The Day the Toys Went Away

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, Jay got (most) of his toys taken away from him for the time being.

I'm sure I've posted  before but here's how my family room usually looks on any given day within hours of Jay waking up:

And here's how our basement stairs usually look throughout the day as Jay likes to toss his toys over the gate and down the stairs:

The other day I caught him throwing his Leapfrog magnet set down the stairs. I told him not to, even told him he'd get his bottom smacked if he did. At first he went to take it back to the dishwasher where we keep it, however he took off running back to the stairs with it, tossing it over the gate. Being that it's a Leapfrog toy, obviously it's not cheap like other little figurines and plastic toys he throws down the stairs.

I wasn't too happy.

I gave his bottom a swap and told him it was naptime and that that was it - if he can't play nice with his toys he's not going to have them anymore.

I spent naptime going through his toys, picking them up and putting most of them away out of reach. I left his stuffed animals out and his plush trains and toddler cars as well as his few favorite books he's always having us read to him. All the DVDs and their cases got put up - since figuring out how to open them he's become destructive with them. All the electronic educational toys got put up (I had found his Cookie Monster keyboard thrown down the stairs and it must have bounced into the rec room) but I did bring up his activity table so he has some educational toy to play with it.

He was a bit confused as to where many of his toys went and he threw a fit several times about the DVDs being up out of reach. New rule too is that if he throws a toy down the stairs, that's it. He doesn't get it back the rest of the day.

He's been a bit better since - only a handful for toys down the stairs the 1st day and just a few yesterday. It seems to be working - he has less toys to play with right now, but he's not throwing them all over (he got his trains taken off him briefly as he was literally throwing them across the room just for fun!). Mom thinks the less choice and stimulation might be it. We've been reading more, playing trains more... and there's been much less mess to pick up at the end of the night too!