You're listening to the decluttered mom podcast. A podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Renee. And in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally,

but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months,

I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom

system, and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show.

Welcome to another episode of the Decluttered Mom podcast. Today we are going to talk about

toys. This is like a love-hate relationship topic for so many of you and I totally understand

that, but I think it's an important one. So we're going to talk about it. Prior to my decluttering

journey, I didn't really understand any type of correlation between how many

toys my kids had and how well they played or how independently they played or how creatively they played.

I always just assumed that giving them more toys would mean more options and would mean more play and would be a

great thing for them. As moms, I think we are always trying to find ways to better our children's

lives. We all know that kids learn through play, right? And so we are constantly fed this

information that we have to provide toys for them

that are going to help with their development, right? And so we always think that, okay, if kids learn

through play and my job as a mom is to help my child learn and grow and develop, then of course,

I'm going to give them all the toys I possibly

can that are going to help promote that. But that's the thing. We actually are hindering them

when we provide too many toys and too many options. So we're going to talk all about this today.

And I want to start with when I was a first time mom and my eight-year-old was born, she didn't

have like any toys, right? Obviously, she was an infant. And I think she got like a couple of books

and like rattles at the baby shower. And that was about it. And as she started to crawl and things like that, I think I got her one of

those things that she could like swat at the toys that were above her. And then a couple more

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