What do you do about Lego?

[Pyjamaramadrama]

Ds has had 5 or 6 Lego sets for Christmas from us and other people.

On Christmas Day ds wanted to open everything but didn't have the concentration to build whole sets as he was overwhelmed with toys. He's 7.

Dh has done nothing but moan about the Lego. Moan, moan, moan at ds not to open them, how expensive they are. He's made no attempt to build he Lego with ds or put it out the way.

Now the excitement of Christmas is over ds wants to build the Lego. He's sat all morning and built the sets but one has a few pieces missing. Dh is moaning now " oh I told you ds, I told you not to open them, I'm not going to bother buying Lego if you're going to do this', he's even told him he's got no self control ffs. Ds just keeps saying he didn't lose them.

It's driving me mad, I see his point, it's annoying, but ds is just a kid, I think we should have put the sets out of sight ds was bound to want to open them. The boxes are quite hard too 8+ and he's sat and built them really well.

He also moans if the sets eventually end up getting broken up and mixed. I've said he should glue them together if he's going to be so anal about it.

My mum made fantastic Lego mats for my boys - they open completely flat into a large circle to facilitate raking through to find the right bit, but have a drawstring so you can gather it all together and hang it up as a bag once you are done. DS1 keeps a couple of big technic sets made up, Ds2 keeps it all in a heap.
My boss has an amazing set of drawers and his son's Lego is all sorted by colour and into wheels, people etc he is quite anal about all sorts of things
Your DH needs to chill. However your son wants to play with it is ok.

DH gets a bit twitchy about Lego sets. Because they cost a fortune and are time consuming to build, and he knows DS would be disappointed if bits got lost and he couldn't build them properly again.

I'm a bit more relaxed and think it's meant to be played with.

There are so many special pieces though now, it's not like you can just replace a missing bit with something from another set.

I've bought see-through plastic boxes, so DS's Minecraft sets are mixed together in one box, with all the instructions from each set.

He's got a couple of Jurassic World sets this Christmas so they will go in another box just for Jurassic World lego, and the instructions as well.

And he has some of the Monster Fighter Lego, which again has it's own see-through box with all the sets and instructions included. And so on.

He has a box for general Lego too, DH bought him a lot of mixed lego from eBay, which went into that box.

I think that's the best we can do, it keeps particular types of lego together, but it also allows DS to actually play with it rather than just look at it.

I think it depends how your DS feels OP. My DSs used to drive me mad with Lego because they were careless with it and lost pieces, and then they were really upset. It wouldn't bother me if they weren't bothered, but they would be in tears while we hunted around the house for teeny tiny bits of essential coloured plastic. Or they would abandon a £30 Lego set and declare if useless because a few bits were missing. So, as a result, I became quite anal about Lego, a bit like your DH. I used to be relieved when said kit met its ultimate end and joined the big mixed box, then I could stop fretting!

And yes, I did become the Lego police a bit, insisting that sets were opened one at a time, and pieces laid out on a tray. And I glued Lego, because the kids asked me to.

Ours get built then normally get destroyed and go into plastic boxes. Older ds is currently building to display but we will see how long that lasts he still has 3 unopened.

I do get annoyed when sets lose parts however you can order missing/lost parts direct from Lego, dd had a set that I opened and built for her which had a part already missing.

Your dh needs to unclench abit.

For missing pieces it is generally cheaper to use bricklink or brickowl (easier to use) than lego.com's bricks and pieces. You can also download instructions there too.

We keep ours separated by colour, it's the only way building from instructions is ever possible! But sets get built, added to, eventually dismantled and broken up into colours again. We're saving for a trofast system.

We throw out the boxes straight away and the instructions after it's been built, otherwise we would (did) have mountain of boxes and booklets. DS used to like to put it together, play with it and then pull it apart or adapt. We keep minifigs in a box and have a vehicle parts box with wheels, arches, steering wheels, windscreens but the rest goes into a couple of massive plastic tubs.

Recently, he has stopped pulling them apart and keeping them as is - but he gets loads of imaginative play out of them. As long as it's all tidied away at the end of the day, I don't mind. We are retrospectively putting a few vehicles and buildings back together - trying to find the correct pieces can sometimes be a nightmare and guess who's job that is?

Our 20+ year old Duplo and Lego(huge box) discovered during recent attic sort out. DDs went into raptures and were so pleased I'd kept it . We had only one'big' set piece (the Hospital) but it's in a labelled bag .I have this vague memory of making it myself before I put it away as it was mixed in ...anal or what . Agree, keep the instructions (a duplicate somewhere safe?) then you can always remake them .
Best toy ever (except when you stand on the b**y stuff in your bare feet

DH needs to let it go, it's the difficult part of being a parent is letting them do it their way.

Or if he can't if he opens a box DH needs to provide a clear plastic box for that set so DS has a chance of keeping it all together. Note DH not you if he's so bothered by it.

I would be annoyed with my dh if he just grumbled around on Christmas Day but didn't get involved to help ds do it properly, and the general "we won't be buying any more Lego" is just the sort of ineffectual moaning that's enough to take the shine off the new things, but not to actually solve any problems or teach him a way of doing it.

When my ds starts opening stuff I stop him but the feel of it is more yes it's exciting let's wait a minute so we can build it properly as we wouldn't want to lose bits, not negative look what you've done, what did I tell you. Of course we all do it from time to time, but it is irritating.

If you're missing pieces from a Lego set (it does happen, my DSD had a few sets with the odd bit missing), you can get them free of charge from Lego themselves via the website, although they do take a while to arrive.

wwwsecure.us.lego.com/en-gb/service/replacementparts?domainredir=service.lego.com

Pieces never permanently go missing - they are either on another build or in the tubs somewhere.

My DGS has different tubs for different sets - so Jurassic lego in one tub, star wars in another etc (however many boxes). Instructions altogether in another box

Seems to work for him - he's always able to build what he wants.

And the Lego storage is a bit pricey but effective too.

Your husband is a misery.

You are the most reasonable person on earth, I agree with everything you've said... My advice would be to buy a massive five kilo bag of second hand Lego from EBay and use that to fill in the missing pieces and annoy your DH

I'm a bit anal about Lego so I sort of get where your DH is coming from.

My DD (4yo) loves Lego, as do I, but I have to hold her back by only letting her do one set at a time. She got 3 boxes for Xmas but 2 have been hidden til she completes the first otherwise it would be carnage. Rome wasn't built in a day though, and neither was the bloody Dolphin Cruiser.

She's forgotten about the hidden sets and happy to concentrate on the first - score...

I'd like to admire the built model for a bit then dump it in a big box of pieces, but DD insists they all stay built so she can play with them and mix the characters round (Queen Elsa is currently waterskiing from the back of some kind of jet ski, Cinderella is doing a wing walk on a rotary aircraft), they are taking over the house.

And FWIW we got the camper van in the summer and I swear to god there was a piece missing. First and last time it has happened, but it was definitely never there.

JeSuis, the only set i've had of very many that had a missing piece was the vw camper. It was a 1x2 red brick. They sent me one though.

If dh isn't into Lego perhaps you and ds can build together?
Lego is big in our house and at age 7 Year 3 Lego is for building, playing, smashing, minifigure roleplay & then new creations with merged sets etc.
It's great lots of mumsnetters have offered storage options.

This holiday it would be a big shame if some over excited unattended bag opening ruins ds excitement and time with mum &/or dad building.

If he got 5/6 sets ask him to order them in favourite build order/ size order, if there are big/ project ones and smaller weekend ones ask him leading questions to get him to understand the excitement & time to build needs to be spread out over x days etc.
Each set will have numbered bags. Can you work out which ones were opened? Eg if it's bag 2 of set 1234 - then you can google the pieces and work out those missing
There are several adult collector fan sites out there and Lego themselves who will help you replace missing pieces:
shop.lego.com/en-GB/Your-Satisfaction

If the sets are hard work to build see if he wants to jointly build one with mum & dad and then put the rest away for the Summer.
Then see if you can jointly pick out and easier smaller one for a fun Spring build so he isn't put off hard sets.

As he gets older there are harder sets then Technic/ Mindstorms
Fun shows
brickshowslive.com/
In time he can even submit his own creations to the world and if 10,000 people like it Lego will make it....
ideas.lego.com/
The Lego world is his oyster - don't lost that excitement now through lack of time/ excitement/ patience etc.

Lego instructions
wwwsecure.us.lego.com/en-gb/service/buildinginstructions?domainredir=service.lego.com

Rebrickable - combine your sets or use their MOC (other users creations) to build new exciting stuff
rebrickable.com/about

Lego does get mixed up and rebuilt, that's the point. Your DH needs to be less grumpy :)

My children's lego is stored in some of the giant lego storage boxes - it's organised by type and stacks up. The giant boxes double as parts of a den, houses for other toys etc .

I adore Lego and if I see it available second hand in sets scoop in to buy (all that plastic that I love makes me worry about the planet). I recently bought 2 amazing sets and the seller was very clear that all pieces were there, her son got them as presents but he couldn't cope with looking after the pieces so was clearly too young to cope. I grabbed my bargain but felt a bit bad for Lego deprived lil boy

Your DH is being mean and spoiling the fun.

He needs to totally back off and let DS enjoy his toy.

Lego is supposed to get mixed up after the first build. Making new things from your imagination is a huge part of the fun, and great for your child's development.

Trying to keep it in sets it a futile exercise in suppressing creativity. Please tell your DH not to do it!

Ds2 has eleventy million Lego sets and was given three more for Christmas (one of which was the damn Millennium Falcon.

The rule here is that only one set may be opened at a time, built and (usually) put somewhere to 'admire' for months on end gathering dust a while. The box is cut up, leaving the picture AND (very important, apparently) the code number for the set. This, along with the instruction booklet, is placed reverentially in a special box. When the piece is eventually broken up, all the pieces go into Tupperware boxes, all labelled with the code number. These are then put into those plastic drawer sets.

This is all DH's idea, I hasten to add. Left to me, once the set has been built, all pieces would go into one big box. However-it does mean that when ds2 wants to rebuild the set (which he always does) I don't have to 'help' find a teeny tiny crucial piece rather gouge out my eyeballs with a rusty spoon

DS2 does also have a huge box of Lego bits that are entirely unrelated to any sets (on my insistence, so his 'creative side' is not stifled by anal tendencies DH)

You can request missing pieces from the Lego site as others already mentioned. They send them really quickly.

wwwsecure.us.lego.com/en-gb/service/replacementparts?domainredir=service.lego.com

Don't think you re being unreasonable. DS is a kid. OH needs to stop acting like he is one.