Husband wants to make 3-year-old wait to open presents

[DucklingDaisy]

Please help me settle a disagreement. We have a 3-year-old and a one-year-old. The older one is extremely excited about Christmas.

Tomorrow morning, my husband wants to make her have breakfast and wait an hour or two before opening presents. He wants to do this so his sister, who is our only guest, can sleep in a bit and then come down and participate in the whole thing. Also because he seems to just believe it's a good rule.

I think that's going to feel torturous for an excited 3-year-old. I think it's setting us up for unnecessary conflict and stress, and getting Christmas off to a terrible start. If she was a bit older it might be different. I think an acceptable compromise would be allowing her to open one present before Breakfast, then waiting no more than about an hour to do the rest. I feel really strongly about this.

Who is being unreasonable?

We do stockings first thing and then main presents are opened when everyone has arrived and had breakfast. It’s something we did when I was growing up and we’ve continued it with our kids. It’s the norm for them so not an issue. Also means that the grandparents can join in the fun.

We always had Santa presents and stocking in the middle of the sitting room floor in the morning, Dd could open them as soon as she went in there when she woke up.

But all other presents were unde r the tree and opened together later in the day when we were opening ours.

But you can't ask excited smallies to wait for their Santa presents on Christmas morning.

I was made to wait as a child until after breakfast and my mum had put the turkey in the oven and done the prep she wanted, then bring them down in a binbag, ruined the magic of Christmas for me from a young age.
Put your foot down and tell his sis she'll have to get up earlier.

Haha good luck with that! She has to get up or miss out.

Yeah this is a solved problem, stocking presents straight away when you wake up, tree presents when you're dressed and everyone has had breakfast 😉💁

Agree a loose plan.

E.g. Get up at 8am. Open a couple of presents each. Breakfast. Get sister up. Coffee and open more gifts.

I confess I haven’t read the full thread but just to say this early morning routine of waiting to open gifts will get harder as they get older, not easier!!

You need to set out your stall early so the kids know what your Christmas morning looks like. Once it’s set in place it’ll become the norm to everyone.

Have a lovely day! I’m sure it will work out fine.

How mean 😪
The whole point is coming down, seeing if he’s been and opening all presents (in my view anyway) Dd opens stockings and all
presents at once, we take our time then I make a nice breakfast.
I think ask sil if she wants a wake up call and if not, she can stay in bed 🤷🏻‍♀️
Its more about kids at Christmas, there’s no way she’ll be able to sit and wait that long, awful 😞

He is definitely being unreasonable to make a 3 year old wait on Christmas morning is mean. Send the kids in to wake her by jumping on her bed screaming "santas been" I say

In case there ever is a reason your child has to wait…

It’s not mean, Christmas won’t be ruined, she won’t be scarred for life..

that said I think the aunt should get up.

Your DH is being a dick, and your 3 yr old’s excitement about xmas is far more important than his sister’s wish for a lie in.

At 3, you open your stocking as soon as you’re awake. With a 3yr old, that was often 6am. Main presents, are done after breakfast (when you’re 3). My 11 & 13 yr old will do big presents after church.

Some of these comments are hilarious. It isn’t mean to wait until a later time to open gifts, especially if there has been a stocking. The mad free for all seems very grabby and isn’t a good lesson.
It’s nice to sit around and open them all together. Makes it last longer too.
Yell at me all you like with your shocked faces but the season is supposed to abe about goodwill to all.

Exactly @Meowandthen it's much nicer to sir around together, taking time to open them. We always take turns and see what each other has got and enjoy the children's reactions. Everyone opening at once in a mad frenzy is what I experienced one year at FIL's and it was not pleasant.

She's not hard done by, I'm also surprised at the response. That's plenty of presents and I'm sure she had a great Christmas morning. You're right not to buy things for the sake of it.
Merry Christmas!

Exactly. It's Christmas morning FFS they are going to be bursting with excitement. To make them sit there and wait while the adults fart around with a bacon sandwich is just cruel.

Not for little kids it’s not. And I’m sure you and everyone else who does this to their kids know this.

its mean and controlling

It's not mean and controlling, catch yourself on, It's just different ways people do Christmas. We didn't open gifts till gone 10am today as my mum has terminal cancer and can't get out of bed easily in the mornings. And we took it slow with one present at a time. My 3-year-old was perfectly happy playing with stocking gifts till then because she knew that's how the day would work 🤷‍♀️ It's how we always did it when I was a kid too and I had amazing Christmases!

And yes personally I find the racing down to a big pile of presents that everyone rips open at the same time and then it's all over by 8am pretty crap tbh (we did this one year when I was a kid when we went to stay with different relatives and my mum and I hated it! The day felt so flat after, and we never went there again ) but that's because it's just not how we do Christmas.

We didn't even take half of DD's presents with us this year, they're still under the tree at home to open when we get back.

I was a little kid who had to wait until after lunch to open presents. It wasn't mean and controlling, it was fine, we learnt to wait.

Now I live in a country where opening first thing in the morning doesn't exist at all because Father Christmas doesn't come until afternoon or evening - amazingly the children cope with waiting. You only think its mean because its what you're used to, if children grow up waiting then they won't think its mean and might learn a little more patience than those that don't.