Is living with clutter around children an issue? When I first established Izziwizzi Kids, one of the main inspirations was that all too many toy shops are willing to fill our lives with lots of gadgets and ugly looking toys with lots of little bits to them, but nowhere to put them. The packaging is all to often not much use for storage either.
Does this sound at all familiar to you? When we bought our first house we created a lovely space together making it just as we wanted it. Then we decided after 10 years together it would be nice to start a family. Nature took It’s course and fortunately for us, it wasn’t long after trying that we were expecting our first bundle. We were amazed by the brilliance in design of the nursery decor, furniture through stores such as Mamas and Papas, in addition to the range of very nicely designed push chairs. Everything was very pleasing to the eye.
But why couldn’t the toy shops follow suit? Why were we encouraged to fill our house with ugly looking toys, with very few ideas about how to store them or to keep them organised. Ikea offered a range of plastic storage tubs, but nothing that was a toy box that I would have wanted on display. This was one of my many reasons for creating IzziwizziKids.co.uk, to find out whether other people out there in the world experiencing similar types of problems and sure enough many like you do. Toy storage seems rare, but whenever we see some nice toy boxes etc, we are sure to get them in store. And if toys are too big to go into toy boxes, then it’s important that they are at least nice to look at in your living room, or wherever else they might be. So…when the kids go to bed you still have some level of tranquillity and a space to call yours.

Encouraging your child to be tidy can be hard work, especially if you like me and not the tidiest person in the world yourself.

Here are a few tips picked up from experts that I have found to work:
- Dedicate a specific time/s of the day to tidy up time where the focus is on tidying e.g. create a tidy up time just before dinner;
- For younger toddlers it is easier to make a game out of tidying up, such as find all the red blocks, blue blocks etc.
- Have a toy box or a focal point for your child to put everything in to. Otherwise you could well end up with a large heap in the corner of the room.
- You may like to try a reward system such as a sticker…particularly if tidying up is unprompted, or is not mess they created themselves.

Encouraging children to be tidy is an issue raised by a number of parents that we talk to. What experiences or ideas can you share? Please post your comments.