With the summer holiday here, it’s a good time to have a clear out. We have written about this before so we thought it might be a good time to remind you of some of our top tips for keeping your kids room clean and tidy and clutter free throughout the holiday break.
We all seem to accumulate so much more than we need in modern times, and after a while it can all get too much as you rapidly run out of space to store it all. It no doubt feels like the children in your household, with their associated toys, games and general clutter, just seem to bring an endless stream of new things into your home with no regard for where to store them.
Here a a few useful tips for keeping you home tidy and organised with children around. De-cluttering your toy room, kids bedrooms and general living space to allow you all to feel less chaotic and to free you up to spend more quality time together.
1. Identify Whats Important
The first step in any de-cluttering session is identifying which toys or possessions really are important to your children. What do they play with regularly? What do they actually love? What have they grown out of? Start to clear through toy boxes, cupboards and shelves by organising toys into piles for keeping, throwing away and recycling. Of course, most children do not like to let go of their old toys, but with a little encouragement from you they should soon release their grip and allow you to pass old toys onto other children, or throw away broken ones.
2. Are they still in working order
Broken toys, or toys with bits missing are unlikely to ever get repaired and come to life again. Yet we often seem to hang on to these on the off chance that one day we will find time to fix them. In the meantime, your children have probably accumulated a whole bunch of new toys. Anything that has parts missing, doesn’t work or is broken or damaged in any way is ready for the bin.
3. Clean while you are de-cluttering
If you have pulled all the books off the shelves, dragged toy boxes from under the bed or cleared junk out of cupboards, now is the time to give those surfaces a good going over with a damp cloth. No matter how clean your house is, unused toys collect dust and having a clear out is a great opportunity to get to all those parts of the room that are normally covered in toys.
4. Organising and storage
Children like to be able to find things, they like routine, so if every toy in your house has a home, your children will be assured that they can find exactly what they want just when they need it. Whether you chose to use plastic boxes, plastic bins, drawer units or traditional toy boxes, get your self and your children into a routine of putting the same things back in the same places every time. Labelling helps too – and if your children are not old enough to read the labels, try using pictures instead.
5. Less is more
Finally, once your house is looking clutter free and more organised see if you can maintain it by remembering that less is more. When thinking of gifts for birthday and christmas, think of buying a small number of quality items rather than lots of little bits. Teach your children to be proud of their belongings and to take care of them. Keep on top of it by putting toys back in their correct places at the end of every day.
Maid In Essex can provide you with efficient, reliable, domestic cleaning staff so you can spend more time playing with the kids, and less time cleaning. Call us now on 01277 81 22 20 or click here for us to get back in touch with you.