Help! kids are tearing house apart

[lynsymae]

I have an almost 1 yo & almost 3 yo. The younger one doesn't walk, yet, but can crawl and stand and reach. Lately, all the toys are spread out everywhere along with everything else they're not supposed to get into. I think the 1 yo is bored with old toys. Any ideas to corral this situation? I just don't have the energy to pick up everything all the time.

[lizzywednesday]

This is hard, as I struggle with it too, but I also have pretty low standards.

We're trying very hard to keep only the things she plays with the most in the public areas ... and things she plays with less often but I can't bring myself to get rid of in other places. It's working OK so far.

I bought 3 of these IKEA soft-sided toy chests:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80191289/

Two have these bins:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20163265/

One has two of these:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80172827/

I use the smaller bins for things like Matchbox cars and Thomas trains/tracks. The larger bins are better for bulky items like soft toys.

In our living room, we have a small milk crate from Target where I store wooden puzzles, her "busy box" activity cube, her bucket of DUPLOs, and a LP farm.
In our master bedroom, we have 1 IKEA toy chest; it has small things that she plays with upstairs.
On our 3rd floor, we have the other 2 IKEA toy chests. We probably need to cull a lot of the stuff she's no longer interested in ... or dedicate one chest to "baby" toys and put them away in a room with a lock.

I also find she's more destructive if she hasn't had any time outdoors, so we also have kid-sized yard & gardening tools. She happily helps us rake leaves and sweep our walkways, which burns off a ton of energy, so she's a lot more able to listen when she's inside.