"Oh thank you, that will be a lovely toy to have at Granny's house"?

[babybrain77]

WIBU to respond this way to a present given to DS by MIL?

Backstory - MIL is very controlling/emotionally manipulative of DH. He has gone relatively LC with her since we had our DS (he used to see her a couple of times a week, now around once a month) - his choice not mine. She is regularly putting him in deliberately difficult situations where he feels that he is being asked to choose between her and me/DS. I bite my tongue and try to be supportive but it's not easy.

DS is coming up to his first birthday. We are having a small get together to celebrate. We have been avoiding buying plastic toys for him since he was born - I dislike the environmental impact and also don't like the house to be filled with plastic crap. We do have the odd plastic bit here and there which have been handed down by friends - I have no issue with this. MIL knows this as we have explained it, but almost every time she sees DS she brings some sort of plastic tat, gradually increasing in size. Last month it was a plastic Hoover. I am already dreading what she will bring for his birthday.

I have asked DH to let her know that DS really doesn't need any more toys and to suggest a book or item of clothing, but he doesn't feel able to do so without initiating an argument. So, when she arrives with her enormous plastic toy, WIBU to thank her and say it will be great to have it to play with at her house???

Just accept the gift, say thank you and let your ds use it and then pass it on when he grows out of it.

I presume all the wooden toys you buy/are given and acceptable to you are made from sustainable wood and don’t come packaged in plastic.

You can have books and toys, we have hundreds of books, we also have many many toys, you just need some storage for them. All toys get passed on when we are done with them.

You can't control and dictate what other people buy for your child?!

You can choose to not buy plastic toys yourselves (good luck with that in the future btw!) and give a preference if asked, but this seems very controlling...

When he starts school, please don't be that mum.

Op I would just accept it. If further on down the road she asks where her gift is. You can simply say we swapped it for a, b or c which is great as she can add to this in the future. (Just donate it then and buy appropriate toy you wish for DS to get your point across)

I've just remembered the plastic Hoover my DS had when he was little - you pushed it along and little bits inside the Hoover flew up in the air. He loved it!
I do think you are getting a bit of a hard time here but maybe rather than thinking good grief another plastic toy from MIL think whether he'd like playing with it. You can still stick to your wooden toys but if others buy them perhaps try not to just see the plastic but the play value of it.
As others have said, play mobil is also fantastic and lasts for years - my DS had some of his dad's in his collection!

Always remember, DC will choose their favourites to play with, but there comes a time when they grow out of them and you can sell/ charity shop/ pass on to a charity.

You could always put away any toys DS doesn’t show an interest in and only bring them out when MIL visits, then they are on show but you can put away again after she leaves. Or you can say you are rotating the toys so that they become fresh and interesting again.

I think she needs to stop buying regular presents for your DC. I have a 5yo and the toys have taken over the house. It's insane.

But I think this issue is basically a reflection of your attitude to MIL. You dont like her therefore her giving your child a gift is seen as a war cry. I'd relax a bit about the birthday present.

When the kids were small, a family friend we saw often at mum's house who babysat them would often bring them slightly annoying noisy toys (she used freecycle a lot) and my mum was OK with us keeping them at her house as we were in a flat and they were in a 4-bed house where the kids could play with noisy things out of earshot (also my dad is a bit deaf).

I understand not wanting lots of plastic, but as other have said you can give away if it's too much.

@babybrain77
Do you mind me asking if you have a garden? You could ask MiL to help contribute towards a garden swing set/climbing frame/slide/seesaw set that would be quite expensive if you were to get it yourself but maybe if she thought it would be a gift that would last...she might be less likely to buy plastic toys??? Maybe??

I think people are noticing the difference between plastic from your friends (OK) and plastic from your MIL (apparently not OK).

Something being made of plastic does not make it a bad toy. Most of the magazines for children have plastic tat on the front, and some of it gets played with for years. You can have books, magazines, wooden toys and plastic ones and they all work well together!

I think your best bet is to let this one go. As annoying as oversized, noisy toys you would never choose yourself are, you can't dictate what other people buy.

Your son is one, it won't be long before he develops his own interests and you will have no control over that. He'll make his own friends, outside your own circle and again you'll have no control over what they buy.

Just accept MIL's gift without comment and move on. None of this stuff matters. Mine are 7 & 5 and you really do learn that you can't control the relationships your DC's have with other people.

Not all plastic is bad, OP.

Some plastic toys are well made and durable and will give many years of pleasure, and can also be passed on.

I say this as an environmentalist myself.

And my DS's favourite toy as a toddler was a toy hoover!

I’m confused... I don’t get how getting a second hand plastic toy from a charity shop or a friend is any different to being given a new plastic toy from a relative. You do realise that you can donate the new toy once your child has finished with it and that is likely to be what originally happened to the second hand one you have bought previously?

The only issue I would see with plastic toys here is if you are given a new one and instead of passing it on you just throw it in the bin when you’re done with it.

Your strange moralistic view of plastic toys is completely undermined by the fact that you have them already. It’s what you do with them after that counts and if you’re not sending them to landfill then what’s the issue? I gave my niece toys my children had when they were babies nearly a decade ago. They’re still running fine.

Yanbu to want to create healthy boundaries.

The toy vacuum though, yab completely u DS was obsessed with all vacuum's from about 10 months, I bought him a toy Dyson. He's 3.3 now and it's the best £6.99 I've ever spent, it still gets played with daily!

Stop making a fuss about the plastic- she is doing it on purpose to get a reaction from you. You tell her once about the plastic then when she buys a plastic toy donate it to charity.
When she next asks where it is- tell her youve donated it to the local childrens hospital. Be calm and controlled. You are teaching her you wont put up with her nonsense and are not giving her the emotional reaction she craves. If she begrudges kids hospital having it- she's the one who looks like a dick, not you.

What's this really about? Plastic or controlling your MIL?

Also fondly remembering the 'plastic' toy Dyson with the little 'plastic' bits that spun around.

Having read through some of your other threads I don't actually think this is about the plastic.

As others have pointed out, it's a bit daft to accept second hand plastic toys but reject a new plastic toy from someone else.

This isn't really about the plastic. This is about you not liking your MIL very much and seeking ways to control her relationship with your child.

Seriously, let it go.

@MarthasGinYard the Dyson was incredibly robust as well. Ours got thrown down the stairs more than once and we never had to change the batteries even though DS often insisted on having it making that noise in the background

We have the little dyson, I found it second hand for £2 and my ds3 loves it. So robust that we will pass it on once he doesn’t use it anymore.

Blimey. Op how dare you not want to partake in plastic toy buying?! I mean really you should do what we all do and just drop your principles and ethics so that no-one has to think a little bit before buying presents. Personally I am swimming in plastic here thanks to Lego and noisy dinosaurs but I get other people not wanting to.

I think finding sets that ds likes and can grow with him is the best suggestion. Or if you are ok with Lego, then it’s a great halfway point.

You don't get to tell other people what to give your DS. That's incredibly rude and presumptuous.

If people ask for suggestions, you can offer them.

Honestly, I think your DS may force you to relax your prescriptive toy policy, as you may find he likes things you don't think he ought to like.

You don't have to keep toys he doesn't play with though.

Let her buy whatever she wants.

She’s had to accept a totally different, rejected relationship with her son as soon as he found you. I’m not saying he wasn’t right or you are to blame. I’m just saying however horrible she is, that must hurt.

I’d show a tiny bit of compassion here by not adding to her rejection. She wants to buy a present. Accept it with good grace.

Ask her to buy something from the ‘Green Toys’ range of toys on amazon - albeit plastic but made from fully recycled plastic and with lots of open ended play.

Quite aside from the MIL issues which I do understand, truly (!), I have to say I think you are fighting a losing battle with the plastic. I yearned for an artfully curated playroom for my dc, full of Grimms Rainbows and rattan treasure baskets. It looks beautiful on instagram but I quickly realised it was for me, and not them. Turns out that they love a bit of plastic tat, and I realised that their sibling conversations of the future might well centre around ‘mum’s obsession with those ruddy wooden rainbows’ rather than the joy that got from their plastic hoover (their most enduring toy by the way) or playmobil or big plastic cars etc. Much like I still drone on about the Mr Frosty I was denied...

You clearly dont like her. Think you need to get over yourself about the plastic nonsense. You must be pretty difficult if you dont allow plastic but your ds does have a few .
As others suggest, accept it with good manners and then donate it If you are so 'perfect' wrt your principles.
Sounds like you are looking for am argument with her.

I think it would be incredibly rude to accept the gift and donate it to charity. Surely one of the joys of having extended family (as a child) is them buying you gifts your parents wouldn’t necessarily buy. Which may be how I ended up with some of the noisiest, lighting up plastic crap in Christendom.

People will buy things that aren’t to your preference - the gift is for your son, not for you. Accept it gracefully and let your son in time decide if it’s something he wants to play with. Frankly if you hold this line with MIL just now, you’ve got many years ahead of refusing plastic gifts other people buy. Because they will, because there are reasons kids toys are made of plastic.