Hand me downs as gifts

[EdtheBear]

I might be being daft and I get people regift the same baby toys, ie DC1 has out grown it put it in the loft for a couple of years DC2 gets it from Santa.

But would you encourage DC1 to gift a toy of theirs to DC2 for Christmas or Birthdays?

To me those are things that would just be passed on hand me downs rather than wrapped up as a gift.

Yes. Why not assuming DC2 isn’t old enough to have firm views on their toys and want something completely different.

I wouldn’t give it as a gift wrapped up at Christmas, but there is nothing wrong with DC1 handing over the toy to DC2 and explaining it is theirs now.

My DCs enjoyed passing their toys on to their cousins as gifts.

You're right, I could have just passed them on anyway and would have been happy to do so but my sister and I agreed it seemed daft to buy new just so I had something to give them when we had all these good condition toys that weren't being used.

I'm not sure if O'd do it between siblings though, don't they tend to share toys anyway? At least with cousins the toys are new to the household. I'd only do it with very close friends or family too and probably only with prior discussion with the adults involved.

I'm probably over thinking it but gift giving between siblings is about teaching the ethos of gifts, choosing, giving, and receiving.

It was a friend who suggested that my 4yo could gift a ride-on to her 2 year old sister. It just seemed odd to me.

I think it depends on the item. If it's an item that was specifically given to DC1 (i.e. as a gift), then them giving it to DC2 as a gift is perfectly reasonable. Actually I think it's quite a neat solution to the age-old problem of DC1 getting big ticket items as gifts and then the argument as to whether DC2 benefits from having them as hand-me-downs (and gets other presents too) or whether DC2 is shortchanged by never getting it new.

If it was purchased to be a "family item", but DC1 just happened to be the first to benefit from it, then I think it's unreasonable.

I don't see an issue, if it's something the older child thinks the younger one might enjoy, why not? Use it as a chance to explain there are only so many resources on the planet and recycling is helping everyone.

My DC have plenty of "stuff". Why buy more, if they can just transfer ownership from one to the other instead.