if youhave multiple kids, you all
acknowledge that this is wherethese toys are going to live
right now. And one set or twosets of toys are going to come
(04:19):
out at a time, whateverguidelines you want to put
around this. So in my family, wehave like a weekly toy rotation.
Sometimes we do it twice a weeklike midweek, but he knows that
these toys, you know, they'reall stashed in this one area of
the basement. And when it istime to rotate the toys, then he
gets to go to the poster and hegets to choose which one or two
(04:41):
categories of toys he wants forthat time. Then we go get them
together. It's really exciting.
We bring them out. And then atthe next time where it's time to
switch the toys then he knows hegets to help me be a part of
cleaning them up, which alsoclean up takes way less time
because it's way less things,and then he helps me clean them
up, bring them back over to thatpart of the basement. And he's
(05:03):
picked another category, one ortwo categories of toys to bring
out. That's personally how we doit and have found a lot of
success. I want you to notice,while you kind of feel this out
for a while, maybe a few months,I want you to just be noticing,
are there any categories of toysthat your child gravitates
towards all the time just again,and again, these are like the
(05:24):
favorite things. Are there anycategories that are untouched
for a long time. And as younotice this, I want you to just
bring it up in conversation withyour child depending on how old
they are, and just just noticingit like, so that they are also
aware of this, because in thenext part that we'll talk about,
then that helps them to be readyto eventually move some of these
(05:47):
toys on because they are awarethat they haven't really been
wanting to play with them for awhile. If you need more support
in how to navigate thoseconversations, depending on the
age of your child, we have somuch support for you inside The
Eco Minded Mama Collective. Butwe'll talk more about that
later. So the next thing I wantyou to keep in mind is now that
you have a system that is inplace that is going to work
(06:10):
really well for you, at leastfor right now, maybe you'll
adjust it here and there. Butnow, what can you do to reduce
the amount of clutter or thefeeling of clutter in your home
and sustain this peacefulcreative system that you've now
put into place. So a few tips.
Number one, I want you to stayconsistent with your rotation,
(06:33):
that visual timeline, thatposter that you made with your
kids, I want you to stick to it.
Do your best, even if they pushback for a while, this is just a
new routine, it's going to takeyou know a few weeks probably to
get used to it. So sticking toyour boundaries as much as
possible, sticking to theposter, and just holding that
boundary. The longer that you dothat, the easier it will become.
(06:56):
Second tip for things likebirthdays and holidays, anytime
where your kiddo is going to bepossibly receiving gifts, then
you can do some reflectingtogether leading up to it. So
like we talked about thoseconversations before, you can be
helping to bring the awarenessof what they no longer enjoy or
play with what they've outgrown,and the things that they really,
(07:20):
really love. And you can starttalking about what is something
that they need, what issomething that they want, maybe
it's just two things for rightnow that you could be, you know,
gifting them or family memberscould be gifting them. And then
you could turn towardsexperiences. So there's a
balance here of tangiblephysical items they can enjoy
(07:41):
and actually use, andexperiences. They don't always
have to have a physical item asa gift. You can also ask your
family members, if you havefamily members or friends who
absolutely love to give and theyare so generous and they want to
care for your child, you couldask them to keep some of those
gifts as like a special thingfor their home. Maybe they have
(08:03):
a designated space in theirhome, that is for their grandson
or something, you know theirnephew, and they have some toys
and things that they have boughtthat lives at their house. And
it's very special when yourkiddo gets to come over and play
with these things. But it staysthere, not everything has to end
up back at your home for you tohave to deal with like the
(08:26):
cleaning and the maintaining andeverything. When it comes time
to pass along some of the thingsthat they have outgrown, then I
want you to consider donatingresponsibly. So a couple ideas.
A few episodes ago, we talkedabout the Buy Nothing groups or
the Buy Nothing challenge. Andso you could look up, you know,
buy nothing groups in your area,you could even just go on
(08:47):
Facebook marketplace, basicallyhand me downs, right handing
down your toys to communitymembers who actually want them
and will use them, rather thanjust like dumping everything at
a Goodwill or a thrift store. Ifthat's the only option in your
area, then that's not terrible.
But oftentimes, thrift storesjust get so overloaded with
(09:08):
donations, and then they can't,they just can't keep up, it's
too much. And a lot of thingsend up in the landfill. So
passing on hand me downs as muchas possible is really helpful.
And preparing your kids leadingup to that event. Maybe you pull
out the toys that they haven'tplayed with in a really long
time. And you talk about how youget to have a couple of weeks to
(09:28):
enjoy these toys andthese activities one last time
and then we're going to passthem along to so and so. It's
always really helpful if youhave a particular kid or family
in mind. And your kids can feelreally great about passing that
on to somebody who will get alot of joy out of using them.
This is not always easy. Trustme, I know, I'm in the thick of
(09:49):
it. We have loved our toyrotation. And it is something
that has been a game changer forour sanity and creativity in our
home. But I'm not going to saythat it was always easy. But it
is something where you will beconstantly learning and
adjusting especially as yourkids grow and age and develop.
And we are adjusting too all thetime. So it is so much better
(10:11):
and easier when you can do thiskind of stuff with the support
of other moms or other parentswho are also in the thick of
this with you. You canbrainstorm together, you can
talk about your kids' reactionsor conversations that you just
had in real time and help eachother problem solve and come up
with creative solutions or ideasthat maybe you never thought of
(10:33):
before. Just the other dayinside The Eco Minded Mama
Collective, we had one of ourmom members named Suzanne who
was asking for support when itcomes to birthday parties and
gift giving and the areas thatshe was specifically struggling
with her kiddo at the age thatthey are. So it was really
heartwarming to see the level ofsupport and solidarity shown in
(10:55):
her post. And that is somethingthat I want to make available to
all of you. So if you haven'theard already, this month of
June has been Jumpstart June.
That's what I'm calling it isjust a exciting promo because
June is my favorite month. Iwant to continue the celebration
and give you a gift of joiningthis membership program totally
(11:18):
for free for one month. If thisis something you have thought
about, or you're just thinkingabout it now and you would like
to take part in it and try itout. You can use the code
JUMPSTART, all one word, allcaps, for one free month inside
The Eco Minded Mama Collective.
And today is actually the lastday of June at the time of this
recording. So this codeJUMPSTART is going to expire at
(11:40):
midnight. So this is your lastchance if you haven't already
hopped on this and joined theCollective. You will want to do
that now, you can go to the shownotes, the episode description
you will find the link and theJUMPSTART coupon code, and jump
on this! I would love to giveyou a jumpstart into your own
journey of sustainable livingand help you find peace and save
(12:03):
money and just live with overallless stress in your life as an
eco minded mama. I hope to seeyou on the inside. It is so much
fun. And I will be back nextweek for another episode with
sustainable living tips.
Hello Mamas, Welcome back to the show. So I
(00:02):
don't know about you but when myliving space or my workspace is
a mess, I feel super stressedand dysregulated. Like, it is
harder for me to focus on a taskwhen everything around me feels
disorganized or just cluttered.
And like I actually feelclaustrophobic in these moments.
And in these spaces, it is sohard. And then it's not just me,
I have noticed that thisactually has an impact on my son
(00:25):
as well. So he's currently threeand a half years old at the time
of this recording. And I havenoticed that when his play space
is like cluttered, there's justlike toys everywhere, I don't
know we've taken a while toclean up or he's just gotten a
whole bunch of like, new toys orgifts or something, he gets
overwhelmed and irritable withhis space. And I can imagine
(00:48):
that it's hard for him to playfreely if he doesn't have enough
room, or there's like anoverwhelm with choices, right,
he has so many options that itfeels kind of chaotic, and he
just kind of bounces around fromthing to thing. And he doesn't
actually stick with one toy oractivity for very long. So
storytime, this past holidayseason, and my son's birthday is
(01:09):
right before the holidays. Afterthat, I was just feeling so
overwhelmed and was seeing thesame like symptoms, like I
discussed with, you know, justoverwhelm for my son, because we
had all these new toys, allthese new activities we had had,
you know, friends and family intown, so everything was kind of
chaotic and messy, our house wasdisorganized. And so as a sanity
(01:30):
saver for myself, and a tool oflike empowerment and peace for
my child, we ended up doingsomething called a toy rotation,
and I will never look back, ithas been a game changer. So
today, let's get into some ofthe most helpful things that you
can do to declutter your livingspace, and foster more
(01:51):
creativity in your own kids.
Okay, so number one, if you areinterested in setting up a toy
rotation, here is what I wouldrecommend whether you are
setting this up before your kidseven like know any different,
maybe they're a baby right now,and they have no choice in the
matter. Or if you are making achange to your child's currently
(02:13):
established routine like I didfor my son and this is
different. Either way, I wouldhighly recommend to involve them
as much as possible, right,depending on how old they are.
As your baby grows, you caninvolve them more. But in the
process, if you can sortthrough, start by sorting all of
you know, their toys, theirgames, their activities, this is
(02:35):
going to take a little bit oftime. So maybe plan, you know,
half of a weekend day to spendon this with your child
together, make it like a reallyfun thing. You could have
special snacks or somethinginvolved. Then once you've
sorted that, you can create aposter and this is really fun,
you can make this super fun withyour kids, create a poster that
(02:55):
you're going to hang up anddisplay somewhere on your
fridge, on the wall, on the doorto the closet, wherever it is
create a poster with thesecategories. In our poster, we
have a category for cars, wehave another category for trains
and train tracks, we have acategory for dinosaurs, you know
all the different toys that likemy son has been given or we
(03:17):
bought. So you can build thatout together, you can make it
colorful, engage your kids incoloring with you. And then
you're going to put on thisposter a timeline. And you get
to establish what this lookslike for your family. So do you
want the toy rotation to be likerotating on a weekly basis? Do
you want it to be a monthlybasis? Do you want it to be
(03:38):
seasonal, maybe the categoriesthat you made were like, these
are toys that are really greatto bring out in the winter.
These are toys that are reallygreat for the spring, the
summer, whatever it is. So puton the poster, a very clear
timeline so that it is like avisual cue for you and your
child. And then you just need toput up this poster and take the
(03:59):
organized groups of toys, maybeyou're going to need some bags
or some bins, some cardboardboxes would do just fine.
However you want to organize itand put the toys somewhere where
you both acknowledge, or if youhave multiple kids, you all
acknowledge that this is wherethese toys are going to live
right now. And one set or twosets of toys are going to come
(04:19):
out at a time, whateverguidelines you want to put
around this. So in my family, wehave like a weekly toy rotation.
Sometimes we do it twice a weeklike midweek, but he knows that
these toys, you know, they'reall stashed in this one area of
the basement. And when it istime to rotate the toys, then he
gets to go to the poster and hegets to choose which one or two
(04:41):
categories of toys he wants forthat time. Then we go get them
together. It's really exciting.
We bring them out. And then atthe next time where it's time to
switch the toys then he knows hegets to help me be a part of
cleaning them up, which alsoclean up takes way less time
because it's way less things,and then he helps me clean them
up, bring them back over to thatpart of the basement. And he's
(05:03):
picked another category, one ortwo categories of toys to bring
out. That's personally how we doit and have found a lot of
success. I want you to notice,while you kind of feel this out
for a while, maybe a few months,I want you to just be noticing,
are there any categories of toysthat your child gravitates
towards all the time just again,and again, these are like the
(05:24):
favorite things. Are there anycategories that are untouched
for a long time. And as younotice this, I want you to just
bring it up in conversation withyour child depending on how old
they are, and just just noticingit like, so that they are also
aware of this, because in thenext part that we'll talk about,
then that helps them to be readyto eventually move some of these
(05:47):
toys on because they are awarethat they haven't really been
wanting to play with them for awhile. If you need more support
in how to navigate thoseconversations, depending on the
age of your child, we have somuch support for you inside The
Eco Minded Mama Collective. Butwe'll talk more about that
later. So the next thing I wantyou to keep in mind is now that
you have a system that is inplace that is going to work
(06:10):
really well for you, at leastfor right now, maybe you'll
adjust it here and there. Butnow, what can you do to reduce
the amount of clutter or thefeeling of clutter in your home
and sustain this peacefulcreative system that you've now
put into place. So a few tips.
Number one, I want you to stayconsistent with your rotation,
(06:33):
that visual timeline, thatposter that you made with your
kids, I want you to stick to it.
Do your best, even if they pushback for a while, this is just a
new routine, it's going to takeyou know a few weeks probably to
get used to it. So sticking toyour boundaries as much as
possible, sticking to theposter, and just holding that
boundary. The longer that you dothat, the easier it will become.
(06:56):
Second tip for things likebirthdays and holidays, anytime
where your kiddo is going to bepossibly receiving gifts, then
you can do some reflectingtogether leading up to it. So
like we talked about thoseconversations before, you can be
helping to bring the awarenessof what they no longer enjoy or
play with what they've outgrown,and the things that they really,
(07:20):
really love. And you can starttalking about what is something
that they need, what issomething that they want, maybe
it's just two things for rightnow that you could be, you know,
gifting them or family memberscould be gifting them. And then
you could turn towardsexperiences. So there's a
balance here of tangiblephysical items they can enjoy
(07:41):
and actually use, andexperiences. They don't always
have to have a physical item asa gift. You can also ask your
family members, if you havefamily members or friends who
absolutely love to give and theyare so generous and they want to
care for your child, you couldask them to keep some of those
gifts as like a special thingfor their home. Maybe they have
(08:03):
a designated space in theirhome, that is for their grandson
or something, you know theirnephew, and they have some toys
and things that they have boughtthat lives at their house. And
it's very special when yourkiddo gets to come over and play
with these things. But it staysthere, not everything has to end
up back at your home for you tohave to deal with like the
(08:26):
cleaning and the maintaining andeverything. When it comes time
to pass along some of the thingsthat they have outgrown, then I
want you to consider donatingresponsibly. So a couple ideas.
A few episodes ago, we talkedabout the Buy Nothing groups or
the Buy Nothing challenge. Andso you could look up, you know,
buy nothing groups in your area,you could even just go on
(08:47):
Facebook marketplace, basicallyhand me downs, right handing
down your toys to communitymembers who actually want them
and will use them, rather thanjust like dumping everything at
a Goodwill or a thrift store. Ifthat's the only option in your
area, then that's not terrible.
But oftentimes, thrift storesjust get so overloaded with
(09:08):
donations, and then they can't,they just can't keep up, it's
too much. And a lot of thingsend up in the landfill. So
passing on hand me downs as muchas possible is really helpful.
And preparing your kids leadingup to that event. Maybe you pull
out the toys that they haven'tplayed with in a really long
time. And you talk about how youget to have a couple of weeks to
(09:28):
enjoy these toys andthese activities one last time
and then we're going to passthem along to so and so. It's
always really helpful if youhave a particular kid or family
in mind. And your kids can feelreally great about passing that
on to somebody who will get alot of joy out of using them.
This is not always easy. Trustme, I know, I'm in the thick of
(09:49):
it. We have loved our toyrotation. And it is something
that has been a game changer forour sanity and creativity in our
home. But I'm not going to saythat it was always easy. But it
is something where you will beconstantly learning and
adjusting especially as yourkids grow and age and develop.
And we are adjusting too all thetime. So it is so much better
(10:11):
and easier when you can do thiskind of stuff with the support
of other moms or other parentswho are also in the thick of
this with you. You canbrainstorm together, you can
talk about your kids' reactionsor conversations that you just
had in real time and help eachother problem solve and come up
with creative solutions or ideasthat maybe you never thought of
(10:33):
before. Just the other dayinside The Eco Minded Mama
Collective, we had one of ourmom members named Suzanne who
was asking for support when itcomes to birthday parties and
gift giving and the areas thatshe was specifically struggling
with her kiddo at the age thatthey are. So it was really
heartwarming to see the level ofsupport and solidarity shown in
(10:55):
her post. And that is somethingthat I want to make available to
all of you. So if you haven'theard already, this month of
June has been Jumpstart June.
That's what I'm calling it isjust a exciting promo because
June is my favorite month. Iwant to continue the celebration
and give you a gift of joiningthis membership program totally
(11:18):
for free for one month. If thisis something you have thought
about, or you're just thinkingabout it now and you would like
to take part in it and try itout. You can use the code
JUMPSTART, all one word, allcaps, for one free month inside
The Eco Minded Mama Collective.
And today is actually the lastday of June at the time of this
recording. So this codeJUMPSTART is going to expire at
(11:40):
midnight. So this is your lastchance if you haven't already
hopped on this and joined theCollective. You will want to do
that now, you can go to the shownotes, the episode description
you will find the link and theJUMPSTART coupon code, and jump
on this! I would love to giveyou a jumpstart into your own
journey of sustainable livingand help you find peace and save
(12:03):
money and just live with overallless stress in your life as an
eco minded mama. I hope to seeyou on the inside. It is so much
fun. And I will be back nextweek for another episode with
sustainable living tips.
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