What to do when drowning in kids toys
Toy clutter explodes when older siblings amass items and relatives ignore requests to stop buying gifts. Even though children quickly lose interest or barely play with the piles, they refuse to part with a single stuffed animal, leaving parents wanting to bag everything up and throw it away. To cope with the overwhelming volume, parents are forced to rotate bins through the garage or dream of massive purges right before the holidays.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- People have been saying this in most months since September 2026.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Hiding toys and donating them after children forget about themDid this help you?
- 2Storing unused toys in bags at an office to test if they are missedDid this help you?
- 3Buying secondhand items and reselling or donating what is no longer usedDid this help you?
- 4Setting up subscription boxes and rotating toys regularlyDid this help you?
- 5Putting neglected toys into a hidden 'purgatory' bin for a few months, then donating them if the kids don't ask for themDid this help you?
- 6Having kids pick their top 5 favorite toys to keep and discarding the restDid this help you?
- 7Donating excess toys to thrift stores and charity drives right before the holidaysDid this help you?
- 8Moving all toys to the garage and only letting kids bring back the ones they actually want to play withDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Anything but that. We’re drowning in them and they can’t part with a single one.”source ↗
“We accumulate so much from grandparents and aunties (no matter how much I beg for no gifts 🥴) and hand-me-down toys from neighbors.”source ↗
“My youngest two are the same age and put them in garage and they’ve been going through them and bringing toys back in that they like. I swear I every toy every made.”source ↗
Where this came up
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