Young kids don't need a ton of new toys for the holidays to be happy. And there's a simple way to keep children excited about the toys they already have: bringing toys in and out of rotation.
"I rotate a lot of the toys that we have so they still seem new and exciting, and we're not necessarily buying anything new," Angela Narayan, Ph.D., assistant professor of Clinical Child Psychology at the University of Denver, tells TODAY.com.
This tactic works especially well with larger toys, like dollhouses and big Lego sets, and keeps them from adding clutter around the house, she says. “I have them play with it, and then I put it away for a few weeks or even a month, and I just have something else come out,” she explains.
The strategy works well due to the psychology and developing memory capacity of young kids, Narayan says.
"Preschoolers don't have as long-term memory capacity as we do, so they forget (that) something has been really fun a lot quicker than adults do,” she explains. "They don't get tired of things as easily, and that's just an advantage of the developing brain."
Narayan keeps these concepts in mind in her own home while encouraging unstructured playtime. She often rotates through toys for her two kids (ages 3 and 5), which helps reduce clutter in her home and keeps things exciting without constantly buying new items.
For instance, her 5-year-old son is a big fan of monster trucks and enjoys playing with a large monster truck ramp. But it takes up a lot of space and has to be put back together every time, so Narayan doesn't leave it out. And that becomes an exciting part of the activity, she says. "It's fun to reconstruct it, and it feels new to him."
How many presents should you give young kids?
If children see a large amount of toys at once, it can be overstimulating, and they aren’t necessarily able to discern each toy. “Even if an adult goes into a toy store, it’s hard to pay attention to everything,” she says.
With young kids, less is more is the rule of thumb, Narayan says. “The fewer things in their visual attention field, the more they can attend to in-depth,” she explains. “And the fewer things they have to spend cognitive energy filtering through, the more that each one can have an impact.”
During gifting holidays and birthdays, Narayan keeps it to just one or two meaningful gifts that can hold their attention for a while.
When presented with a pile of new toys on his birthday, "my son will fixate on one or two," she says. So she'll secretly put the others away until he's gotten tired of those. "He doesn't remember even though he's opened them and looked at them and gotten excited," she says.
Of course, as kids get older, this trick loses its effectiveness and they may no longer be interested in the toys that once excited them.
Other ways to reduce the amount of new gifts you buy:
If you don't want to buy a ton of new toys for children around holidays or birthdays, Narayan shared these other tips:
- Ask older siblings to wrap and gift their hand-me-down toys to younger siblings. This can be especially meaningful if the older sibling is passing down a toy they've really loved but outgrown, Narayan says.
- Organize a regular toy rotation with friends, neighbors or extended family. Toy rotations don't just have to exist within your own home, Narayan says. Consider inviting other families to participate in a toy swap, with the understanding that the toys are to be lent, not kept. You can even wrap the gifts for each other.
- Choose toys that can be used and reused in creative ways. "I want to suck each minute of quality time out of these toys," Narayan says, and she recommends opting for items that offer multiple uses, such as reusable stickers, and toys that can be used for creative play, like building blocks or play food.
Narayan also recommends taking advantage of the holiday season for classic crafts, like decorating pinecones or making wreaths out of pipe cleaners. Displaying your child's art and projects is "another great way that children know they're loved and that they're special to parents," she says.