I must have heard this toy organization tip a hundred times. We even wrote about it in our book, The Eco-nomical Baby Guide. To keep toys fresh and interesting for your child, simply box up a nice selection of games, books, and dolls and forget about it for a month or two. When the box reappears, your child will delight in all the “new” stuff, and you’ll rotate out some other playthings.

Not really Audrey’s room. She was asleep while I posted this and I couldn’t go in to snap a picture!

This always sounded like a great idea—I just never did it. Recently, however, I decided to simplify my daughter’s room. I always thought we had fewer toys than average, yet somehow keeping her room organized had become a major ordeal. Her room was a mess. Now, I’m lucky enough to have a lot of storage space in my partially finished attic, and I cleared out an entire closet. I then stashed all of these toys and books away.

All of her toy kitchen supplies, toy food, baby books, vintage Little People, and tiny little dolls with rubber clothes are in there. Her room looks positively Spartan, with its piles of library books, a dresser drawer of art supplies, and a few beloved dolls.

But the crazy thing is this: I did this a couple weeks ago, and my daughter has not noticed! I deliberately moved them into this closet to make them accessible to her, thinking she could take one thing down to play with, but she has yet to ask for any of it.

Audrey’s impressive collection of wooden food is no longer strewn throughout the entire house.

I want my daughter to care about her possessions and use them—but I also understand that if she has too much, none of it is valuable to her. (I’d like to note that I have bought her only a few toys in her life. She acquires 98% of her things through hand-me-downs and gifts.) How do you deal with the piles or toys threatening to overtake your child’s room? Have you tried the toy rotation system? What has worked—or not—for you?