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.

Hello and welcome to the Decluttered Mom podcast. My name is Diana Rene. I am your host, and I'm excited to talk to you today about toys. We are, you know, a little more than a week before Christmas.

And if you celebrate Christmas or your kids receive any gifts for Christmas, then you know that in about 12 days or so after Christmas, you know, the time the week after Christmas, let's just say that, it can feel really overwhelming when it comes to how much stuff comes into your home because you might already be feeling like your home has too much to begin with.

And then Christmas happens or a birthday happens, and it's like toys are us threw up in your family room, right? My kids are eight and eleven right now, but they turn 9 and 12 in the two weeks after Christmas. Yes, you heard that right.

And then we have all the craziness of the holiday season followed immediately by two children's birthdays. And so putting aside all of the craziness of like schedules and all that with having two birthdays so close to Christmas, we also have even more of an influx of things coming into our home.

So needless to say, I understand the feeling of almost like dread and then the feeling of overwhelm. When you might be working on decluttering your home right now, you may have already fully decluttered, or maybe you're just wanting to and you're feeling frozen and you haven't even begun.

No matter where you are in that journey, the idea of that much stuff coming into your home at once can feel really overwhelming, just the thought of it. And then when it actually happens, like that week between Christmas and New Year's, where it feels like no man's land, I just know that feeling all too well of just like the wrapping everywhere and the boxes and all the new toys and the clothes that need to be tried on and washed and like just all the stuff everywhere can feel really overwhelming, especially if you have not decluttered yet.

And so your house already feels overwhelming, right? And so I just wanted to talk through some different strategies or ideas that I have heard in the past and maybe don't necessarily agree with, and also just some things that you can consider that might make this a little bit easier and a little bit less overwhelming as we are like in this season.

Okay. So one of the things when I first started decluttering, I remember an expert that I followed on Instagram, and this was way before I ever started my business or anything. And I remember her saying that like the day after Christmas was the best day to declutter kids' toys.

And I remember trying, and I remember it being really hard and really stressful and frustrating for everyone involved, and there being tears for everyone involved, and it just wasn't good.

Her idea or strategy was that kids have all these new toys to play with, and so they're really excited about those and they're much more willing to let go of their old toys. And so that sounds good, and I thought that would work, and it just didn't in our home. Instead, it almost like it just created stress on a day that was supposed to be like just kind of a fun, relaxing day where my kids got to start really exploring the things that they got and start doing the crafts from the craft kits they got and things like that.

And it turned it into like a stressful power struggle almost. It just wasn't good. So maybe that works for you and maybe it's like my children's personalities or my personality. Maybe it just wasn't good for our specific home, but it was not a good strategy for our home.

And I knew moving forward, I'd need to figure something else out because, like I said, we have Christmas and then we have both kids' birthdays within two weeks. And so I knew that that strategy didn't work. I also knew that I had to figure out a strategy because I couldn't handle the influx.

So the first strategy is to incorporate more experience gifts, which we talked about in another episode recently. So you can always go back and listen to that. That helps, obviously, out of the gate because it's just less stuff that does not equate to what other people give my kids.

And then we don't do all experience gifts, so they are getting some physical items from us as well. So again, it doesn't totally solve the problem, but it does help it.

But what I like to do is a week or two before Christmas, I like to go with my kids and go through all of their spaces. And honestly, I do this for myself too. But for my kids specifically, we will go through their rooms, we will go through the basement, which is where their playroom essentially is.

And we do this together. That is the key. We do this together. I don't tell them to go do it. I don't turn it into this chore that they really don't want to do and that turns into a battle. And it just doesn't do anything, right? We do it together. We try to make it kind of fun, play fun music as we're going through it, but we just go through with the idea or the intention that we have to make space for the new things that we will be getting in the next couple of weeks.

And so all the time we talk a lot about how everything has to have a home in our home, right? And like my kids know that. And maybe your kids don't know that. That's okay. That's something you can walk them through. But everything in our home has to have a home.

So if they have a bunch of stuffies, the stuffies have to have a home that they live in. Otherwise, we don't have space for them. Or my youngest is really into Legos right now. And so, like, yeah, we have these extra or these new Lego kits, but you can sure spend your allowance money on the kitty cat Lego set, but where is it gonna live?

And is there space for it? And if there isn't, is there something else that you want to let go of and donate to another kid so that you do have the space to get this kitty cat Lego kit? Or are those other Legos more important to you than this new one?

And so having those spaces already is helpful, but not a total necessity to be able to do this. But the idea is that when they were little, I used to say, oh no, we don't have any space for new toys for Christmas. And I just left it at that and like let them react. And they were like, oh no, we need to make space. Like, yeah, we do.

And if they don't have that immediate reaction, then you can walk them through that, right? You can be like, oh my gosh. So like next week is Christmas, and I'm guessing that you're going to be getting a bunch of gifts, don't you think?

And like make this an interactive conversation with them. Don't you think? Don't you think you're gonna get a bunch of things? What do you think you're gonna get? What are you hoping to get?

And then, oh my gosh, like we don't have any room for these new things. Where are we gonna put them?

And they might be silly and they might be like, oh, just put them on the middle of my floor and whatever. But walk them through it and like take them in their room and go through it and be like, hmm, like there's nowhere to put any new items in here.

And so I think we need to go through and maybe we can donate some of these old things that you don't really use anymore or really play with anymore. And that way we can actually have room for all the new items you're gonna get because I would hate, like, we don't want to get all these new items and just have nowhere to put them.

And so you can walk through that with them, but then you have to actually go through their spaces with them and you have to help them work through the items that maybe they are not using anymore. I would give them the opportunity first to go through and start in one space.

So say what back up, backing up one second. Okay, we don't want to make it overwhelming, right? So, like, think about you as an adult. If you walk into your kitchen and you had been baking Christmas cookies all day, and like you swear to God, you've used every bowl and cooking utensil you own because you've baked so much, right?

And it's just a mess. Like it's a disaster. There's flour everywhere, there's dishes all over the counter and in the sink. The sink is piled up, the trash can is full, and you have two other trash bags that still need to be taken out, and it's just a disaster, right?

You walk into that and you are overwhelmed, right? You walk in and you're like, oh you, it's not a good feeling, right? And you also like, you know, you need to clean it, you know you need to pick up, you know you need to get it back on track, but it can feel so overwhelming that it's almost like decision paralysis or analysis paralysis, right?

And like you're like, I don't even know where to begin. And like nothing feels good enough when you're beginning something like that, right?

And so think about that as an adult with our fully formed frontal lobes. And then think about for a kid going into their room that may or may not be messy and knowing that, like, hey, I gotta go through this and think about things I have to get rid of, like my stuff. I don't want to get rid of my stuff. That's overwhelming. That's an overwhelming scenario for kids.

So give them grace as you're going through this process. We don't want to turn this into tears. We don't want to turn this into a battle. We don't want to turn this into them feeling like mom is making them throw away all their things.

We want to make this hopefully enjoyable. It's not gonna be enjoyable though for all kids. So at least just not painful.

And so we have to start small. Maybe this isn't all going to be done in one day, and that's okay. And I know you have like a trillion things to do right now because it's the week before Christmas, and I get that too.

So try and just even if your kid found five toys to donate before Christmas, call it a win. That is a win, my friend. Like, they're probably not going to declutter their entire room and playroom and have it be almost empty to prepare for Christmas. Maybe it'll happen. I doubt it.

But even if they can just find five things that they can donate, even if two of them are Happy Meal toys, call it a win and praise them for it. Tell them they did a great job finding these things. You are at least ahead of the game when it comes to new items coming into your home.

But try. Try this with them. Try to work through getting rid of at least some items to prepare some space for the new items that are coming in.

And then, you know, how I was saying that I don't really agree with the day after Christmas thing. However, I do believe in doing a bigger toy declutter in like mid-January.

Like, give it a few weeks. Let the kids see what they're playing with, what they thought they'd like, and they will put on their wish list.

And now that they have it and they've played with it, they don't actually really like it and they don't really play with it.

And so that gives them time to see because the day after Christmas, they want to hold on to everything. A few weeks after Christmas, the magic is done, they're back in school, like they're back into routine, they've already tried everything that they were given, and they are in a better headspace to be able to help you go through all of their things.

So that's the other thing. Last thing is after Christmas, go through the toys with them and decide. If they're really little, do this on your own. But if they're older than I would say three, I would do this with them.

But I would say, hey, you got all of these Lego sets, right? Let's pick two to keep out right now. And the other ones I'm gonna put in storage, and then we can always go grab them later.

That is going to just help them take a little bit more control of their actual space, and it's going to help them actually use those specific toys in the meantime.

And they also, if it's something like maybe Legos wasn't a great example because my youngest loves Lego. Actually, it is a great example.

Okay. So for my youngest, like she will we will put the others in storage. She will end up going through those over the next however many months, and she will use every single one.

My oldest, what if she gets a bunch of Lego sets? She's like not super into Legos anymore. So we might leave two out and put the rest in storage, and then in three months, they still are sitting there. And then she and I can have the conversation of should we just donate these?

Like, do we really need to keep these? Or do you think that you haven't really even done the two that we left out that were your favorite ones?

And it gives you an opportunity to maybe let go of some items.

And the perk of that, or the extra bonus, I guess you could say, is that when these toys are like in boxes, they haven't even been opened up yet. You could potentially resell them. You might be able to return them, probably not at that point though.

But you could donate them to organizations that could use them for more things and use toys. And so that's another kind of bonus that you could use, but that's just like an extra cherry on top.

So all of these things are just going to help you keep the overwhelm a little bit more contained. They are not going to solve the problem, but they are going to help it just not feel as crazy, as extensively, right?

I hope this is helpful. If it was helpful at all, will you do me a favor and send this to a friend or two or post it on your social media?

Anytime we can get in front of more moms, I call that a win. The podcast algorithm is a funny, funny thing. And anytime somebody shares a podcast episode with somebody or even clicks the link to be able to share it, it tells the algorithm, hey, like people are listening to this podcast.

And so it shows us to more busy moms. It shows us to more people like you in the podcast algorithm. And so my whole goal is to get in front of as many moms as I can so that I can continue to help and continue to give you this free content to be able to help.

So thank you. And I hope this holiday season is going well for you. And we will see you next week on the podcast.

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