How many toys does your child need?

Children have to play and do so almost always and everywhere. Parents are pleased and the temptation is great to satisfy this child's play instinct with lots of toys. In addition, giving gifts is fun and grandparents, aunts or uncles often come around the corner with new toys without being asked. The abundance in the nursery is then pre-programmed. The toys pile up and then something happens that none of us had exactly in mind: the child just stops playing. If we take a critical look at the room, we quickly notice why this is. There is too much of everything. The child loses the overview and can no longer find a starting point. Now mucking out and tidying up helps and the question arises: How many toys does my child actually need?

The quality is crucial, not the quantity

It is almost like everywhere in life, not how much is the real question, but what. Basically, children don't need a lot of toys, provided they are chosen so that they meet the following criteria:

1. Age-appropriate: Children under 2 years basically need little or no toys. You use whatever you can get your hands on equally. So it can happen that the real attraction of the lovingly chosen first birthday present is the colorful wrapping paper and the toy remains unattended for the time being.
2. Variable: Toys are pedagogically valuable if they are not too clearly defined in their application. A classic example are the building blocks, which are so versatile that they can be used for almost any game. Here you as parents are asked to put together a good basis with which your child can experience many different games.
3. Sorting out: When buying toys, parents imagine that the child will like it. But that's not always the case. Therefore, honest mucking out is a must. Does the child still or at all play with the toys? Where are the interests really? It's just useless: if your child doesn't like to do puzzles, for example, no matter how good the puzzles are for their development, the child just won't do it. So get rid of it and make space for other great toys that are also used.