to want my DC to only have wooden toys? (Or is this a case of PFB Syndrome?)

[LovestoLove]

I don't think I'm generally PFB - I want my child to respect adults, eat with no fussing/faddiness (or at least no reaction on my part), have no quibbles about the step, won't give copious amounts of juice/biscuits, won't give into tantrums, etc.

But I really have a thing about the bucket loads of plastic toys that I fall over when at friends' homes.

I love wooden toys/puzzles, books, cloth dolls, make-believe things, fancy dress, etc.

Is it totally unreasonable of me to ask parents, in-laws, and anyone else who's expressed interest in getting a baby gift to get something wooden/natural? I know wooden toys are generally seen as more expensive but I've found some on Ebay and other sites that aren't bad.

Or am I going to be seen as crazy? I'm 30 weeks pregnant by the way with DC1.

YANBU. I'm the same. DS is nearly 15 months and there's no plastic in the house. That's what playgroups are for. We told friends/family we prefer wooden toys - they've happily obliged. We just don't have a lot of toys.

DS loves all his wooden toys but will make exceptions for things like Duplo.

Plastic toys are rubbish and can't stand things with batteries either. Call me old fashioned......

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

I am afraid you are being a tad unreasonable. This is an opinion highly coloured by the fact that I have had to ask people not to give my twins wooden toys, because they hit each other with them! (And yes, I tell them not to hit each other, but at this point, it's almost always unintentional!) I blame you and your ilk for my children's tears!!!!!

Personally, I think noisy plastic musical things are great. I've loved watching as they gradually learn how Mummy and Daddy make them play. One of the BEST, BEST, BEST moments of parenting so far, was when my boys got a Vtech bus for their first birthday, and DS1 started dancing to the tunes. Now he dances to any music (and it is so, so, so lovely), but it was that bus that started him off. Why that, and not our CDs, etc, I don't know, but it was.

Don't risk depriving yourself of moments like that, please.

I think a mixture...

my 2 have got a lovely little wooden kitchen which is in our kitchen and gets played with every day, it is much nicer than a plastic one and looks nice and withstands a lot of wear and tear...

we do have plastic stuff too which they also love (have a little tykes playhouse which we got off Ebay and is adored also have all the usual baby buggy, plastic dolls, happy land etc )....

our "plastic tat" is boxed up at the end of the night and sits in the corner of the living room and isn't hurting anyone

I think you are being a little PFB

DS is the same, dances to his electronic musical toys, but not to a CD! It's amazing seeing him dance as well, I'd choose that over lovely wooden toys any day.

I think Wooden toys are lovely, but I always have the thought in the back of my mind that plastic toys will hurt a hell of a lot less when I'm being hit over the head by them.

Plus a thrown duplo block is less likely to damage the TV when thrown across the room.

Ok the above sounds like I'm obsessed with my TV, but my niece recently started throwing things and she managed to break my BIL's new flat screen. So it's kind of in the back of my mind at the moment. [hblush]

We have a wooden dolls house, wicker pram, wooden dolls bed, would have a wooden kitchen as they are so cute, but ours is in the garden wendy house where wooden ones get v manky, so have a plastic hose-downable one instead. Plastic dolls are so much better than rag dolls as you can put them in the bath and paddling pool, which children love to do. Older children (esp girls) often love playing with toys with teeny tiny accessories (polly pocket, littlest pet shop, tiny plastic dogs and kittens, little carry around houses, sylvanians etc) and you don't get those carved out of wood. I was such a style fascist - I bought a wonderful Noah's ark all in wood with wooden animals. Beautiful! Never played with of course, and broke just the same as a plastic toy.

It's a mixture for us, but he has more plastic than wooden.

He likes things that move, make a noise and play music. I think he'd find playing with nothing but wooden toys dull and boring.

Hermya321 Yeah, babies and toddlers do seem to take quite an interest in TV screens, don't they? Your poor BIL!

The things about plastic, basically, is that it isn't just popular because it's cheaper than wood. And us plastic-buying parents aren't necessarily chavs with no sense of aesthetics.

Yet another thing about plastic is that one's uncoordinated young baby doesn't catch and mash his/her own thumb as painfully between pieces, when poking them together.

I don't get why people are laughing at the bit where op says she won't give in to tantrums- she might not- especially if she's had experience with children already. Some mums are very firm and that's a good thing.

Re: Wooden toys- they do some lovely ones in Ikea, very reasonably priced. I live the kitchen and I always struggle to get y DS, 2yrs to come away when he sees it.

We have a plastic kitchen at home and it is shit in comparison.

I do have a good mixture of toys but don't have loads because I have a small house. If people ask what to buy (and most people will) then I specify books usually.

It's not unreasonable to state your preference if people ask but I would usually say books because then people can choose their own price range.

OP, there's nothing wrong with your sentiments. You start with ideals and compromise those ideals as and when you have to.

FWIW my DS 16mo has some wooden toys and plays with them probably as much as his plastic ones. But the stacking tower has made marks on our brand new white skirting boards because, as a PP said, the paint comes off.

Some of the traditional favourites are plastic though. As soon as DS started walking I bought him a toy broom, which he absolutely loves, I could only find it in plastic.

Agree with you about pink toys though. Fortunately there isn't (yet) a craze for blue toys for boys. Perhaps if you have a girl and don't dress her like a marshmallow people will see you don't go in for all that pink for girls nonsense.

Last week I bought a battery-operated, talking bulldozer based on a Bob the Builder character. It was only £2 from an NCT nearly new sale. The only reason I bought it was because the name on the box made me laugh; it was called Learn to Talk Muck .

"It actually comes across that you think you are a better parent by giving in to your child's tantrums and the advertisements that convince you that your child NEEDS this plastic tat. Im not saying this is wrong but it doesn't make you a better parent because of it! "

Never really gave into tantrums, although I am a pick your battles and take each day as it comes parents.

I get constantly told my DCs are lovely from neutral people (ie not relatives) even though they are now teenagers

"He likes things that move, make a noise and play music. I think he'd find playing with nothing but wooden toys dull and boring."

You know you can get wooden toys that move and make noises and music etc don't you? Do some of you have the impression that wooden toys are restricted to an abacus and some neutral building blocks or something?

Try googling Plan toys, I'm Toy and Haba toys if you want to see the types of things that are available and that's only a small selection!

Wooden toys are not so good while your child is teething - chunky plastic bits and bobs are preferable at the stage of putting things in their mouths.

Besides, your wooden toys will be so decorative that you will be able to display them on the shelves in your DC's room. They might want to get them down occasionally to play with them, having stared at them from the cot for so long. Either way, win-win.

You will be given plastic toys, you can't escape that, but as other posters have pointed out, the value lies in the fun factor for your child, not in the toy's appearance. And like the rest of us, you will want to see a happy interested face more than anything, so you will concede to plastic at some point. The trick is to quietly remove the ones your child isn't so keen on - hide them, swop them for something else, keep them at GPs for a toy-stash when visiting, give them to charity shops. Then at least you can control the volume of stuff.

I've always preferred wooden toys myself, but I didn't want to impose that on my DS. Besides, we got so many pre-used toys passed on to us that we hardly needed to buy any ourselves. So I could indulge myself with a few old-fashioned wooden toys which I thought appealed more to me than DS. Fortunately he does like them too [hgrin]

Congratulations on your pregnancy, hope all goes well (and look forward to deluge of soft toys that your baby will inevitably receive!)

Also, DS doesn't just play with wooden toys. He plays with his model cars, books, puzzles, board games etc ANC his lego

The problem with wooden toys is that they tend to be more expensive (cheap wooden toys are often tat tbh). Which makes it difficult to dictate to others that this is what they have to buy your dc. And expecting other people to spend hours trawling through Ebay to find the perfect toy for your dc is also a little unrealistic.

Not to mention the fact that some plastic toys are extremely well made and last a long time (I still have my plastic farmyard animals- beautifully made and some of them must be 45 years old by now).

haven't read whole thread, but just in case this hasn't been said, the trouble with wooden toys is that the kids can do more damage when they bash each other with them.

Just back from A&E again with middle child, and it occurs to me that none of our emergency X-ray-and-stitching visits can be put down to plastic toys.

Falling onto wooden fort -- six stitches
Falling off climbing frame -- one broken arm, one broken leg
Cricket bat -- concussion and stitches
Falling off a log (yes, literally) -- broken wrist

Some days it's enough to make you want to fill the world with plastic. Possibly bubble wrap.

cory, I know they are more expensive and I don't expect other people to buy them - although some do. That doesn't mean that the only alternative is plastic though. There are games and books etc that they can buy instead that can suit any budget.

Try here - sorry it's French - used to live round the corner from one of their branches when the children were babies in Paris. Otherwise I agree with everything piscesmoon says (as usual!) In fact I find your original post so laughable that I strongly suspect you are a troll.

The problem with books is that there is a lot of tat in this department too. Lots of good children's books, of course, but on the whole, they tend to be more expensive. And imho (speaking as a book lover and academic), you can get more value out of a plastic dinosaur than out of a badly written, bottom of the range, cheapo children's book.

Games are no better than plastic toys when it comes to filling the house with tat imho

Some really wise and thoughtful posts on here.

The thing is, if something is really, really important to you, then chances are you will stick with it. There's a tiny handful of posters on here who have said they've successfully shunned plastic, so it can be done.

It's just that your ideals before and after having a baby/toddler/teen can be quite different. :)

For example, I was militantly anti-dummy pre PBF. That went out the window 6 fairly traumatic weeks of non-stop crying and no sleeping later.

As kong as you make your decisions for the right reasons, that's all that really matters. And as long as you don't beat yourself up too much when you realise the theory and the practice of parenting differ widely.

We have quite a few plastic toys. I think what counts is that when our children have finished with them there is still value there and we can sell/give them rather then bin them.

As an aside - I never thought I'd get used to the electronic ones with their slogans and tunes. Now I find myself singing along to them at times! Eeek! Let's sing the alphabet song!!

Cory, that's what amazon wishlists are for. :) There are also plenty of options for younger children. Our younger DS had a lovely wooden baby gym, wooden teething toys and rattles pushalong wooden toys.Now, at 18 months, he loves his wooden blocks, stacking toys, puzzles and shape sorters. These were not ridiculously expensive and most of the mainstream toy shops will have versions of them.

DS1 has some lovely jigsaws and traditional board games like snakes and ladders, Ludo etc which again, don't involve masses of plastic tat. If you choose to buy those type of board games then fair enough but there are plenty of options out there that don't involve plastic. Honestly, it is not that hard to avoid! We have looooooaaaaads of toys and no tat. :) It is possible OP! just because some people disagree with you and/or didn't manage to stick to their original ideals, it doesn't mean that you can't or are being in any way unreasonable. :)

I admire your aim OP, it's not impossible or unreasonable.

I'd say DD (nearly 2) has 70% wooden/natural materials toys.

The plastic ones consist of Fisher Price Little People (my old set from the 70s!), a doll's pram, doll's sledge, sandpit, bucket&spade, garden slide and a tea set.

I suppose I've bought the Montessori line of natural materials being preferable, and they're definitely easier on my eye.

Her favourites include a bike, a wheely bug, ancient little wooden rocking horse, Post Office, wood house shape sorter, wood jigsaws, Galt:wood blocks, wooden farm and animals, metal/wood musical instruments, and that Ikea kitchen
Also her doll's cot (a cardboard box), my old purse stuffed with train tickets and some old egg cartons full of loose change are current (free) hits too.
Plus the dog - no plastic in her.

Good luck: the only unreasonable part of your OP is trying to dictate what gifts others buy your dc, and be very careful not to love your wooden toys so much you accidentally sound judgemental when describing them to plastic-toy-prefering friends.