Decluttering with kids under 3 and kids over 3

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All right.

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Welcome to this episode where we're gonna talk about decluttering when

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you have kids who are three and under and decluttering when you

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have kids who are three and older.

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So a lot of the content on the podcast lately has been about me

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transitioning out of life with.

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Toddlers and babies at the same time.

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When I started Motherhood simplified, we had three older kids and one

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baby, and then we added another one.

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We had 202, and now my youngest is three.

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She's actually almost four.

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So take that for what it is and realize that when you have kids

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who are three and under life is just harder in a lot of ways.

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It is so much harder.

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And of course now they're behind me because I've been

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recording for a long time.

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As your kids get older, you come up against different challenges, but in

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my experience and the way that I've experienced motherhood, all right,

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babies, you guys gotta go play.

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Okay?

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You guys can be on the camera, but you can't be loud on the microphone.

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Okay?

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You guys are silly.

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Okay?

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You can dance behind it.

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Okay, so here, as we see, as your kids get older, it doesn't solve all of the

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problems, but the day-to-day demands of being a mom get a lot easier, I think

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when your kids get older, because when they're three and under, especially

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when they're babies like newborn the first year of life, like it is constant.

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Even honestly until they're like about two or three.

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Constant responding to them, constant dropping, whatever it is that you

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are doing to feed them, change them, get them what they need.

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Hold them, touch them, soothe them, redirect them, prevent

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them from going down the stairs, falling on things, getting hurt,

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crying, just dealing with life.

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Those first three years are so demanding.

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There is no reasoning with them.

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When your kids get a little bit older, like three and above,

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honestly closer to four, like I said, Tara is turning four soon.

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That is when you start to get space, and a little bit more time where you can say,

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I can do this for you, just not right now, or, Mom needs to get this done.

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I need you to play with this while I go do that.

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Is it perfect?

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No, you can't see it on the podcast, but right now the two little ones

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are literally like dancing by me.

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Terrorists like making faces behind me, and they know that this

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is the time that I need to work.

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And so they need to go do their thing, right?

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They need to play.

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They're allowed to watch tv.

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They're allowed to play the switch, but it's their time to play while I work.

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And it's been a.

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Long, I've been here for a couple hours working and they are over it.

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So it's not that your kids get older and they turn three and everything

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gets easy, but it does get easier and you have more space to do things.

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That's my point.

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Okay, so let's talk about decluttering when your kids are three and

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under, because it is possible.

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And when I decluttered, my son was two, freshly two, then I had a

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four year old and a seven year old.

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I had a combination of one kid who really couldn't be left

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alone or unsupervised at all.

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And then I had the two older kids and it was difficult.

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And there are plenty of moms inside of motherhood simplified who have decluttered

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with babies and toddlers, and there are.

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Just to it's a different approach than when your kids are older.

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Now, I will also say that it's very fresh in my mind because while I haven't

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been actively, like decluttering a whole thing in my house, I do still have

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to declutter stuff and let things go.

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So I do know what that's like with babies and toddlers, it's harder.

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But I've also moved across the country twice with babies and

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toddlers when we moved from.

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Idaho to California.

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I was pregnant and we had a one-year-old, and then we moved

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across to the Midwest and we had a two-year-old and a five month old.

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So I had to pack up an entire house, which is as labor intensive,

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if not more than decluttering.

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And so I get it.

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It's different.

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And when you have kids who are younger like that, you have, and you if you

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want to declutter, because I don't think you need to wait until your kids

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are older than three to declutter.

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You can still do it when they're little.

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You just have to adjust your expectations of what that's gonna look like.

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It's going to go slower, it's going to be way more inconvenient.

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You are probably going to have to do things when you're more tired, when

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that means when they're sleeping.

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And you wanna just take a nap and do your own thing as well.

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You might need to decide to declutter instead, right?

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You might have to stay up later.

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You might have to wake up earlier.

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You might have to ask for more help.

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You might have to say, I need a babysitter.

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I need, my family to help me.

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Or I'm going to hire somebody to do the deep cleaning while I declutter,

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or I'm going to order more takeout than usual so that I can get

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this done because it is possible.

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I just want you to know that when there are three and under.

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You're more tired.

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You're more tired.

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Your kids are way more disruptive.

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It's way more inconvenient, but it is still possible.

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So I wanna encourage you with that, and I want to also encourage you that while

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it might go slower for you, that's okay.

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It's still worth it, and you can still get yourself that relief from decluttering.

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Now when your kids are three and older or maybe closer to four and

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older, it does get a lot easier.

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It gets easier and harder in some ways.

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So if your kids are like from the three to six, seven year old range, they're

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gonna be in a stage where my kids are at right now, where they don't wanna

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get rid of everything, anything at all.

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Hang on.

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If Kaylee's here, if you wanna come answer.

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I have a question for you.

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You wanna come see the microphone?

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Do you wanna answer it?

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Okay.

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She doesn't wanna answer it, but I know for sure Kaylee doesn't like decluttering.

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Do you like it when we have to get rid of some toys?

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If they broke or if a balloon pops.

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Do you like that?

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She's I don't understand.

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I know.

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Or, how about this?

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What about when your clothes don't fit anymore?

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Do you like to get rid of them or do you like to keep them?

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No, she doesn't know.

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She usually likes to keep them.

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She's learned that she can keep them by giving them to Tara, her little sister.

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Your kids at this age are gonna be like, They don't wanna get rid of stuff, right?

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So that's gonna make it more difficult for you to get rid of things like toys and

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clothes or maybe even some of your stuff.

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But it's temporary.

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And during that time, you can still make progress.

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You can still guide your kids through this prog progress.

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I have a toy course that teaches you how to do this.

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You can also learn this instead of decluttering simplified.

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So that part gets a little bit slower and a little bit more difficult because

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you're having to walk them through the decision making process as well.

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And they might be resistant just because that's how their brains

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are developing at that time.

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It's a normal developmental thing for your kids to wanna keep that stuff and

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to not wanna let it go developmentally, you can just look up, like brain

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development of kids from four to seven.

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That's the stage that their brain is at, and that's okay.

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You can focus on decluttering your stuff.

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You can declutter common area stuff, and you can walk them through the decision

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making process still, because you can't keep everything for those ages, right?

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Just because that's where their brain is at does not mean that you can't

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declutter stuff and you can't get rid of things when they've outgrown

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it or it's broken or whatever.

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You can and you should.

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It's good for them to learn that.

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So that might get more difficult when your kids are four and older.

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Logistics are gonna be a little bit easier, a little bit, not perfect

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because then they start going to school and life picks up in other ways.

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But overall, I personally think it's easier when they're that age.

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And now as your kids get older and older, where we have kids,

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all the way up to ages 17.

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They start buying their own things with their own money.

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They have more opinions on what they want to keep and what they don't wanna keep.

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They have more variety of things, whether it's for sports or for their personality

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or their fashion choices, or their creativity, or their hobbies and their

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interests, their gifts from friends.

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Like they have more stuff in that regard.

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And so that part gets a little bit more complicated, but, If you can learn how

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to do this stuff for yourself when you have older kids, this is what I think

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makes it so much easier when your kids are older as well, is that if you learn

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how to declutter your stuff for yourself and you go through the decision making

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process yourself, and you learn how to make these decisions, you learn.

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What is necessary, what is not necessary?

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What fits your personal style, what doesn't fit your personal

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style, what you have the time and energy for what you don't.

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You can have conversations with your older kids about this and that is what's.

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That's one thing that makes it a lot easier when your kids are

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older, which I think is very cool.

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But the thing that I, the problem that I see people falling into with this is that

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they try to get their biggest clutter and they haven't decluttered their own

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stuff yet, and so they're like trying to force their kids to do these things.

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'cause the house is overwhelming and you haven't figured out for yourself yet.

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Which is why I always say, if you want to declutter and simplify your

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whole house, you really have to learn how to do this stuff for yourself

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first so that you can teach your kids how to do it for themselves as well.

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And that's starting with your kids who are like ages five and six.

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I see that happen a lot too, where they're like my kids don't wanna

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get rid of any their toys, but.

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That adult hasn't figured out how to do it for themself yet either.

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So you can't expect your kids to do things that you haven't

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figured out how to do yet either.

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You might get lucky and have a unicorn child who knows and figures

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it out for themselves, but the chances of that are pretty unlikely.

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And you can probably look back on your own life and realize that as well.

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'cause you also had to learn this skill.

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So I hope that this was helpful for you in figuring out how to declutter

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in the different seasons of your life based on the ages of your kids.

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Thank you so much for hanging out, and I'll talk to you soon.