How does your household help organize your toys?

chananecha

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 9:57 am

I am looking for advice on how to teach my household help to keep my toys organized. Right now the system is she dumps them in a buck or box, and puts everything together. Then I try to take my kids about once a week or so to reorganize all the toys into the right buckets. This can take us up to an hour or two.

Does it make any sense to pay the cleaning lady extra to sit and sort through all the toys?

Is there a better system in place?

Looking for suggestions,

Thanks!

mummiedearest

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 10:24 am

after you organize, take a picture of the contents of each box. print these out and stick them to the front of the appropriate boxes. ask her if she can try to match the toy to the picture. if you make it easy for her, she should be ok with it. this will also help your kids keep things neat.

33055

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 11:29 am

It is not easy; but my husband trained the kids to put back their toys in their place. He would threaten to throw them out. The kids would believe him. A couple of times he confiscated the toys and the kids would have to ask Totty for them back and confess they did not put them away.

de_goldy

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 1:53 pm

Are you talking about after she washes the toys or just general cleaning up? Because if it's washing, just teach her to wash the toys on each bucket separately and put them back in. If it's general cleaning up, either teach your kids to clean up properly, or just show her which toys go to which games in which buckets. Why so hard?

flowerpower

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 2:39 pm

Have a seperate bin for each toy and make your kids clean up after themselves. If they want to take out a different toy then they have to clean up the toy they played with first. It's hard work but well worth it. Also, if you have random pieces of different toys when your help comes, show her that they belong in their bins and she will learn to put it in the right place.

Jewishmofm

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 2:53 pm

ooh. this is a toughy. My daily doesn't speak English, so I have the drawers/bins labelled in English and Spanish. It doesn't help her at all, she still just dumps it wherever. (think clicks in with the menchies, and lego with the cars) So I've been working on my kids, those who can read can find it easily enough, and those who can't read (who are usually the culprits anyway!) I am training to put it away before anything else comes out or gets done. I'm serving lunch as soon as the cars are parked in their bin! I'm taking the clicks out as soon as the lego is put away! etc. sometimes I even throw toys out or put them away in a garbage bag for a few days.
A friend was giving away their entertainment center, and that is now our nice "adult look" toy center. We have bins in the big drawers for smaller toys and added a shelf in the closet to accomadate big toys. We love it, and it matches the s'farim shrank that we also got from them.
I think the only real solution though is less toys, and I am paring ours down slowly.

Raisin

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 3:04 pm

All my cleaners seem pretty clueless about toys. I had some brightly coloured measuring cups and I was always finding them in the toy bins. Or they are just lazy and can't be bothered sorting out what goes in where.

Its better now most of my kids are old enough to tidy up after themselves. I have the trofast drawers from ikea (different sized plastic bins that fit into a wood frame) and each one is labelled with a picture. Lego, dolls, bricks, playdough etc. And one or two misc drawers for the stuff that has no category. (dollar store toys, dreidels from chanuka, sunglasses)

Still, I have to go through them periodically and tidy them up a bit.

JollyMommy

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 3:39 pm

I have all my beautiful tupperwares labeled for what type of toy, and then two striped-fabric boxes under my 2 year old's crib for her to just throw in. My housekeeper is talented in many areas, but this is not one of them, so every so often I go through the bins under the crib and refile the toys.

chananecha

Mon, Jul 09 2012, 10:35 pm

The problem in my home, is not the older kids. They put the toys back and sort them. Its the little ones, I don't have so much control when things get busy and they put toys randomly anywhere. I find it hard to stay on top of two yr old and three yr olds, even though they are capable of putting things away.