The Toddler Transition: Clearing Space for Your Child's New Room

There are a great many things that are wonderful, amazing, glorious, and however many other adjectives you can muster about being a parent. Seeing your little ones transition from newborn to toddler is one of those moments where you truly begin to see a development in their personalities and can actively observe a transition, however minimal at this point, towards some kind of independence and character. 

One way to assist this change, and to give you and your partner some well-needed alone time at this point, is to start the gradual move from your bedroom to their very own sanctuary, filled with their toys, places to play, and all of the other usual accouterments involved with children of this age. 

But while the process is pretty easy to discuss in theory, the practical side of things can be a tad trickier than the initial excitement of giving them their own bedroom tends to imply.

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The Great Purge (Sentimental Vs. Practical)

When redesigning a room, chances are that you’re going to come up against a lifetime of stuff that you've accumulated over your time in the home. 

This can vary depending on how you used the room (e.g., as a spare bedroom or for storage), but one thing is clear: you are going to have to engage in a serious decluttering and clear out possibly everything to make room for the little bundle of joy that is about to totally and utterly occupy it. If you don’t have additional room or enough space to move in the current items you want to keep, you may want to opt for a storage unit for small furniture that is climate-controlled to keep things in excellent condition and easily accessible for when you are ready to retrieve them and place them elsewhere. But how does one actually go about the process of dragging out an old lifetime of items to make way for the new? 

The most common and widely used decluttering technique, which also happens to work very well for this scenario, is the tried and true three-pile method:

• Keep: Anything that you are able to move to another location or repurpose to fit into the new room design can be placed into the “keep” pile. This might include cupboards, tables, and more that you could make use of for storing the various bits and bobs related to childcare.
• Store/donate: It’s possible that you might not have used this room very often and stashed all manner of things away for use another time. But as you’re going through it all, you discover that there are a great many items that you no longer need or want but are too precious to chuck away. These belongings can be donated in whatever way you see fit to those who can make use of them.
• Bin: Old, broken toys, clothing, accessories, and more are prime candidates for taking a trip to the local dump. If you haven’t used something in a year, have no intention of using it, and it’s seen better days, chuck it.

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Understanding Your Toddler's New Needs

Clearing space and making a room toddler-friendly isn’t merely about what stays and what doesn't. It’s also about a thorough process of ensuring that all of your toddler's needs are met. To better understand these needs, we can divide them into two categories:

1. Developmental changes: Your toddler is now beginning to move around and explore their environment far more vigorously than before. Consequently, you must make sure to provide them with spaces and areas where they can exercise their mental muscles. By setting up dedicated play areas and storing their toys where they’re easily and safely accessible, you can set up a room that encourages mental development and independent thinking rather than hindering it.
2. Safety requirements: It’s wonderful to talk about allowing your toddler the freedom to roam, but the reality is that they are still tiny, delicate things that, given half the chance, will hurt themselves somehow. While you want to avoid mollycoddling them, there are some safety precautions to consider, such as:

• • Securing heavy items to the walls
  • Removing choking hazards
  • Locking away toys and items that require adult supervision
  • Covering and securing electrical outlets that might be at floor level

Essential Gear: What Stays And What Goes

This section is somewhat related to the previous one, but deserves its own because it's also connected to the items that you may have already invested in related to your toddler.  

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Space Planning For Toddler Activities

Once you’ve removed all the clutter and are ready to get stuck into the design, it’s time to plan the space. Our recommendations will obviously be very space-dependent, but to give you some ideas, you can use the following suggestions to help you get started:

• Sleep zone
• Play zone
• Creative zone
• Reading nook

By separating these areas as much as is possible with the area you’re working with, you can separate play from sleep from learning and so on. This encourages a more regimented space that ensures they learn the right times for the different activities and (at least in theory) are more likely to remain compliant (but you're dealing with a toddler, so mileage may vary).

The shift from one phase of your child's life to another can be a bittersweet experience and bring up a huge change in how you play and care for them. Setting up a new room for an incoming toddler can present both a huge challenge and a rewarding way to develop them into intelligent and independent children. While every parent will have their own idea of this process, this post has hopefully provided you with some suggestions to get you started on the journey.