Manage the Bedtime Tidy

I have always avoided making my kids tidy up their toys right before bed.

1. I know it will just turn into a fight, and I don’t want to end the day like that.
2. I can totally see my kids using it as a stalling tactic to be able to stay up later. I would.
3. When their toys were in their rooms I would just shut the mess away when I closed their door at night. Out of sight out of mind, right?

We recently relocated all of the toys to a more central location in the entry way/front room of our home. I like it, mostly.

But, I detest seeing toys everywhere once the kids are in bed. It’s as if they are still awake vicariously through their toys, seriously cramping my unwinding at the end of the day. It is also very unpleasant to stumble over toys or shoes while navigating, drunk with sleep, in the dark, to reach a child that needs me in the middle of the night.

To solve this little problem I added something to the bed time routine. 🙂

I informed my children over dinner that after they went to bed, I was going to go through the house and tidy up. Anything I found, be it toys, clothes, shoes, homework, etc.., would be placed in a basket on the very highest shelf in our house. They could have the entire basket back in 2 days.

If they wanted to remove something from the basket before it had served it’s time on the shelf, they could perform an extra chore of my choice, to earn it back.

And that was all I said.

I picked up a lot of things that night. My kids were sad about it the next morning.

But the next night, after we had brushed their teeth, I said, “Ok guys. I’m going to count to 75. You have until then to get anything that you want to keep for tomorrow picked up and put away.”

I counted to 75. And then I was amazed.

I had NO tidying to do that night. 🙂

Or the next night.

Since then, every night I give them a warning. I say, “You have until I count to 37 (or some other random number),” or “You have until I finish singing You Are My Sunshine to pick things up.”

When a library book ended up on the shelf and had to be returned the next day, I was met with a healthy dose of complaining about the necessary extra chore to earn it back. I calmly responded, “I had to burn a little extra energy to pick it up last night. It’s fair that you burn a little extra energy to earn it back.” And that was it.

This system has worked great for my older kids. My one and a half year old doesn’t completely comprehend how the system works. But he understands that he doesn’t like his toys up on the shelf. So even he helps to clean up along side his siblings.

I sometimes find a few things that were missed (like the picture above shows), but I can handle that.

I wish I had thought of this earlier, and spared myself a few stubbed toes.