To be thoroughly pissed off with the packaging of baby toys?!?!

[Candlelight30]

11 month old daughter, lots of vtech-type toys for Christmas. You know the sort.

Anchored down into cardboard boxes with cable ties and plastic doo-dahs, some of which require a FUCKING SCREWDRIVER to defeat.

The fuckers are driving me mental!! What's it all about?! What are they scared of?!

YANBU 11-month-old DD got many similarly packaged gifts. I had unpackaged everything we gave her before wrapping to cut down on chaos/rubbish on Christmas Day. Other people hadn't so I still ended up wrangling excited baby, bouncy dog and nosey cat while trying to get toys out of boxes. Dog nearly got little plastic widgets too.

Really annoys me that councils expect consumers to store numerous recycling bins and separate rubbish but allow manufacturers to over-package to such an extent.

Agree it's ridiculous

Completely agree.

One of her presents was a car which had wires running through the toy itself (actual holes in the toy to accommodate the wire) and wound around the wheels before being anchored to box by said plastic widget. Total nightmare to unravel the wire from it, it took ages (while she climbed on me trying to get to the car...)

My kids are older now but I once got so pissed off with the amount of packaging that their Christmas toys were imprisoned in that I bagged it all up, drove it back to ToysRUs the day after Boxing Day and bunged it in the bin outside their door. It felt great!

I also once bought a large, plastic crocodile rocking garden toy from the same shop. It was a solid, one-piece item yet came packaged in a fuck off cardboard box and plastic sleeve, with bubblewrap covers over the solid plastic handles. So I unwrapped it in the carpark and dumped the packaging in the bin. The same bin as the previous time.

I think they might have removed the bin now .

That is genius Harriet

Agree it is ridiculous. I can only imagine it's to stop children removing toys from packages in toy shops.

I took all DS's toys out of their packages beforehand too, but I only learned through bitter experience.

Doesn't get any better, mine are 3 and 7. I have a shit load of packaging - 3 boxes of boxes for recycling and lots of plastic. The recycling should get taken but I haven't got space in my bin for a massive bin bag full of packaging aswell as normal rubbish. Not sure what to do tbh, might put it out and see what happens!

We we're discussing this on Christmas day. Getting the toys out of boxes for my 15 month DD was a nightmare whereas when I upgraded my phone to the latest model last month I opened the box and that was all the unwrapping I was required tondo.

We have started unpacking before wrapping them up now. Some can be unwrapped and put back in the box others can't. You have to destroy the box to get it out.

Ds (4) loved the idea when we asked him. He always get bored Christmas morning waiting for us to free his toys.

Make Christmas morning more relaxing

DD got a doll that was wired in place, one was round her neck! Both wrists were wired to a accompanying little toy and her feet were wired together. I wonder if the manufacturer was expecting Toy Story style shenanigans. DD, of course, wanted the wires and plastic bits to play with.

One year DS got a big car transporter. Some bright spark had managed to secure it to the box before putting the wheels on. There was no way to get the blasted thing out of the packaging. Had to return it.