Mimimalist Mom in Cluttered Kid World: Tips for Surviving & Saving During the Tacky Twos
When I started putting my daughter’s nursery together, I knew what I wanted: modern, neutral colors. Cute organic Euro-designed wood toys (all gifts or found at the second-hand store). Lots of books. And NO plastic.
I was most militant about the plastic part. There are real health reasons for avoiding plastic toys, as well as my more questionable aesthetic ones. And then there’s the environmental impact–nothing shouts ‘carbon footprint’ as loudly as a discarded Tickle Me Elmo.
Well, here we are, almost two years later. And I am drowning in a sea of plastic clutter. Noisy, tacky, environmentally questionable clutter.
Why? Kids at this particular developmental stage love it. Anything that is brightly colored, beeping, and requires batteries that are not included is instant toddler crack. Moreover, they love choice’”they crave a dizzying variety of shapes, sizes, and sounds. They learn through choosing, sorting, and discarding. Toddlers are capricious; the beloved squeaky toy of yesterday is cruelly cast aside for something shinier (and probably more expensive) the next. In fact, the ‘œTerrible Twos’ should be renamed the ‘œTacky Twos’.
So I caved. Bring on the plastic whoogies, the neon-orange whatsists! We don’t do television or supposedly educational (but actually provably brain-deadening) videos. The bulk of our daughter’s time is still spent playing out doors, reading, listening for the hundredth time to Raffi sing about that damn beluga, or doing some other inexpensive and ecologically correct activity. But I’ve partially caved on the plastic issue. She not only loves the plastic stuff, but seems to be learning from it. Where we can, we substitute a wood, lead-free toy, but where we can’t, we go with Demon Plastic.
What I won’t do, however, is waste money or bring known toxins into our environment. Here’s a list that will help you navigate the Age of Plastics if you should find yourself with a toddler who’s obsessed with all things Fisher-Price.
1) Check out the safety of the plastic that finds its way into your house. This site is most helpful in listing the names of plastics to avoid, and those that are (at least as far as we know) safe.
2) Find a resale store where other parents are regularly dumping their plastic goods. Then check on the safety of the brand/product. And rotate yours, too’”when your toddler loses interest in a toy, donate it to a friend or resale stuff.
3) Clean up each night. I let things go during the day, but before I collapse for the night, I pick up everything I can. Bins are great for this: plastic (!) or wood bins on wheels into which you can easily toss the day’s detritus. Ikea has some great cheapies.
4) Lighten up. My daughter is a precocious talker and joke-teller. She is funny, happy, and smart. She eats organic, reads non-stop, and shows signs of being a decent human being. She is not going to turn into a t.v. addicted zombie simply because she’s played with a plastic gizmo or two. I’m not going to cave on everything, but a few plastic toys (as long as their safety has been verified) aren’t going to kill her. Or me.
Do you have tips for keeping the plastic chaos down to a minimum, or for alternatives to the plastic fantastic toddler lifestyle? Post them below!
Jennifer, I don’t have a toddler but I enjoyed reading your post. I like that you pick up at the end of each day so that the clutter doesn’t accumulate.
We are now on kidlet #4 entering toddlerhood. Plastic is a necessary evil.
Our kids are ages 10, 6, 3, and 1.5. The overall accumulation of toys is mind boggling. They have all shared an affinity for Fisher Price Little People- we have enough “people” to qualify for statehood— not to mention the house, airport, farm, camping set, amusement park, Noah’s Arc, and then the holiday sets! Would I get rid of them or have them weeded out at this point? NO. They are played with every day- and I see older kids interacting with my 3 yr old daughter in really cute ways when they get their people out. We have a very organized storage system for toys and things are kept picked up throughout the day, with the big clean up happening in the time after dinner and before bedtime
It’s the toys they don’t touch or care about that we focus on culling a couple times per year. My eldest daughter at 10 is hitting that transitional age- we are keeping her focused on what is important to her NOW- not what she liked at 5- otherwise there is no room for her to grow. She has the American Girl bug bad- she has 8 of them- but they are all cared for and played with frequently. I do not see her playing with the Barbies anymore- but now her sister at age 3 is starting to go down that road. We might actually hold onto the Barbies for another year or two to perhaps save money in the long run should little sister develop the Barbie fever (a friend gave us a big wooden Barbie house, tons of clothes, etc- we have actually “bought” very little in regards to Barbie stuff).
My 6 yr old son has an affinity for GeoTrax train/plane/all modes of transportation sets. (Mind you, Fisher Price, American Girl, and GeoTrax are all Mattel products- there are times throughout the year, esp around the pre-Christmas shopping, that I feel I could very well sign a paycheck over to Mattel and be done with it!) He has one big container that fits neatly away in his closet for his Geostuff.
Bear in mind though that a big portion of their playtime is crafting. Eldest daughter crafts for her dolls- and my 6 year old son crafted a Hogwarts for his Harry Potter action figures. I try to encourage creativity through crafting and play– though in my post here it does sound like I buy a lot!
Thanks, Serena!
Clean up is crucial…for adults, too!
To your 3rd point about clean-up, I had bins for toys, and also one bin for the most-frequently-read books. It was so much easier to fling the randomly-sized board books and picture books into a bin than fit them on a shelf.
The book bin was actually a large plastic planter, that was essentially a square box up on short legs, and I thought it looked a little nicer in the corner of the living room than a typical plastic bin sitting on the floor would have.
The main non-plastic toys my son played with at that age were sofa cushions. I kept a few extra cushions around too, so he could build small huts without necessarily rendering the entire sofa unusable. It still required cleanup every day, but at least not of small plastic things!
Divajean- You’ve survived FOUR toddlers? Wow.
The yearly culling makes sense, especially if you have
more than one kid. And craftiness is next to (or possibly better than)
godliness.
S, great idea! We toss her most frequently read board
books in the bins with the toys at night, but a separate dedicated bin
would be better. Yes, the sofa cushions are often used as walls/mats/missiles
in our house, too. Extra cushions are a great idea.