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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017 I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. Welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast.

Diana Rene: 0:54

In a few minutes, I have a guest for you who's very special. She is my eight-year-old and you may have heard her in another episode several years ago. I think she came on when she was ago. I think she came on when she was five. I think she came on when she was five and my 11-year-old came on when she was eight. So that's a little confusing, but we can link those episodes in the show notes if you want to go back and listen to them. When we first aired them, we actually got tons of feedback like way more than I anticipated of people saying that they played those episodes while in the car with their kids and it was actually very helpful for their kids because they heard another kid talking about something that's normally boring like cleaning and decluttering, and it actually made them interested in the topic and spurred some decluttering sprees in their households. And so definitely go back and listen to those episodes again. Like I said, we'll put them in the show notes. But I think they were so fun and they were so cute.

Diana Rene: 1:57

And so my eight-year-old, who was five for the last episode, has been itching to come back on and I told her. I said but you got to have some tips, you got to have some valuable tips so that the kids that are listening with their moms can learn something. Okay, and so she came up with a whole outline. She used the computer, she typed it and she printed it out and she had it in front of her to record this podcast and I was so proud of her. And she's going to be talking about how to organize for your stuffies. So she is my stuffy queen. She loves stuffed animals. She always has, they are very important to her and that's just what she loves, and so she's going to talk about how to organize them and she is going to. One of her tips is something that I'm going to come back on after and just kind of expand about a little bit, but for now let's listen to what Miss Eight has to say about organizing stuffies.

Miss 8: 2:56

So, yes, welcome to The Decluttered Moms. I'm glad that you guys are here today and I hope you guys have fun listening to this. Okay, so I think for the first tip you need today, we're going to work on your kids, because your kids probably have a lot of stuffies that maybe they're organized and maybe they're not. It just depends. But if they're not organized, then this video is definitely good to listen to. So we're going to listen to stuff you're organizing. So the first tip you mostly need is probably, I would say, you kind of need a bin or something that can at least hold your stuffies, because if you don't have something that can hold your stuffies, then it might be a little hard. But also, if you don't have anything to hold your stuffies, you can go buy one. Sometimes I like to do this, this even though I have bins, I like to put this stuff. It's kind of like a pyramid, but they're against the wall and I think it looks really cute. But I like to do that on just special occasions because because it's kind of, because otherwise it's kind of not really helpful. So that's the first tip I think you need for a stuffy organizing. The second one is it really depends on how much stuffies you have. Now, if you have, like, very little stuffies and you could have a very little space to put them, a very little bin or just something tiny to hold your little stuffies, if you have a lot of stuffies, then you might need multiple bins. You might need a few hammocks. That's why I have you might need to have a big space to put them in, but it really just depends on that. Now, the so that was the second tip that I think. The third, third, sorry tip that you need is for me, since I have a lot of stuffies. So I have One bin, will have over one bin and one hammock, but and I have a lot of stuffies Sometimes I have to put some on my floor too, because I think I need something else to hold them in. But so, yes, so since I have a lot of stuffies, I need multiple things. If you have little stuffies, then you probably don't need multiple things. If you have a lot of stuffies, you might need multiple things too.

Miss 8: 5:55

Now, four, you can decide where you put your stuffies. For me, I kept some in my room and some in the basement, mostly in my room, that's for sure. Right, right, mom, that is a way for sure. So I definitely and my room isn't so big. Well, it's big, but not so big. So I need to hit. So I like to put some in the basement if I don't have room, hit some in my room, because I have one bin in the basement. That's mostly where I hold my little stuffies. Okay, so that was tip number four.

Miss 8: 6:34

My next tip is tip number five. You may decide how much bins you need and you may organize it however you want, but this is how I do it, so I don't really mind how it looks Sometimes if friends are coming over, I want it just for fun. My sister also, miss Eleven, helps me organize my stuffies sometimes, and Diana, known as my mom, also helps me know where to put it and helps me pick out my stuffies. So yeah, that's how I do it. I don't really care how it looks At first. With my bin in the basement, I put specific stuffies in there at first, but now I just put any ones I want, because I just kind of ripped the sign. But you guys might decide it differently. You, it's your decision. So it doesn't matter, I don't care what it it's like, just it's all your decision. So now I have another tip for you guys.

Miss 8: 7:52

So this is about stuffy organizing, but this is kind of part of stuffies and kind of not. So for me, when I sleep at night, it depends on how much stuffies I have in my bed. I sleep really good if I have a few stuffies, like three, let's say, or two, but then I don't sleep good if I have like 50 hundred, which I. That would be all my stuffies, but like a lot. You know what I mean, but that's what I think about that. So just remember, if you have put stuffies on the bed and if you're not sleeping very good, that's probably if you have like a lot of stuffies on the bed. If you have like a lot of stuffies on the bed, then that, and if you're not sleeping very good, then that might be the reason. So that's just one tip I'm giving out, even though it's not really in this moment like connected. But there's your organizing tips.

Diana Rene: 9:00

Okay, I mean, how cute is that? So Miss Ate did a wonderful job explaining how she organizes her stuffies, and one of the things that she mentioned is to have a specific space for them, and that is something that you can do with your kids with any item that they have, especially, though, if they have too many of one type of item. So if they have too many Legos or too many stuffies or too many whatever, like literally just put anything into that sentence, and this is going to help them is to have one specific set of space for those items. So she knows, as she said, that her stuffies go on her hammock or they go into the bin in the basement. She is also allowed to keep them on her bed, so she does that, but, as she made very clear, she only keeps a few on her bed while she's sleeping, because if there's too many, then it's hard to sleep, which I totally get. But having those set spaces is really helpful for kids, because they get ownership over deciding what stays and what goes, because they are deciding how many, not how many, but they're deciding which items they're going to keep, like which items make the cut, so to say, that are important enough for them to keep in that space and once it starts overflowing, then it's time to sit down with them and go through that decluttering process to make sure that they understand what is something that is important to keep and what is something that they're just keeping because they don't want to get rid of it, right, and so totally understand. There's many more steps in helping kids to be able to let go of things, but that is a really great starting point, especially if your kids are very young and you can start now and you can have specific spaces for different types of items. And as your kids get older and they start to develop interest in different toys or different things, then you can navigate that and you can change that and you can kind of grow with them and change what those spaces are.

Diana Rene: 11:01

Oops, sorry, that's my alarm telling me that I need to record a podcast and so hopefully that is a helpful tool for you. But I hope that Miss Eight's organization tips were helpful. Please let me know, shoot me a DM, let me know what you thought about her episode and we will see you guys next week on The Decluttered Mom podcast. Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast. Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at thedeclutteredmom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.