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?

I feel like my SIL is catching some strays here! She's not made any demands. I'm not sure if she's going to get up when we do or not because they've both had to go in the car fetch something from the other side of London now.

How many presents do people making out she's deprived think she should get!?

Most children have those things throughout the year.
Fine if you want to save it all up for Christmas but that in no way makes you superior.

You probably waste more money getting everything at Xmas rather than off FB marketplace, charity shops etc throughout the year.

OP I have to say when I first read this is read it as it was DCs sister as in his older child not HIS 31 year old sister 🤣🤣🤣🤣 what was he thinking????

and a lot of people on here chatting a lot of nasty shit about presents. I bet their children are spoilt brats like them.

She has that stuff! I bulk bought play doh and give her a couple of new tubs every so often. She has LOADS of books because I take full advantage of The Works 10 picture books for a tenner. We did a new Christmas-themed Orchard Toys game as a family activity today. She gets sticker books every so often. New pads of paper and colouring books when she needs them. She's got a box with dressing up bits and bobs in.

I really don't think she wants for anything. The idea people might think she's hard done by is such a surprise to me.

your 3 y/o is NOT deprived. Ignore other pps saying she needs more stuff. She doesn’t. Start as you mean to go on. 8 presents is plenty!! Abd when baby is older that will be 8 x 2, so potentially a massive heap of clobber to fill the house with

Does his sister know she’s making the wee girl wait for hours? I would never let my niece miss out on the magic of Xmas morning just so I could sleep later. It would be a firm no for me, let her have the excitement of running in and opening everything! Take videos and send them to the sis so she can see when she wakes up. Christmas is about the kids x

Fwiw, my two (5 and 8) have about 5 presents to open tomorrow each (after their stocking) and a few tomorrow from in laws

Why are you engaging? PP is a moron.

Good question. Because it's more fun than prepping vegetables I suppose.

I can’t believe people are taking about how many presents.

Not everyone can afford a huge pile of things for their children. And not everyone wants to have a huge pile of things.

My children get gifts according to our budget. It’s not a lot (my 2 and a half year old has 4 presents in total, I am sure some here would be horrified), but they are always happy and grateful for what they get.

She is absolutely not deprived. I'm following the four categories. They absolutely do not need loads it's too overwhelming and won't get played with.

My son has five presents too. He's the same age. He knows father Xmas brings only one but is still ridiculously excited about it. If he doesn't go wild with excitement at 4+1 Santa gift I'll eat my hat. The more you buy the more the individual presents lose their impact.
Agree with @Lenald assessment of pp.

I guess it is all to do with expectations. For years we had to balance the needs of our children with those of an elderly aunt who wanted to watch them open their presents - even though it was a two hour round trip to collect her on Christmas morning and take her back in the evening. I was an only child and it was very much a case of open everything straight away. DH was strictly stockings in the morning and presents after lunch.

We also wanted to go to church in the morning. We managed by having stockings first thing in the morning and one present - for the younger children it was usually something they could take to church.

I think it helped that they presents were not under the tree but hidden. Also, although we never really did the whole Father Christmas thing we used to say that because we were at the end of the alphabet he didn't make it to our house until we had finished lunch.

When my parents were no longer able to climb the stairs to our house we would go to them and we would do presents late in the evening. But by that time they were all over 10.

Its not cruel to make children wait, patience is an important thing to learn. We celebrated today and my 4 year old had to wait until his big sister got up (we compromised on that and I woke her up earlier than she would have woken up otherwise) and then breakfast was ready so we had breakfast first. It was around 10 o'clock when we opened the tree presents. Then he had to wait until 5:30 for the Father Christmas presents and he learnt to wait.

We always had to wait until after lunch growing up, it wasn't cruel, just built the excitement up a bit longer (the only thing that was cruel was if my parents decided they needed a nap first after lunch!)

5 presents could be an iPad, bike, toy kitchen, massive duplo set and Barbie dream house...

WHAT?!! No stockings? You’re missing a world of fun @DucklingDaisy.

Well best of British luck to him with expecting an excited 3 year old to wait patiently to open her presents. There's 2 chances of that, ones called Fat and others called No. His sister will have to get her butt out of bed if she wants to see her niece open her presents.

What, no stocking?! Only 5 presents to unwrap? Main presents is that, or in toto?
If so, it doesn't seem like there's much of a need for the kid to get out of bed in a rush, tbh.

I guess that's true if you've brought your kids up to believe anything other than a ludicrous overwhelming truck load of gifts is not worth getting out of bed for.
Back here on Planet Real Life, 5 gifts sounds like a lovely Christmas for a lucky little girl, who will love them and have a wonderful day (assuming Daddy the Grinch doesn't make her wait until 10pm to open them)

What a palava. Guest either gets up with the kids or they get up when they like and miss presents. I highly doubt she cares that much about watching her niece open presents, not enough to get out of bed anyway!

@EpicChaos What, no stocking?! Only 5 presents to unwrap? Main presents is that, or in toto?
If so, it doesn't seem like there's much of a need for the kid to get out of bed in a rush, tbh.

A 3 year wont be rushing out of bed if they only have 5 presents??
JC some of these comments 😂

NU his sister can go back to bed after. Can't expect a 3 year old to wait.

Slightly off topic but people going on about stockings, I never had one as a child, nor did my husband so never really thought of doing it for my children. Didn’t make it any less magical. Great if you want to do one. It don’t think they are as compulsory as people say. Just asked a few friends and only 2 out of 5 do them.

Also , I have zero chance of making my 4 year old wait! Just hoping he sleeps to a reasonable time.

All settled! We're suggesting she opens one, has breakfast and then does some more. If she seems very resistant to taking a break to eat we'll just let her crack on. Sister-in-law is getting up when the kids do either way.

😂🤣😂🤣
Genius

This!

My dad made us wait till breakfast was over and some years they put a plaster over the door to check we hadn't snuck in!

It's fair enough have a sensible get up time - nothing later than 7-8am depending on the child. My sil doesn't surface till 11/12 so our day would be ruined if waiting for her.