Hello! Here at The Sam Report, we believe in the economy of words. I’m going to give you my notes clearly, and in as few words as possible.
Today’s topic: Toy Rotation
As an avid scroller of parenting content, the toy rotation concept comes up every so often. The idea behind toy rotation is that you curate your child’s playroom with about 20 or so toys and then hide the rest. You switch the toys out regularly. And the proposed benefits of this are:
Quality of interest and play increases
Less overall toys are required
The room or area is less cluttered
Clean up is easier for you, and easier for the child to participate in
I saw this when I was pregnant, and the buzz words got me in a choke hold. “Curated?” “Less Clutter?” Sign me the hell up.
I decided to test it out! I started doing toy rotation at about the 1 year mark, as soon as we acquired enough toys to necessitate a rotation. And while my baby is only 22 months old and hasn’t quite reached the age where she is asking for specific toys, I have found this toy rotation beneficial for everyone so far.
Here’s our play room at our new place.
(*Paid subscribers scroll to the end of the article for the playroom product guide and my voice over reading!)
The Furniture: We have a Montessori style toy shelf that was a hand me down from my parents, and I use this as my main space parameter. I fill up this area and that’s it. Whatever doesn’t fit is going back into the bin.
How I Pick the Toys: Without overthinking it too hard, I make sure there are a few books, something you can build or stack, something you can pretend play with, something with wheels, a couple of challenging puzzles, a ball, a musical instrument, and a few sensory squishers. We have some big items like the Nugget, and a play kitchen. Those don’t rotate out, what I’ll do instead is change the configuration of the Nugget, and I’ll swap out different foods and tools in the play kitchen.
The Merchandising: Visibility and spacing is key. I’m thinking if this was a Celine boutique, how would I merchandise it? The negative space creates visual interest and increases value.
The Timing: I do this every 2 weeks, after baby goes down to sleep.
The result: It seems to be working! Here’s what I’ve noticed.
Well for starters, I have less shit to look at and clean up. If this isn’t a win I don’t know what is. Clutter stresses me out to no end.
High quality of play! With less options, our baby can focus on what is there and thoroughly enjoy each toy. I don’t notice much boredom, and she seems to be able to play independently for a long time too.
And maybe this is because when you bring a toy back out after 2 weeks, it’s like Christmas Day brand new again!
I’m going to keep doing this and observe any changes, but for now it’s pretty tight.
Do you do the toy rotation? Thinking about giving it a try? Send me a message with your thoughts at sosupersam@substack.com. Or slide into my DM’s @sosupersam.
Please bear in mind, I am not a child development professional, I am simply a mom scrolling the internet and trying concepts that I think could work for my family and my values.
Paid subscribers keep reading for a product guide to our playroom and my voice over of this article!
Report back soon,
Sam