(no subject)

[the_rck]

Gah. Throwing out stuffed animals and dolls feels like I’m killing them. I’m not sure I can do it. But we can’t store many of the dratted things. We want to limit that to the ones to which we have real emotional attachment.

Other parents of older children, have you gone through this? How did you handle it?

Comments

[havocthecat]

I usually passed them on to younger children. Think the ending of Toy Story 3. :) If there are no younger children you know, maybe there's a shelter you could donate them to?

[adrian_turtle]

Shelters usually won't take old toys because they are concerned about bedbugs. They want stuffed toys, but they want new ones.

I understand the concerns about feeling like you're killing them. It just seems unbearably cruel to throw them in the trash after you've loved them. (Even if you didn't love them. Even if they just kind of hung around being vaguely sociable with the stuffies that people did love.) What I recommend is packing them up in a box, taping it shut, and getting somebody ELSE to take it out of the house. Where the stuffed animals can go to a nice farm up north and have plenty of room to play with other kids.

[the_rck]

::laughs:: I'm not sure who I can ask to be that someone else. Scott has the same problem I do.

I have emailed the Salvation Army to see if they will take them (their website doesn't mention either way). After that, I'll try the Kiwanis. But it's possible that no one will take them which will leave the farm up north as the best option.

[adrian_turtle]

It really is easier if you're dealing with a closed box and don't have to look Squishy in the face.

On a related subject, the thing I use as a heating pad is basically a bag of rice with bits of cinnamon stick in it, covered in fleece, with floppy ears and whiskers. It has little flannel paws to hug my shoulder and keep it in place. The problem is that I need to put a stuffed animal in the microwave every time I use it. And watch it go round and round waving at me.

[the_rck]

::laughs:: That would be hard. At least, it's waving. That might mean it's happy.

[coneyislandbaby]

Obviously it may be different in the US but I know the charity store I volunteer for takes stuffed animals because one of my major tasks is to put them out in the store. I have to be extremely strict with myself about which ones I really need to give a new home to...

[the_rck]

Most charities in the US won't take used stuffed animals because of fear of bedbugs. They also won't take mattresses or futons, and some won't even take bed frames.

Parents are actually starting to be kind of afraid of sending their kids to summer camp because they sometimes come back with bedbugs. Once they're in your house, they're extremely difficult to get rid of. I've heard horror stories about people picking them up in otherwise extremely nice hotels.

[coneyislandbaby]

I can understand that, though I've not heard of them being an issue here. Doesn't mean it might not be of course.

That does sound awful, though.

[the_rck]

All the folks we know with young children have put an absolute moratorium on gifts of stuffed animals because they have so many already.

Maybe we could pass some of them off to a collector of some sort... Cordelia picked up every panda and version of Winnie-the-Pooh she came across. But none of them are likely to be particularly rare in that direction.

I haven't been able to find anywhere that we can donate them. The Salvation Army and the Kiwanis don't specifically say on their websites that they won't take them, but that doesn't mean they will. Every place else I've looked specifically lists stuffed animals as not accepted.

Someone suggested animal shelters, but the big local one isn't interested. I've found a very, very long list of smaller (and less local) shelters and rescue operations, but I haven't found the wherewithal to go through that list.

[retsuko]

I know it's a pain to set up, but garage sale time?

[the_rck]

::laughs:: Not for another four months, at least. I'm not sure I want to wait that long.

[kyrielle]

Do you have a local Buy Nothing group? (Facebook, 'Buy Nothing (city name)' to find - it's a local gift economy, and maybe someone will want some of them for their kids.)

[the_rck]

I've never heard of Buy Nothing groups, but I know we have two rival Freecycle groups in town. From what I gather, both have a large percentage of people who say they want things and then never come to get them.

I don't do anything with Facebook. Scott does, but I don't. I'll mention Buy Nothing to him.

[lady-of-mists.livejournal.com]

I think we traditionally gave our toys away to someone else who might want them or could use them. Of course, that meant that some really neat (i.e. expensive NOW) action figures got given away, but someone got the use of them, I hope.

I ended up just storing a lot of my stuffed animals -- but I didn't really have a lot of those when I was younger. We gave Barbies away to my cousins and the Barbie house that my aunt let me play with except for a few that I still have (a couple were my mother's). That aunt was a furious yard sale fiend though, so I'm betting a lot of that was sold.

[the_rck]

All of the families we know have Absolutely No Stuffed Animals policies because they've already got too many. I swear that they breed and multiply.

I think we've got about forty stuffed animals to get rid of, and two of them are about the size of a six year old. We have almost no storage space in the house, so storing things is not an option we really have. We have some things stacked in tubs in the basement, but we don't have room for more tubs.

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

Mostly, if I waited long enough, nobody remembered anymore when those toys were special, and that made it easier to give them away. Most of our stuffed toys got donated to the Holiday Shop at my older kids' old school, where kids can buy items super-cheap to give as gifts to their family. That felt good, because the toys were getting a new life, not going to the landfill.

For a couple of my favorites, I took them for myself and put them on a shelf in my bedroom. :) But only three, and two of those are small.

[the_rck]

I'd love to donate these, but I'm not sure anybody takes used stuffed animals any more because of concerns about things like bedbugs. The Kiwanis and the Salvation Army don't specifically say that they do or don't take stuffed animals, so I'm inquiring.

I already followed up on one lead I had from Arbor Parents only to find that it was no longer useful (it had been posted last August, so I had high hopes).

[hamsterwoman]

How did you handle it?

Not optimally! It felt the same way to me, so I think I had a harder time letting the stuffed animals go than my actual children. But eventually it reached a point where there were just too many of them, and something had to be done.

We sorted the animals into 4 piles:

1) Toys with no sentimental value -- mostly these were ones that had been given as gifts by extended family/friends, and were the ones we felt no attachment to. We talked about having a garage sale or something, but ultimately just donated them (Goodwill took them, though possibly they just tossed them after, IDK).

2) Stuffed animals that were too neat/nice to get rid of -- these became OUR stuffed animals instead of the kids', and now sit on a shelf. This was a relatively small group, consisting mostly of rodents, dragons, and unusual animals (like a badger or walrus) that I collect anyway.

3) Stuffed animals that the rodents wanted to keep, which we put in hampers. We thought about the hanging hammock thing for them, but haven't gotten around to figuring out if that would work or not.

4) Stuffed animals that were not special enough for #2 or #3 but did have some sentimental value / were too cute to "abandon". We put these in storage in vacuum-sealed bags, so they wouldn't take up as much room, although they still take up a fair bit, and are now all squished-looking in there. This just defers the problem, and I'm not sure what we'll be doing with them eventually, but they're living in our garden shed/storage place for now.

So mostly this is not a "do what we did" comment but an "I feel your pain" comment :P

[the_rck]

This seems to be a common problem. One person on DW suggested boxing them and having someone else send them to a farm upstate where they can play with all the children.

Our house is tiny, so we really can't store much. Part of the reason I want to cull our books is to free up some storage space by either getting rid of the books in tubs in the basement or putting them on the shelves (some of them are manga that I boxed up just in case Cordelia got interested in comics and might find them disturbing, back when she was about five).

[carbonel]

Oops, the previous comment about stuffed animals and Freecycle was supposed to go here, not where it actually did.

[the_rck]

I figured. Thanks!

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Goodwill Stores? They have a lot of little stuffed toys we used to get for our dog, iirc. Anyway they take things without discussion, and I figure that what they can't use, they know where to pass it on to.

[the_rck]

I was going to say we don't have a local Goodwill, but apparently one just opened about a month ago. It's not particularly nearby, but it is possible for us to get to it. They don't list stuffed animals on their list of things they won't take. They don't specifically list them among the things they do take, but I think they'd say if they didn't.

I'm not so sure about the naked Raggedy Ann doll (it's in great shape but no clothes. Goodness knows what happened to them), and I'm definitely not trying to give them the one stuffty that Cordelia chewed on.

They even apparently take VHS tapes. Their list says so specifically.