What Is The Best Way To Stay Organized In A Small Space With 3 Kids Ages 3,2,and 1?

Three under three is certainly going to put you in the position of cleaning all the time. While organization is a good goal, applying it will be very different at home than in an office — or a home without children.
Keeping everything tidy is not a reasonable goal and you’d do well not to put that kind of pressure on yourself. With three toddlers, you’ll maintain more of your sanity if your goal is to keep up with them.
I had three under three. Now I have three in college. The “mess” doesn’t go away, it just changes shape.
Keeping a schedule (this happens at this time, that happens at that time) can be daunting with three little ones. A routine (this happens after this — regardless of the time — and then we do that) might be more accomodating for everyone, especially you.
Mornings can start when everyone wakes, not necessarily at 8AM. We eat, we clean up, we watch a program, we play outside, we snack, we play outside some more, we eat luch. This doesn’t have to happen by the clock to go smoothly and successfully.
Do remember, “Stay at home Mom” doesn’t mean you have to stay at home. Check into your local resources for playgroups and parks. Network with other moms about scheduling playgroups and exchanging babysitting.
Children cannot mess up what they can’t reach, see, or know is there.
Keep breakables and other valuables up and away. If necessary, put them out of sight completely. While it may seem like you’ll never see your things again, the reality is that the days are long and the years are short. This means you’ll be bringing your things down and back into view before you know it.
Safety devices work in theory. In practice, small children are geniuses. Block outlets, unused radiators and cords with furniture. All lower kitchen cabinets should be child proofed with one exception. Here you would keep plastics the children can play with. Cooking around kids is dangerous. Cook in advance (when they’re sleeping) and reheat later; tell your husband to keep the kids occupied; create meals out of raw fruit, raw vegetables and sandwiches. Puddings are great — and much fun in the tub (see below).
Keep a minimum of toys available. A child with too many choices (more than 5 toys) can be become an overwhelmed child. A child with a toy that contains more than 5 pieces can also become overwhelmed. Simple blocks go a lot further than a box of action figures.
My rule of thumb was that if a toy couldn’t go in the dishwasher or clothes washer, it wasn’t a toy for my kids. This helped immensely on many levels, the least of which was cleanup.
If your kids have more than 5 toys each, stick the rest in storage. When you bring out all those “new” toys, put the other toys in storage. Change them out about every three months.
Messes will be made no matter what. To consolidate messes, never dismiss the wonders of the bathroom.
If you have a hand-held shower nozzle, explore the possibilities. During the colder months and during rainy days, I fed my baby during the day by putting her in her high chair and the high chair in the bathroom while the two older enjoyed their lunch on the tray that fit between the sides of the empty tub. When my baby was done eating I washed the older two and let them dress themselves. I then put the baby (still in the high chair) in the tub and washed her up along with the high chair. I’d take her out and let the high chair dry.
On warm days I used an empty inflatable kids’ pool instead of the tub. After eating, I’d fill the pool with water and bath bubble mixture. If you have a sprayer on the end of the hose, you can get some rockin’ bubble mountains going.
The beauty of inflatable pools and pool toys is that they can go inside in a bedroom (without water, of course). The inflatable toys that have slides and palm trees are great, but if all you can afford is a moderately sized inflatable pool, this can double as a napping place (with pillows, blankets, stuffed animals) and as a place to play or look at books. Very small pools can hold books or toys and make it easier for small children to learn organizational skills (books go in the pink pool and toys go in the blue pool).
The important thing is your peace of mind. Three small children are exhausting no matter what you do. Don’t put extra (and unnecessary) pressure on yourself to do more, more, more. Keep it simple. The simpler things are for all of you, the more fondly you’ll remember them at the end of the day, the more accomplished you’ll feel, and trust me — they’ll remember the time you spent with them, not how tidy everything was.

Buy a cage for them. You can find one at your nearest pet store.

Try to keep their play area in one room. Make the living room off limits to play time and toys. It’s touch with small kids but you must establish rules and guidelines. You need your space. Also, get the kids out doors to play even if you take them to the park or walks around the neighborhood.

Try making their own responsibilities fun. Having their own baskets or something like that. Ever watch nanny 911? Its not fun for you to constantly be behind them cleaning up. I Think closet organizing is key also. My 3 yr old puts his close in his basket and can’t watch TV unless his toys are picked up. When you play with them show them how and where to put toys away when they want to choose another toy. See who “wins” putting them away, use a chart with star stickers.

About once every two hours have an ultimate pick-up time challenge your 3 and 2 year old to pick up as fast as they can your 1 year old may possibly even start to mimic them. I have a 2 year old and 1 year old niece and nephew who do this and they seem happier with themselves. When that’s all done tell them to pick ten toys until the next pick up time. If that doesn’t keep them occupied raise the toy level then to surprise your husband before he comes home tell your kids hurry pick up before daddy comes home it could be hes already in the drive-way. My sister says her husband loves coming home and seeing his family getting all ready for him. You could even sit down and read a book with them after they get cleaned up. It is never to young to have a kid clean. Trust me picking up after-themselves is a good thing to do that way its a habit when they are older who knows maybe they will clean there room without being told. Good luck!

Three is old enough to ‘help’ you put toys away. Tell them that they can only play with one toy at a time and before they can choose another toy they must clean up the old one.
With three children so young and so close in age, you are just going to have a messy house. I have 2 kids 15 months apart and, though it is getting better (they are 4 and almost 3), our house is not as clean as it was without kids or with only 1.
Your primary responsibility as a stay at home MOM is your kids. Put away the broom, let the nick-knacks get dusty, and spend the time reading to (or playing a game with) your children. Before you know it they will be grown up and your house will be spotless again.

Some ideas:
Depending on how big your house is it could be an idea to have two or all the kids beds together in one room with clothes and then have a playroom. Either that or sacrafice a dining room or office and turn it into a playroom. Then alot of the mess will be limited to one room. Make sure the kids understand this room is for playing and let that one room get as messy as they want. You say it’s a small space so if you don’t have any extra rooms, maybe cordon off part of a room if you have like one big room in your house. It all depends on the room but having play space does keep things confined to one space.
Make sure you have plenty of storage for toys and games. Colour code or add pictures to drawers and cupboards and then make a game of tidying (such as, all toys with a pink sticker need to go in the pink drawyer- who can find all the pink ones etc. or all ‘teddys’ go in the draw with the picture of the teddy etc.) That way your kids get involved in tidying but without the bordem and hopefully protests!
A reward chart can also help (just with simple stars or stickers even) will enourage children to want to keep tidy.
An idea I saw on telly for families with lots of children (and 3 with ages so close together can feel like alot!) they had colour coded cups, plates, towels etc. So each child is assigned a colour and then they have a cup, a plate, a bowl, cutlery etc all in that one colour and each child has a different colour. This can help keep things organised and it also should cut down on the washing up as that way you will (and the kids when they are older) will use the same cup for all drinks through the day (because it’s ‘their specific’ one) etc rather than taking out clean ones.
Apart from that, get the kids out of the house. Stay at home mom doesn’t mean you have to stay at home! You don’t need tons of money just to get out of the house, there’s no reason why you can’t just go to a park, or for a walk somewhere. Even a walk can be fun and stop the kids making a mess at home if you play games like I spy or just ‘who can see the first…’ etc.
And finally, try not to worry about keeping everything spotless. As long as it’s not complete choas and not filthy then your doing fine.
Remeber ‘Tidying the house while the kids are still growing, is like shovelling snow when it’s still snowing.’

All three of your kids are old enough to start cleaning up their own messes with a little help. If you organize their toys into baskets on shelves the toys will beeasy to find and they will have an easy place to put back what they took out, just put it back in the basket and put the basket back on the shelf. Also, they won’t have to empty the whole toy box to find a toy to play with. Target has a basket and shelf system that’s relatively inexpensive. You may have to get rid of some of the lesser toys that your little ones don’t like as much in favor of organization. Let them go thru their toys with you organizing them and pay attention to those that look fun and end up not really being fun (we have found this to be the case with almost all of our leap frog toys).