How to organize your child's toys efficiently

Núria SL
Oct 1
2 min read

Updated: Oct 10

Organizing Toys:

Children thrive when they have clear, simple systems. A few ideas to start:

Open bins with picture labels (toys, blocks, art supplies)
A “drop zone” by the door for shoes (we use a small IKEA box for toddler shoes so he knows where they belong), and backpack when they are older.
A daily tidy-up game. Sometimes singing a song can work. I know it’s a hard chore for some toddlers - believe me, I am there!

When kids know where things belong, tidying becomes a routine; less of a battle and more of a habit. What I do with my almost 3 year old toddler is showing and explaining him where everything goes, and that makes it easier for him to grab the toys and put them back. He even loves the fun drawing labels that I created for his boxes of toys.

How We Organize at Home

After trying different methods, what works best for us is using clear IKEA boxes labeled with drawings (we use the IKEA Samla 22L boxes). That way, my toddler knows where everything belongs.

Examples of categories that go into these boxes at home:

Magnetic tiles
Brio trains and parts
LEGO blocks
Vehicles

For smaller toy categories, you can use the 11L IKEA Samla boxes. That will depend on your needs at home, so you could use those for:

Small musical instruments
Crafts, paint, brushes
Magnetic tiles
Dolls, accessories, and clothes

Puzzles and Games

These items require a slightly different storage solution because they take up more space. At home, we keep wooden puzzles in a clear IKEA Samla box and store board games stacked vertically in a low cabinet in the living room for easy reach. My toddler knows exactly where to find them, grab them and put them back again, so having a dedicated spot has been a real game changer.

I think using clear toy storage is the best way to organize at home as kids can immediately see what is inside.

Playroom or Living Room?

If you have the space, a dedicated playroom is wonderful. If not, you can designate a play area in the living room and simply rotate the boxes in and out as needed. For us, since we don’t have a lot of space for a dedicated area, the living room looks like this:

a small IKEA cupboard for books that we rotate (we keep the rest in the toddler’s room)
a small basket for the baby’s toys (we store the rest in my toddler’s bedroom and we rotate them)
one or two clear boxes of toys for the toddler that we take in and out of his bedroom when he plays in the living room

A note on realism:

Toys are messy by nature, and that’s okay. The goal isn’t perfection but maintaining order with a simple system. I once saw a post of an organizer sorting LEGO blocks by color into jars. Great for adult collectors, but with toddlers, it’s just not realistic!