As we trawled through old clothes and other junk we found that we kept on finding reasons to keep stuff, it is impressive how hard it is to give away that cute t-shirt with the dinosaur on that he puked down. So we got a keepsake box made that we would use to keep the things we really wanted. Being bound by the size of the box and not wanting to have it overloaded by the time he got to be 2 meant that we were far more ruthless in our clearing out and only kept the items that really had some meaning with the rest either going to charity shops or being put away for a possible number two.

When it came to toys we found that relatives, grandparents in particular, were quite happy to keep some of the excess. That had the double benefit of clearing them out of our house whilst meaning that when we went for visits we didn’t have to load the car up with a load of toys.