I started to title this, “More Ideas for Stuffed Animal Storage” but stopped myself.
It’s not about storing. It’s about containing. By “it” I mean the way I have to think about my home to keep it from getting out of control.
Storing means finding a place (or many places) to put things.
Containing means designating a space, and letting that designated space determine how much/many of something we can keep.
Here’s the post where I finally understood what containers really are. Here’s a podcast where I blab on about this life-changing concept and how it works. Here’s another post where I explain what it means to see your entire home as a container.
Recently, I shared how we contain my daughter’s stuffed animals. One of you commented with a solution I’d never heard before! It’s a product that’s like a bean bag, but you stuff it with your stuffed animals! It contains/limits the stuffed animals, and can be used as a seat or a big pillow. Isn’t that cute?
I shared this on Facebook, and another of you mentioned you’d done the same thing with a bean bag cover. Here are some of those on Amazon, though most were not in stock when I clicked on them individually. And I wouldn’t recommend removing the stuffing from an already filled bean bag chair. I tried that once and it made a HUGE mess.
Or you could sew your own bean bag cover! Here’s a pattern.
I also loved this idea from Tara:
She created a “Stuffy Jail.”
She said, “We have ‘stuffy jail’ under my daughter’s loft bed. Crates, zip ties and elastic cord. Easy peasy!”
I’d love to see your ideas for “contain”ing stuffed animals! Send me an email with pictures at aslobcomesclean @ gmail . com (with spaces removed!).
(Sale is now over.) Also, if you don’t already have it, get my e-book, Teaching Kids to Clean for only $3 through the end of May. Use the code TEACH to get the discount! Go here to read more about the e-book and purchase.
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--Nony
Can I please just throw them out? EVERY SINGLE LAST STUPID stuffed ANIMAL??
PLEASE?
Just kidding.
I don’t know what to do. I actually don’t mind the kids having one or 2 or even 3 precious stuffed animals. But our 2nd child goes bananas. She has at least 20 that are “precious”.
They sit on her bed, then fall of her bed. With monotonous regularity.
And she grows weepy and weird when I say she should get rid of some.
It’s hard.
Growing up I LOVED my stuffed animals, more than my dolls. They each had a personality. I only got rid of them when they fell apart, and then only if I couldn’t sew them back together. My mom threw them away when I was at college or later. I was sad and still am a bit, but also a bit glad because I never would have been able to o it myself.
Fast forward to me having my own kids and an excuse to accumulate more stuffed animals by buying them for the kids. I bought LOTS. Most of them are still here, stored in boxes, even though my kids are in their 20’s. They’re still fairly attached to them and so am I. We’ve gradually gotten rid of few at a time, but we still have a LOT.
So I guess I’m saying that I totally sympathize with your daughter and how traumatic it would for her to get rid of them. The only bits of advise I can give is to try to limit any new ones coming in. You might try the one in/one out rule, but don’t be surprised if the “one out” is the new one if it wasn’t something she picked out herself, since the old ones are all friends. You could also try making her keep them in a box and only getting one out per night to sleep with. She could rotate them. Or even have two boxes, like and love, then the like box could gradually migrate to a harder to get at place. Once they’re out of sight for a long while it might be easier for her to get rid of them.
i don’t have a picture… but when i was a kid i had a triangular shaped hammock type thing that I hung in the corner of my bedroom that contained a good portion of my stuffies. (I also had several.. and i do mean SEVERAL bookshelves full of them, but that’s besides the point). the hammock thingy was always my favorite place for them. it might still be in my parents’ attic. in one of the 4 or five garbage bags of stuffed animals that are still there…. (i’m 29 and haven’t lived in my parents house in 12 years…)
My mom was from the old school and just got rid of things she felt like we had outgrown. With my kids I would just say you can keep your favorite five animals and we are donating the rest. This teaches kids to have healthy relationships with their belongings. If you ask a kid, they want to keep everything but two hours after its gone they don’t remember.
My kids are still short. And they are in twin beds so I have resigned myself to allowing the bottom of the bed be MT stuffy but they really only keep 3 medium sizes and about 10 beanie sized ones. Ideally I want wall storage (love the crates !!!) but they are 5 and 4 years old and the stuffies are loved and played and contained within their current spot
I also like that they hide little treasures in the pile like baby raccoons keys, shiny yo yo, sparkly Barbie shoe it’s funny.
We battle this with our 6 yr old, (thank you Lord, the 10 & 13 don’t care) but she is obsessed!!
I started bargaining with her to get rid of some & hubby steps in and tells me to just put them on a shelf to display them, then she can see them but not “picnic” them allll over the house, then rotate as she asks. Works nicely, but was surprised by him giving ok to keep them since he has a pet peeve about her “little things everywhere” & she seemed ok with purging some— until I found out months later when he brought home boxes FULL of his stuffies from his childhood that have been residing in his mothers attic…..apparently it’s genetic!!!!!
At one point we used one of those animal-themed collapsible hampers for stuffed animal containment.
We moved to a new house when my sister and I were 9 and 14. It was a cross country move so lots of toys didn’t make the cut. But lots did.
When we were both grown adults, my parents moved into a retirement house. My dad was SHOCKED at how many stuffed animals there were. He was like “you had basically out grown them when you moved here.”
So many of them were random Easter basket additions, gifts from friends, and wanna be boyfriends.
Give them away in the moment. No one actually wants 25 year old stuffed animals.