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Too Many Toys!

When Toy Overload Leads to Playroom Panic

By Shannon McKelden

Many moms employ this strategy. Sonia Fuller, an Atlanta mom of two boys, finds that rotating works well. "Once toys are opened for Christmas [or] birthdays, whatever toys get the least amount of attention right away get packed away in our toy closet and brought out one at a time a month or so down the road," she says. Fuller finds this helps the kids maintain their interest in their toys longer.

Helen Polaski, mother of three from Milan, Mich., had a different method for deciding which toys weren't as important to her children. "I started to notice that the toys that didn't seem to mean much to them were the toys that invariably were not put away correctly," she says. "Their favorite baby doll was always with them or on their pillow. [Other special toys] had a place and they were in it."

"We have a real load of toys," says Tricia Ballad, a mother of three from Bloomington, Ill. "It's tough to purge out the baby toys that my oldest is grown out of because the little one still plays with them," she says. They tackle this problem by occasionally packing up a box or two of toys they haven't played with in a while and stashing it in the attic. "A few months later, we rotate those boxes out and stash a new box or two."

Dr. Panaccione agrees with rotating to keep toy stock fresh. "It's almost like getting it for the first time all over again, since out of sight can be out of mind for many toddlers," she says. She cautions, though, that all toys are not created equal when it comes to rotating. "Some toddlers become very attached to a certain possession," she says. "This is not one of the toys I would rotate." But she adds that leaving a few that are always

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