Keeping the children's room tidy – here's how to do it

Anyone who wants to eliminate chaos in a child's room and maintain lasting order needs a clever system and sufficient storage space. Easier said than done? Here are a few tips and tricks on how to get closer to the dream of the perfect children's room – well, let's say.

Colorful and chaotic: The children's room is a space for compromise. Younger children especially need plenty of room for play and imagination, while older children need a cozy retreat. But where do you put all the toys, Lego bricks, stray socks, books, and school supplies? And how can you motivate children to tidy up and keep things organized? 

We've put together a few rules to ensure that both children and parents feel comfortable in the playroom. A little tip beforehand: realistically, you should abandon your idea of ​​a perfectly tidy children's room; it will save you – and your child – a lot of stress.

Create an organized storage space.

Chaos ensues in a child's room when toys aren't immediately apparent or are difficult to reach. If the organizational system isn't intuitive or is too complicated, the child will start searching – and this should be avoided at all costs. After all, if a child finds their favorite stuffed animal in the furthest corner of the room, they've likely emptied at least one box of Lego, two shelves, and rummaged through the bed on the way there. 

The solution: Store toys in an easily accessible and organized way – for young and old alike. A good trick to make the room as child-friendly as possible: Put yourself in the child's shoes, essentially setting up the room from a kneeling position. This way, shelves, drawers, and boxes containing frequently used and much-loved items can be placed directly at the child's eye level.

Plan the room into clever zones.

Children need space to express themselves. Their room doesn't need to be huge or perfectly designed, but it should be well-structured. When planning, it helps to think in zones: the room should have play, learning, and rest areas that are clearly separated and not mixed. This helps keep everything in its place. 

Even the smallest space can be effectively divided using simple tricks: For example, custom-designed platforms or curtains that create niches are ideal for defining cozy corners or building areas. Changing the wall color also helps establish such symbolic boundaries.

Use every nook and cranny in the room.

Not only can wardrobes, chests of drawers, and shelves be used to store toys, cuddly toys, and books. The space under the bed, the wall up to the ceiling, or the niches are also suitable for storing things. You should consider how often something is used: frequently-played-with toys, school supplies used daily, or clothing that must be easily and quickly accessible for the child. Toys that aren't used as often, like a toy race track or already-read books, can be stored in more remote corners of the playroom.

Sorting comes before tidying up.

Even the cleverest organizational system can't be maintained in the long run if there's too much of everything. But if you search online on Pinterest or Instagram for the hashtag #decluttering, you get the impression that decluttering is rocket science and feel overwhelmed by the mammoth task.

Owning more things means having to tidy, dust, and maintain them more often. So, if you want to save time, you should regularly declutter with your children. Broken toys or puzzles with missing pieces can be thrown away, while well-preserved books, toys that are no longer played with, and clothes that the child has outgrown can be donated to a charity shop or sold at a flea market. Baby toys often find grateful new owners among the next generation of parents in your circle of friends. 

Organizing a child's room correctly: Two approaches

Children find their way around a well-organized room more easily. And once things have found their proper place, it's much easier for them to keep things tidy. But what system should you use to assign places to things? The most common method is to sort them by category. For a child's room, this means: books go with books, stuffed animals and dolls go together in a large basket, and puzzles share a shelf with board games. 

But there's another idea for sorting toys: by color. While it might sound absurd at first, the tidying experts at "The Home Edit" are currently celebrating it, especially for younger children. They're convinced that even the youngest children can understand and maintain an intuitive organizational system. And for children who can't yet read, sorting by color is precisely what it is.

Using boxes to combat chaos in the playroom

Keeping a playroom tidy requires plenty of storage space, distributed across large, closed cabinets, drawers, and shelves. Mobile boxes and baskets are also a blessing, allowing you to quickly tidy up the worst of the mess in the evening. Toys distributed in baskets are not only visually appealing but often serve an educational purpose: inspired by Montessori principles, boxes and baskets in a child's room help foster independence and allow children to develop in a child-friendly environment. Following the principle of "Help me to do it myself," even the youngest children can find their toys, reach them easily, and later put them back in their proper place. 

Open baskets and transparent boxes have the advantage that the contents are easy to see. You can also label, write on, or decorate the storage boxes with pictures of the contents. This way, every child knows immediately which toy belongs where and can tidy up independently.

Lego bricks vs. train: swapping toys

Many children's rooms are overflowing with toys, which makes sense, since children's interests are constantly changing. Nevertheless, little ones often feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of play options in their own rooms. This ultimately affects the tidiness of the room: if a child starts something and gets distracted, they don't become absorbed in their play; instead, they switch from one thing to the next. The result: a half-assembled toy train set next to a tea party with cuddly toys and a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle. 

Anyone with space in a (dry) basement, attic, or large closet could use it to rotate different toy categories. If Duplo is currently a big hit, the dolls, along with their stroller and clothes, can be temporarily put away. After a few weeks, the swap begins: dolls back in the playroom, toy trains back in the basement. This creates space and order in the room, but it also ensures that the returned items are seen in a completely different light, and the toys are appreciated more.

More tips: Motivating children to tidy up

Children love to imitate, especially their parents and older siblings. So, anyone who can effortlessly demonstrate that tidying up and keeping things organized can be fun will come a big step closer to the dream of a tidy children's room. This can be achieved through tidying-up games or a little dance, with songs, loud music, or a ritual that is integrated into daily life and imitated by the children. 

Without pressure or coercion, a positive relationship develops with tidy rooms that offer plenty of space for creativity, where friends are welcome to play, and where one can tiptoe out of bed at night without stepping on Lego bricks. Children learn that keeping things tidy is worthwhile. And then, of course, there's much more time to create new chaos.

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