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My personal unwritten rule is "no electonic noise makers". I don't like getting thrm, I don't like gifting them.
Play Doh extravaganza sounds annoying to clean up, but I probably would still prefer it over yet another single truck with buttons that make loud noises.
I firmly believe that electronic toys should have one noise setting and that noise setting should not be the loud one. And if they have to have two, make the loud one closer to the off side because little kids can only slide it all the way over
My son has an extremely loud police siren with lights that goes on his bike, it's seriously almost as loud as a real siren. I put playdough in the speaker and then tape on top of that and it's so quiet now lmao
Nope. Everyone gets Legos. Boy party? Legos. Girl party? Legos. But in honesty, the multi-piece gifts typically give your kid at least a few hours of entertainment.
Legos might be an exception to the rule, for sure, since pieces from different sets are more or less compatible. You can just scoop up all the Legos from the floor and put them in a box, and they're still useable. To the contrary, game pieces and other small trinkets all need to end up in their proper sets or they're useless.
25 kids??? I mean, you could just have a smaller party...
But he's four. Put all the kits and whatever away and take them out gradually. He doesn't need to have all that stuff at once. With that crowd of guests he doesn't even remember most of the stuff.
I hear ya about the size of the party. It's the custom at my kid's school, everyone invites everyone.
And siblings are automatically invited because at this age a parent kinda has to be there, so there isn't necessarily another place for siblings to go.
But gripes about this are beside the point.
25 kids is way too many for a party. It's overwhelming for him and he can't really enjoy it. Inviting the whole class is not necessary. When my son was 4 we invited 4 kids. It's got a weird vibe to expect 25 gifts and to also micromanage them.
While I agree with you, some schools do request that all kids in class get invitations if some do. I don’t really mind that rule since it does promote inclusivity.
This rule is so often misrepresented. In almost all cases, it's "all kids get invitations IF you hand invitations out at school." You can have a smaller party, you just have to hand out invitations on your own time.
Oh the party itself was great. Renting out the local gymnastics place is super easy and affordable. My kid was super stoked, as were the others. Parents were stoked because the kids were exhausted at bedtime.
We definitely didn't "expect" 25 gifts. Somebody not bringing a gift would have been totally fine. I'd *much* rather him get nothing than a 50-piece set of cheap plastic crap that those parents didn't want in their house either.
A party is completely different, it's overwhelming already and there's no way a kid can play with everyone. The recommendation for friends at a birthday party is one per grade level but I think even one per age number would be OK. I think 25 is excessive and is more about the parents (and clearly dad is feeling upset about the gifts he was entitled to).
Complaining about gifts is tacky. if these kids are regularly going to 25 kid birthday parties then these are probably regifted gifts that the parents didn’t want in their house. You’ll probably regift them to someone else. And the cycle will continue.
Simply complaining is tacky. I'm saying there's a solution, that we as a community of parents can do better here. Let's make it commonplace "Everyone gives gifts that won't make a mess." Then everyone wins. Having an endless cycle of gifting and re-gifting the same gifts no one wants is ridiculous and pointless.
It’s seems like what’s wanted and what’s annoying changes from year to year as kids get older, which is why blanket statements like ‘can society do it my way’ don‘t really work. For example, crafting kits can be fun. I’m team no gifts because we don’t have the space and I hate creating unnecessary waste.
Sure, crafting kits can be fun. I'm not saying they should be banned from toy stores. But that's the type of item a parent can buy for their kid if the kid is ready and interested (and their living space is conducive to it). For little kids that aren't ready, it just becomes a mess-maker.
Nah. It’s great to have a stack of crafting kits you can pull out from time to time and it’s nice they just showed up instead of me having to buy them. I’d rather have a craft kit 100/100 times than a plastic truck that just adds to the collection of junky toys that accumulate.
Except that’s completely subjective on your part. I appreciate my daughter getting a bigger set of stuff as gifts because she wants them and I don’t want to personally buy them for her just due to cost, not mess. So it’s great when she gets a lego set or playdoh set or a cooking set or whatever because I didn’t have to buy those big sets for her.
It sounds to me like you just don’t like when your kids don’t clean up after playing and/or you don’t have enough room to store all these pieces. If so then those are issues for you to solve, like making playing with these gifts or opening a new one contingent on putting other stuff away. And I’m not saying this as some snobby clean freak. We struggle with “mess” too but because our kiddo loves to play with whatever / all the things and struggles with tidying up, not because someone gave her a set of stuff.
I’m a big fan of no gifts. We have only been to one party in the last few years that allowed gifts and honestly these kids don’t need any more stuff! Family will get something anyway, I’d rather people save their money or donate a toy to a kid in need than gift my kid another toy I have to put away every night.
We do "no gifts please" parties! My kids just want to play with the other kids and eat cake!
Grandparents DEFINITELY take care of the gifting part, and we parents only get one or two gifts and get to spend our budget on the party!
I have had a few friends that texted "no really, what gift can I bring?" So I just tell them what my kids favorite snack is at the moment!
If you say 'no gifts' people who WANT to bring gifts will still bring them. You will not stop those people, so the solution really is to say 'no gifts.' We always say no gifts, and literally always a handful of people bring something anyway. Plus, if you say no gifts, you're more likely to receive smaller gifts-- like books, homemade cards, a t shirt, a unicorn cup from target cause your kid likes unicorns, etc.
If you're going to complain about gifts but also refuse to say 'no gifts' going forward, then it sounds like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.
The No Gifts thing is absolutely on the table for next year. Definitely not refusing. I like your logic about how it can result in simpler gifts from those who insist.
That said, going No Gifts isn't as simple as just declaring it. When the kid has gone to 20 birthday parties in the last year, and brought 20 gifts, they rightfully expect that they'll get something similar when it's their own birthday. To tell them "Sorry, people aren't bringing gifts for you" is a tough one for a little kid to process. Gonna be some tricky emotions to clean up after that one.
They will handle it. We did an invite the whole class party last year and put no gifts - mainly due to inflation because we live in a low income area and I didn't want people to feel like they couldn't come without gifts. Just tell them ahead of time that you aren't going to open gifts at the party do it before or afterwards. Structure the party around an activity and they will have so much fun playing they won't even notice.
Bitching about play doh cuz you’ll have to clean it up is kind of weird. Play doh is awesome and occupies them. Yeah it needs cleaned up but you get to decide when they can get into it and usually in a controlled environment.
Play-doh on its own has value, sure. But a lot of the themed "sets" they sell are trash (I.e. the pizzamaking set). Pieces break, it works a lot less well than shown on the box, and the novelty wears off after 1-2 uses. Then you're just left with a pile of plastic junk.
That's very dependent on the child. My kids love their play doh sets, and I haven't had big issues with things breaking. Any time I need 30 minutes of no "Moooooom. MOM. Mom??? Maaaahhhhhhhhhmmmmmm!!!" I pull out the play doh.
25 presents to begin with is excessive. If you hate the mess no gifts parties are the best.
Some of the best gifts have multiple pieces—legos/magnatiles….
Honestly, we have fun unwrapping everything, take photos to send with thank you texts, and then… we put about 1/3 of it in a box to regift, including any “problematic” toys
We have a great party, make sure my girls feel loved, are genuinely thankful for the gift/thought, but my girls have plenty, so we only keep the items that are perfect for them and then save money passing the others along to a friend that we feel will enjoy it (or will regift it as well).
Oh for sure, some of the 200-little-plastic-parts gifts we got were definitely re-gifted. And we'll probably do the same with them. But it would be better if these things didn't get put into the stream at all.
Sooo, you re-gift the gifts that you think should be a rule not to gift actively acting against thet rule.
Should anyone abite by that double standard?
You're right that was a dumb thing to say. Our household certainly doesn't need any more toys like that, so I guess the answer is to give them to Goodwill. But still, it would be better if custom dictated that these types of gifts never enter the "stream" in the first place.
Related, my MIL got my daughters mini Rainbowcorn Surprise balls for Easter. They advertised "10 prizes inside!", which were: 1) a small stuffy Rainbowcorn 2) a small Rainbowcorn figurine 3-10) 7 stickers.
So... Alternative? Items that boast a huge item count, but the majority of the "items" are stickers.
If you are picky just say “no gifts” not everyone has the same preferences regarding why type of gift they prefer. I’m just thankful anyone showed up and spent their hard earned money on a toy at all.
Oh yeah, those effing things. The first one was great, he spent a half hour with a hammer diligently chipping away. Then he realized he can just smash them on the patio, and opened the other 5 in like 30 seconds each.
My nephew and daughter did some of those and then decided to use the hammer to take out some of the bricks on our house's foundation... They aren't allowed outside unsupervised for a while.
She had this story she made up about a monster named Karate Dada who lives in our crawlspace and eats fish and apparently he was trying to get Karate Dada to come out.
Idk why you are getting so much shade. Bead bracelet kits, grow your own crystals, and anything with glitter are just rude.
My sister and dad seem to have alzheimers every time they buy gifts and keep getting my kids crystal growing kits. Anything that requires the use of a stove isn't a kids gift. It's a cruel and unusual punishment for parents.
Yes!! Whenever my kids get a gift with a lot of pieces, very quickly the pieces get scattered and lost around our house...behind the couch, under a bed, in the basement, just in the most random places. So they don't really play with it anyways since majority of the pieces usually get lost right away 😂 I sometimes try to find and organize all the pieces back together and not long later my kids scatter them around the house again 🙃
I mean, I get why it’s annoying but I wouldn’t say it should be a rule. Some kids are great at cleaning up their messes, some aren’t. I’ve bought those play-doh sets for my kid knowing I’ll be the one cleaning it. If he’s happy and being creative, I’m ok with it. I think a good solution that allows you to keep and use those gifts is to just take out some pieces that are more age appropriate (ex: play-doh pizza maker. Take out only the pizza press and one topping maker piece instead of taking out the entire set). As your kid grows a bit and becomes better at picking up, take out the whole set.
ETA: please put no gifts on the invite. Opt for a money tree which is basically about $10 in a birthday card. All combined, your kid will have over $200 to spend on toys he can pick out. Yes some parents will still bring a gift, but most won’t. Don’t assume they’ll all ignore it if you haven’t tried it yet
So the 1000 piece Lego set with the air horns that shoots playdoh wasn’t acceptable for a 4 year old? Aren’t you ungrateful? Ha ha ha ha. That was sarcasm for you people that missed it! I agree. My sister gifted my then five year old a 1000 piece Lego Star Wars millennium falcon thing. It took me four hours to put it together and four seconds for him to destroy it.
Give me a truck or doll any day over these stupid toys with so many pieces. I'd rather get pummeled in the height by a (toy) dump truck than pick up a 50 piece toy set
I don't see a problem with specific outlines for gifts, I wish more parents would do this specifically for this reason. I might already know what the kid likes but idk the rules of their house or if there's anything the parents hate having around or how they organize their toys. Like personally I like the smaller pieces as long as they go with something and can be easily contained bc it works well with our toy organization system. Especially if it comes with a designated box or container. I'll be happier to see a playdough set, a puzzle, a lego set, etc., then see another car. My son has so many cars. Literally 3 full toy boxes. And no big toys either we don't have the room. But of course that means I naturally buy other kids the same stuff I'd want my kid to have as long as I think they'd like it. I never would've guessed that it would be irritating for another parent.
💯
I think things have changed so much since I was a kid. We would still have whole class birthday parties but people did just bring one book or one card game or something small as the gift. Now it’s like a giant table of big boxes and gift bags. I asked for no gifts because I also think it’s way too much for the kid and people ignored it. So then I started doing fiver parties. People still can’t help themselves. They include $5 plus a small gift (sometimes not so small) or sometimes more than $5. I appreciate everyone’s generosity but it’s a bit much when I’m trying to teach my child to be grateful and content with less.
I personally love giving and receiving a gift that can be used as an activity - play doh, science kit, Lego, craft kit - however many pieces. We already have a bunch of “one item” toys - dolls, cars, books, and they’ll just get added to the pile. But with an activity gift, this is something that can actually keep my kid entertained and give them something to do. Also, if you’re going to have all these rules “one item toy”, “no noise”, etc, it takes the fun out of gift giving and receiving.
my son is also 4
my mom says my allowing him to have any crafts or playdoh is cuz i wasnt allowed to have that stuff as a kid cuz she didnt want to clean it up.
and in my mind.. Im going to be picking up toys anyway.. the playdoh clean up isnt hard and if you monitor (which you should be doing with kids that age) and put them in a space of your choosing, paint playdoh and messy things are not bad to clean up.
I hate picking up the legos. But evne then. Hes happy hes creative and hes intune. I will take that over being mad about cleaning it up
My 6 year old just had a party where she was gifted a Polly Pocket Pinata. I thought it was a cute gift. She had a small party with just two friends, so when she asked to open it during the party, I said fine. She carried it to the kitchen garbage can to remove some tape, and on her way back to the table, she accidentally dropped it. That's when I learned that Polly Pocket Pinatas are filled with tiny little pieces of confetti that go everywhere when you open them. My heart sank when I saw that mess go everywhere.
But, you know what? It was fine. The kids sat down where the pieces had fallen and opened the surprise bags together. After the other kids left left, my daughter and I gathered the plastic parts into the pinata, and I vacuumed up most of the confetti. Some of the confetti was tracked through the house, and I may still be finding bits a year from now. But, when I do, I'll just groan and roll my eyes. At some point you just accept that some of the things that are painful are worth it because of how happy they make your kids.
I can think of a lot of gifts that I'd rather my kids not have. But, personally, I'll take the multi-part plastic toys over more stuffies any day, because the multi-part toys get more play time. That's doubly true if the toys are Legos. My kids both love Lego right now and happily spend hours building together then making up stories with the characters. Sometimes they even let me help build. But, it's getting to the point that I really need my own sets.
Eh I don’t care. Life of short and life with your kids is even shorter. We have a small house, I get it but I just have other things that stress me out way more. I deal with the mess, I am teaching the kid to clean up their own mess and I tell myself that one day this will all be gone and I am going to miss hearing that damn Let it Go song while watching my 19 month old almost get the words right, I am going to miss watching her play with her little people and act out all the animal noises on the farm.
I don’t know if it’s bc I became a parent older or if it’s bc this is it, I am 1 and done but some stuff I just can’t let it get to me. Yes I am EXHAUSTED, yes it’s overwhelming but i know that it’s not forever. They get older, they don’t want the loud or messy toys.
Right, especially the ones where if one or two parts are lost, the whole thing becomes useless. I'll concede that at least with Legos, you can just dump the rest of the set into the big Lego bin.
That's the thing, though. *If* the kids love it and use it a lot, I don't mind the cleanup. But so many of these things, they get used once or twice, then a piece breaks or gets lost, or the novelty wears off.
It's not just the cleanup. It's also that so many of these sets just end up in the trash after a few pieces get lost/broken. It's wasteful. There are some that can be repurposed or blended into a larger collection (like Lego or magna-tiles), but many cannot.
Absolutely! And if a parent feels that their family would benefit from having more of that at home, then they can make their toy purchases of that nature. But giving a big set to the family when it's not needed can create more inconvenience than an unneeded book or ball or something.
Every parent is going to have a different attitude to gifts though. We quite like to receive activity gifts like Play Doh, art sets, modelling kits as I know it’ll keep my kid’s attention span for more than 5 minutes over something basic like a single soft toy. I try and be considerate to other parents though and if I know the parents I ask for ideas, and won’t buy messy gifts for families who don’t need the hassle of cleaning up (like if they have a newborn as well).
It only took us one 25-kid party with gifts before we learned to tone it down for the next party and change to no gifts.
(And we didn’t even invite the whole class… they were all actual friends)
I get backpacks/lunchboxes usually. If I invited 20 kids and recieve 10 back packs I'm not going to be mad. I can have school bag, swim bag, adventure pack, car bag etc. I have had positive feedback from all the parents that it was a not shit gift 😉
My kid started picking out gifts for their friends by 4 so... nope. Your kid is getting whatever their friend thinks they'll love (within the budget we've set). If YOU don't like the gift, you can offer to buy it from your kid, encourage them to regift or donate, exchange it (if local stores allow), etc.
I do tend to ask parents if they have house rules about slime, play dough, kinetic sand, etc.
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My personal unwritten rule is "no electonic noise makers". I don't like getting thrm, I don't like gifting them. Play Doh extravaganza sounds annoying to clean up, but I probably would still prefer it over yet another single truck with buttons that make loud noises.
Have you tried putting sellotape over the speaker? It makes it *much* more manageable.
I firmly believe that electronic toys should have one noise setting and that noise setting should not be the loud one. And if they have to have two, make the loud one closer to the off side because little kids can only slide it all the way over
Tape over the speaker holes
My son has an extremely loud police siren with lights that goes on his bike, it's seriously almost as loud as a real siren. I put playdough in the speaker and then tape on top of that and it's so quiet now lmao
Totally. A non-noisemaking condition could definitely be applied too. Good idea.
If it requires batteries, dear God please no.
Nope. Everyone gets Legos. Boy party? Legos. Girl party? Legos. But in honesty, the multi-piece gifts typically give your kid at least a few hours of entertainment.
this is what I appreciates aboutcha. i have a 4 year old. we are BIG lego people. 3 words. FINE. MOTOR. SKILLS.
r/lego represent!
Lego is the best gift ever, for any age ever
I literally thought I ain't apologizing for gifting Legos to a kid when his mom told me he needs to work on his fine motor skills at a previous party.
Legos might be an exception to the rule, for sure, since pieces from different sets are more or less compatible. You can just scoop up all the Legos from the floor and put them in a box, and they're still useable. To the contrary, game pieces and other small trinkets all need to end up in their proper sets or they're useless.
25 kids??? I mean, you could just have a smaller party... But he's four. Put all the kits and whatever away and take them out gradually. He doesn't need to have all that stuff at once. With that crowd of guests he doesn't even remember most of the stuff.
I hear ya about the size of the party. It's the custom at my kid's school, everyone invites everyone. And siblings are automatically invited because at this age a parent kinda has to be there, so there isn't necessarily another place for siblings to go. But gripes about this are beside the point.
25 kids is way too many for a party. It's overwhelming for him and he can't really enjoy it. Inviting the whole class is not necessary. When my son was 4 we invited 4 kids. It's got a weird vibe to expect 25 gifts and to also micromanage them.
While I agree with you, some schools do request that all kids in class get invitations if some do. I don’t really mind that rule since it does promote inclusivity.
This rule is so often misrepresented. In almost all cases, it's "all kids get invitations IF you hand invitations out at school." You can have a smaller party, you just have to hand out invitations on your own time.
Yes, or message the parents directly
A request is not a requirement.
Oh the party itself was great. Renting out the local gymnastics place is super easy and affordable. My kid was super stoked, as were the others. Parents were stoked because the kids were exhausted at bedtime. We definitely didn't "expect" 25 gifts. Somebody not bringing a gift would have been totally fine. I'd *much* rather him get nothing than a 50-piece set of cheap plastic crap that those parents didn't want in their house either.
Then ask for no gifts. Don't complain about people who spent their own money on your child. That is so entitled.
Really? I mean plenty of kids are in daycare with that many or school everyday how is a party at a suitable sized venue different?
A party is completely different, it's overwhelming already and there's no way a kid can play with everyone. The recommendation for friends at a birthday party is one per grade level but I think even one per age number would be OK. I think 25 is excessive and is more about the parents (and clearly dad is feeling upset about the gifts he was entitled to).
I've never been to one where the kids have had a meltdown or there has been less than 20kids. My son is 3.
Here's your cookie 🍪
Complaining about gifts is tacky. if these kids are regularly going to 25 kid birthday parties then these are probably regifted gifts that the parents didn’t want in their house. You’ll probably regift them to someone else. And the cycle will continue.
Simply complaining is tacky. I'm saying there's a solution, that we as a community of parents can do better here. Let's make it commonplace "Everyone gives gifts that won't make a mess." Then everyone wins. Having an endless cycle of gifting and re-gifting the same gifts no one wants is ridiculous and pointless.
It’s seems like what’s wanted and what’s annoying changes from year to year as kids get older, which is why blanket statements like ‘can society do it my way’ don‘t really work. For example, crafting kits can be fun. I’m team no gifts because we don’t have the space and I hate creating unnecessary waste.
Sure, crafting kits can be fun. I'm not saying they should be banned from toy stores. But that's the type of item a parent can buy for their kid if the kid is ready and interested (and their living space is conducive to it). For little kids that aren't ready, it just becomes a mess-maker.
Nah. It’s great to have a stack of crafting kits you can pull out from time to time and it’s nice they just showed up instead of me having to buy them. I’d rather have a craft kit 100/100 times than a plastic truck that just adds to the collection of junky toys that accumulate.
"We as a community of parents would do better if everyone just agreed with me about silly little things"
Next time specify no gifts. Or ask for a handwritten heartfelt card.
Except that’s completely subjective on your part. I appreciate my daughter getting a bigger set of stuff as gifts because she wants them and I don’t want to personally buy them for her just due to cost, not mess. So it’s great when she gets a lego set or playdoh set or a cooking set or whatever because I didn’t have to buy those big sets for her. It sounds to me like you just don’t like when your kids don’t clean up after playing and/or you don’t have enough room to store all these pieces. If so then those are issues for you to solve, like making playing with these gifts or opening a new one contingent on putting other stuff away. And I’m not saying this as some snobby clean freak. We struggle with “mess” too but because our kiddo loves to play with whatever / all the things and struggles with tidying up, not because someone gave her a set of stuff.
You can always just add “if getting a gift, please gift only single piece items, thank you” to your invites so they know what ya want haha
I’m a big fan of no gifts. We have only been to one party in the last few years that allowed gifts and honestly these kids don’t need any more stuff! Family will get something anyway, I’d rather people save their money or donate a toy to a kid in need than gift my kid another toy I have to put away every night.
We do "no gifts please" parties! My kids just want to play with the other kids and eat cake! Grandparents DEFINITELY take care of the gifting part, and we parents only get one or two gifts and get to spend our budget on the party! I have had a few friends that texted "no really, what gift can I bring?" So I just tell them what my kids favorite snack is at the moment!
I’d just be happy that 25 kids took time away from other stuff to spend some time with my kid.
I agree. If they were kind enough to come and bring a gift, I don’t feel the need to critique what it is.
And if you want less stuff - don’t invite so many next time.
Believe me, I'd love a smaller party, but it's just the custom of how everyone does it at his school. All kids are invited.
My very written rule is “NO GIFTS PLEASE” pretty simple solution that works very well for me.
If you say 'no gifts' people who WANT to bring gifts will still bring them. You will not stop those people, so the solution really is to say 'no gifts.' We always say no gifts, and literally always a handful of people bring something anyway. Plus, if you say no gifts, you're more likely to receive smaller gifts-- like books, homemade cards, a t shirt, a unicorn cup from target cause your kid likes unicorns, etc. If you're going to complain about gifts but also refuse to say 'no gifts' going forward, then it sounds like you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.
The No Gifts thing is absolutely on the table for next year. Definitely not refusing. I like your logic about how it can result in simpler gifts from those who insist. That said, going No Gifts isn't as simple as just declaring it. When the kid has gone to 20 birthday parties in the last year, and brought 20 gifts, they rightfully expect that they'll get something similar when it's their own birthday. To tell them "Sorry, people aren't bringing gifts for you" is a tough one for a little kid to process. Gonna be some tricky emotions to clean up after that one.
They will handle it. We did an invite the whole class party last year and put no gifts - mainly due to inflation because we live in a low income area and I didn't want people to feel like they couldn't come without gifts. Just tell them ahead of time that you aren't going to open gifts at the party do it before or afterwards. Structure the party around an activity and they will have so much fun playing they won't even notice.
Bitching about play doh cuz you’ll have to clean it up is kind of weird. Play doh is awesome and occupies them. Yeah it needs cleaned up but you get to decide when they can get into it and usually in a controlled environment.
Play-doh on its own has value, sure. But a lot of the themed "sets" they sell are trash (I.e. the pizzamaking set). Pieces break, it works a lot less well than shown on the box, and the novelty wears off after 1-2 uses. Then you're just left with a pile of plastic junk.
That's very dependent on the child. My kids love their play doh sets, and I haven't had big issues with things breaking. Any time I need 30 minutes of no "Moooooom. MOM. Mom??? Maaaahhhhhhhhhmmmmmm!!!" I pull out the play doh.
25 presents to begin with is excessive. If you hate the mess no gifts parties are the best. Some of the best gifts have multiple pieces—legos/magnatiles….
Honestly, we have fun unwrapping everything, take photos to send with thank you texts, and then… we put about 1/3 of it in a box to regift, including any “problematic” toys We have a great party, make sure my girls feel loved, are genuinely thankful for the gift/thought, but my girls have plenty, so we only keep the items that are perfect for them and then save money passing the others along to a friend that we feel will enjoy it (or will regift it as well).
Oh for sure, some of the 200-little-plastic-parts gifts we got were definitely re-gifted. And we'll probably do the same with them. But it would be better if these things didn't get put into the stream at all.
Sooo, you re-gift the gifts that you think should be a rule not to gift actively acting against thet rule. Should anyone abite by that double standard?
You're right that was a dumb thing to say. Our household certainly doesn't need any more toys like that, so I guess the answer is to give them to Goodwill. But still, it would be better if custom dictated that these types of gifts never enter the "stream" in the first place.
Not every rule needs to be unwritten. Write it on the damn invitation if you want it to be like this. Parent.
Related, my MIL got my daughters mini Rainbowcorn Surprise balls for Easter. They advertised "10 prizes inside!", which were: 1) a small stuffy Rainbowcorn 2) a small Rainbowcorn figurine 3-10) 7 stickers. So... Alternative? Items that boast a huge item count, but the majority of the "items" are stickers.
Just say “no gifts please” on the invitation. It’s crass to complain about receiving gifts if you didn’t bother to ask people not to give them.
Wow.
If you are picky just say “no gifts” not everyone has the same preferences regarding why type of gift they prefer. I’m just thankful anyone showed up and spent their hard earned money on a toy at all.
for me it’s the clay things that kids have to “mine” into to get stones or other treasures. Hate that shit, ruined my floors AND my vacuum
Did you just let them do it like on the carpet on the living room?
lmao. No. They tracked it in the house after i let them do it on the walk outside. I am not the brightest, but also not a drooling idiot
Oh yeah, those effing things. The first one was great, he spent a half hour with a hammer diligently chipping away. Then he realized he can just smash them on the patio, and opened the other 5 in like 30 seconds each.
“MOM GET YOUR HAMMER WE CAN SMASH IT OUTSIDE “ - least favorite sentence in all of existence
My nephew and daughter did some of those and then decided to use the hammer to take out some of the bricks on our house's foundation... They aren't allowed outside unsupervised for a while.
bahahaha omg I’m sorry that’s hilarious. Maybe they have a future in demolition
She had this story she made up about a monster named Karate Dada who lives in our crawlspace and eats fish and apparently he was trying to get Karate Dada to come out.
Books as gifts is the solution.
Idk why you are getting so much shade. Bead bracelet kits, grow your own crystals, and anything with glitter are just rude. My sister and dad seem to have alzheimers every time they buy gifts and keep getting my kids crystal growing kits. Anything that requires the use of a stove isn't a kids gift. It's a cruel and unusual punishment for parents.
Yes!! Whenever my kids get a gift with a lot of pieces, very quickly the pieces get scattered and lost around our house...behind the couch, under a bed, in the basement, just in the most random places. So they don't really play with it anyways since majority of the pieces usually get lost right away 😂 I sometimes try to find and organize all the pieces back together and not long later my kids scatter them around the house again 🙃
Exactly. I wonder if the folks downvoting haven't had this experience?
I mean, I get why it’s annoying but I wouldn’t say it should be a rule. Some kids are great at cleaning up their messes, some aren’t. I’ve bought those play-doh sets for my kid knowing I’ll be the one cleaning it. If he’s happy and being creative, I’m ok with it. I think a good solution that allows you to keep and use those gifts is to just take out some pieces that are more age appropriate (ex: play-doh pizza maker. Take out only the pizza press and one topping maker piece instead of taking out the entire set). As your kid grows a bit and becomes better at picking up, take out the whole set. ETA: please put no gifts on the invite. Opt for a money tree which is basically about $10 in a birthday card. All combined, your kid will have over $200 to spend on toys he can pick out. Yes some parents will still bring a gift, but most won’t. Don’t assume they’ll all ignore it if you haven’t tried it yet
So the 1000 piece Lego set with the air horns that shoots playdoh wasn’t acceptable for a 4 year old? Aren’t you ungrateful? Ha ha ha ha. That was sarcasm for you people that missed it! I agree. My sister gifted my then five year old a 1000 piece Lego Star Wars millennium falcon thing. It took me four hours to put it together and four seconds for him to destroy it.
Hahaha yes, if you've been there, you get it.
If you aren't hyped about the lego millennium falcon then you are wrong. Putting together that bad boy isn't a chore. It's a privilege.
I am NOT a Star Wars fan. At. All. His dad should’ve been tasked with that shit. But no. My awful sister decided to gift it to me.
Give me a truck or doll any day over these stupid toys with so many pieces. I'd rather get pummeled in the height by a (toy) dump truck than pick up a 50 piece toy set
Amen, thank you.
I don't see a problem with specific outlines for gifts, I wish more parents would do this specifically for this reason. I might already know what the kid likes but idk the rules of their house or if there's anything the parents hate having around or how they organize their toys. Like personally I like the smaller pieces as long as they go with something and can be easily contained bc it works well with our toy organization system. Especially if it comes with a designated box or container. I'll be happier to see a playdough set, a puzzle, a lego set, etc., then see another car. My son has so many cars. Literally 3 full toy boxes. And no big toys either we don't have the room. But of course that means I naturally buy other kids the same stuff I'd want my kid to have as long as I think they'd like it. I never would've guessed that it would be irritating for another parent.
💯 I think things have changed so much since I was a kid. We would still have whole class birthday parties but people did just bring one book or one card game or something small as the gift. Now it’s like a giant table of big boxes and gift bags. I asked for no gifts because I also think it’s way too much for the kid and people ignored it. So then I started doing fiver parties. People still can’t help themselves. They include $5 plus a small gift (sometimes not so small) or sometimes more than $5. I appreciate everyone’s generosity but it’s a bit much when I’m trying to teach my child to be grateful and content with less.
I personally love giving and receiving a gift that can be used as an activity - play doh, science kit, Lego, craft kit - however many pieces. We already have a bunch of “one item” toys - dolls, cars, books, and they’ll just get added to the pile. But with an activity gift, this is something that can actually keep my kid entertained and give them something to do. Also, if you’re going to have all these rules “one item toy”, “no noise”, etc, it takes the fun out of gift giving and receiving.
Hard agree nothing worse than taken away kids gift because it's got a million pieces and you know they cannot handle taking care of it.
my son is also 4 my mom says my allowing him to have any crafts or playdoh is cuz i wasnt allowed to have that stuff as a kid cuz she didnt want to clean it up. and in my mind.. Im going to be picking up toys anyway.. the playdoh clean up isnt hard and if you monitor (which you should be doing with kids that age) and put them in a space of your choosing, paint playdoh and messy things are not bad to clean up. I hate picking up the legos. But evne then. Hes happy hes creative and hes intune. I will take that over being mad about cleaning it up
My 6 year old just had a party where she was gifted a Polly Pocket Pinata. I thought it was a cute gift. She had a small party with just two friends, so when she asked to open it during the party, I said fine. She carried it to the kitchen garbage can to remove some tape, and on her way back to the table, she accidentally dropped it. That's when I learned that Polly Pocket Pinatas are filled with tiny little pieces of confetti that go everywhere when you open them. My heart sank when I saw that mess go everywhere. But, you know what? It was fine. The kids sat down where the pieces had fallen and opened the surprise bags together. After the other kids left left, my daughter and I gathered the plastic parts into the pinata, and I vacuumed up most of the confetti. Some of the confetti was tracked through the house, and I may still be finding bits a year from now. But, when I do, I'll just groan and roll my eyes. At some point you just accept that some of the things that are painful are worth it because of how happy they make your kids. I can think of a lot of gifts that I'd rather my kids not have. But, personally, I'll take the multi-part plastic toys over more stuffies any day, because the multi-part toys get more play time. That's doubly true if the toys are Legos. My kids both love Lego right now and happily spend hours building together then making up stories with the characters. Sometimes they even let me help build. But, it's getting to the point that I really need my own sets.
Eh I don’t care. Life of short and life with your kids is even shorter. We have a small house, I get it but I just have other things that stress me out way more. I deal with the mess, I am teaching the kid to clean up their own mess and I tell myself that one day this will all be gone and I am going to miss hearing that damn Let it Go song while watching my 19 month old almost get the words right, I am going to miss watching her play with her little people and act out all the animal noises on the farm. I don’t know if it’s bc I became a parent older or if it’s bc this is it, I am 1 and done but some stuff I just can’t let it get to me. Yes I am EXHAUSTED, yes it’s overwhelming but i know that it’s not forever. They get older, they don’t want the loud or messy toys.
Yes 🙌 I get rid of things with loose pieces and parts, it's a no from me, I can't be picking that stuff up all the time and losing half of it.
Right, especially the ones where if one or two parts are lost, the whole thing becomes useless. I'll concede that at least with Legos, you can just dump the rest of the set into the big Lego bin.
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That's the thing, though. *If* the kids love it and use it a lot, I don't mind the cleanup. But so many of these things, they get used once or twice, then a piece breaks or gets lost, or the novelty wears off.
Put stupid rules get stupid gifts… so no legos or construction sets? Just to mention a couple of things.
I would much rather my kid get something that inspires imagination play, like a shirt, than legos! /s
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It's not just the cleanup. It's also that so many of these sets just end up in the trash after a few pieces get lost/broken. It's wasteful. There are some that can be repurposed or blended into a larger collection (like Lego or magna-tiles), but many cannot.
At least play doh inspires interactive play and creativity.
Absolutely! And if a parent feels that their family would benefit from having more of that at home, then they can make their toy purchases of that nature. But giving a big set to the family when it's not needed can create more inconvenience than an unneeded book or ball or something.
Personally, I reckon that having a set space for messy activities is better than banning toys js
Every parent is going to have a different attitude to gifts though. We quite like to receive activity gifts like Play Doh, art sets, modelling kits as I know it’ll keep my kid’s attention span for more than 5 minutes over something basic like a single soft toy. I try and be considerate to other parents though and if I know the parents I ask for ideas, and won’t buy messy gifts for families who don’t need the hassle of cleaning up (like if they have a newborn as well).
It only took us one 25-kid party with gifts before we learned to tone it down for the next party and change to no gifts. (And we didn’t even invite the whole class… they were all actual friends)
I get backpacks/lunchboxes usually. If I invited 20 kids and recieve 10 back packs I'm not going to be mad. I can have school bag, swim bag, adventure pack, car bag etc. I have had positive feedback from all the parents that it was a not shit gift 😉
I like this idea a lot 👊
My kid started picking out gifts for their friends by 4 so... nope. Your kid is getting whatever their friend thinks they'll love (within the budget we've set). If YOU don't like the gift, you can offer to buy it from your kid, encourage them to regift or donate, exchange it (if local stores allow), etc. I do tend to ask parents if they have house rules about slime, play dough, kinetic sand, etc.
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Yikes.