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?

Our kids are able to open their stockings

but their main presents they must wait till everyone arrives which is about 2pm

weve always done it this way.

Oh and it’s actually pretty common to just put a satsuma and a chocolate coin in the stocking so doesn’t need to be loads of sweets! And maybe also a small gift like some crayons/toy car/ small cuddly toy etc.

Our rule has always been no getting up before 7am on Christmas Day.
After that the kids bring the stockings into our room to open and then we go downstairs for about 7:45am.
Stocking contents are usually new toothbrush/socks/pens/card games and sweets.
No way would they have waited any longer!
Mine are 12, 14 and 16 so I’m expecting a lie in tomorrow.😁

I'm going to make my 3yo wait until his 13yo sister is up, which will probably be 1 hour. He does have a stocking though and could have 1 toy if needed. I'm sure there's a middle ground even without a stocking.

We do stockings on the bed (which is a squeeze with 3dc) and then downstairs for breakfast then main gifts. Then we travel to family for rest of gifts.

My 3 yr old was actually never that bothered about opening presents at that age. She would open one with help, and then just want to play with what was inside of that and wouldn't be fussed about opening anything else, in fact trying to get her to open another present was met with annoyance from her because she didnt want to stop what she was playing with from the first one. We ended up spreading the present opening out over a few days as she just wasn't bothered about opening them all at once.

You could just let the 3 yr old open one and they can play with the contents till its time to do the rest?

It all depends what time the child/SIL are getting up.

If 3yr is getting up at 6am then perfectly sensible and fair to insist on waiting until a reasonable hour. Equally if SIL is planning on sleeping in until 10/11 then she needs to either get up at a reasonable time or miss out.

YABU

Let the child get up and enjoy her presents. Why make her wait at all?

Just to add that's a good amount of presents appropriate for the age op. People who buy hundreds of parents are breeding spoiled, materialistic children and are nuts.

A compromise is better than either of your positions. Stagger presents throughout the day to stop her getting overwhelmed.

We were always allowed to open one present before breakfast and the rest afterwards. I am not scarred by this at all - it seems fine to me.

My kids had a stocking to open and we waited till after breakfast. Then when we started going to church on Christmas day, we waited till after that (although GPs came round with presents beforehand). Now they are adults we open our presents after lunch - it's so much more relaxing.

Nah! Let her open them when she wakes up.

I have visitors at Christmas and they fit in with our day. When kids were younger they got up earlier if they wanted the kid fest, or didn’t. Was fine with me, I knocked on and told them kids were having a rampage (which I loved) . When we went to dh family on Boxing Day they did a present at a time, which is also lovely, but not what I wanted for us, but I made my kids do this as it was their home and how they did it . Everyone is different so put your expectations in now

Surely any adult staying in a house with a small child on Christmas day, fully understands the possibility of a 5am wake up call as "Santa has been!!!"

Before I had children but did have friends and family who had them, if I stayed for Christmas I completely expected a early wake up call 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

And I obliged to the early wake up call, they are only small children for such a brief time.

We’ve always made ours wait until MIL comes over which always after 10am. They get their stocking and one present to open before but they are fine with that. I don’t think it’s cruel. We’ve been doing it since they can remember. Otherwise it’d all be over by 7am! I think the anticipation adds to the fun.

Hah! I was the unmarried aunt who went to stay with my brother and SIL when the three children were under the age of 7. I was woken at 4.30, as I remember, and sat blearily in my pyjamas, watching 3 small children creating chaos for the next few hours. 15+ years later it is one of my best memories. If you go and stay with small children you really have to embrace the chaos (although in retrospect the peach bellinis at 7.00 am were not a good idea).

I am a childless sister. I'd tell my brother he was a cf if he tried to do this to his children. Totally unreasonable.

I'm bemused that stockings are tat. In our house they aren't. They're pants, socks, toothbrush, book, bubble bath, chocolate orange, real orange, one or two toys and that's it. Most of that stuff I'd buy for them anyway.

We do delay presents until after lunch too. Spreads the day out a bit.

It's cruel!

We always do stockings around 7 and then main presents not till 10 or 11, after breakfast. It’s the way my family did when I was young and the way we’ve done it for my kids (now 18 & 19)

Let her open 2 or 3 early then she can play with those until after breakfast and do the rest after that (not really late, I mean like 8.30 or something). There will presumably also be baby's presents, adults presents to each other as well as presents for 3 yo from other family that can be done later. So.its not as though SIL will miss everything if she stays in bed until 8. She may not care anyway. I absolutely wouldn't care if my little nieces had opened most of their presents while I had a lie in!
There's a compromise here between everything opened by 6.30 and not starting until 10 that may end up being more enjoyable than either extreme

As a side note I think 5 presents is plenty for a 3 yo. Ours have 7 each and I think it might be a bit much

That's really cruel. If his sister is desperate to watch her open presents, then I'd wake her up and she can go back to bed.

Your young dc have priority over their auntie’s beauty sleep. Any time after 7am is reasonable. As soon as you and DH are awake, it’s time to open presents. Ignore the PP about magical stockings. I don’t think I ever had one, but I always had presents that my parents knew I’d love!

Reading some of these replies it’s obvious that the children run the show. Your three year old will survive waiting, however how long a lie in are we talking about? It’s a bit off if she wants to lie in past 8am. Has she asked or has DH just thought she’d like to lie in? At 8am if she wasn’t up I’d send in the 3yr old.
My children have always had to wait until we’re all up, dressed, breakfast and dog walked. Usually get to the gifts about 8:30-9am.