To buy 3 year old DD dinosaurs for Christmas?

[dinosaurgirll]

My little girl (3) loves dinosaurs at the moment, every time I pick her up from nursery they say she's loved playing with the little toy dinosaur set and doing all the noises etc.

We are making a start on buying her Christmas presents this month and I mentioned to a friend I was thinking about getting her some toy dinosaurs as she doesn't have any at home. Friend commented that it was "funny" and "a bit odd" to buy them for a girl. And "bet it's like having a boy". I mean, she also has some Elsa dolls in her Christmas present pile, so it's a mixture of girly and less girly type presents!

Is my DD "odd" for liking dinosaurs at 3 years old?! 🤔

50% of dinosaurs were female.
Why would dinosaurs be an unsuitable interest to 50% of human children?

Are we STILL dealing with this bullcrap?! 40 years after my parents bought me ‘boys’ toys??? Spoiler - I turned out fine. Got a PHD and everything…

Get the child dinosaurs. Get her dinosaurs and a skateboard and a football and a baby doll and some fingerprints and a scooter and a tutu and puzzles, games, books, a toy sword, a doll house…
Whatever fires her imagination and moves her body.
And IGNORE any comment about that she should and should not do, play with, enjoy…

Why would it be odd? I’m getting my 3 year old boy a Pets Alive Mama Duck Surprise which is targeted at girls as he loves ducks and I’m probably going to get him a doll pram as well as he always goes to them in charity shops!!

That's funny, I read your OP and wanted to respond to point you in the direction of some brilliant dinosaur bedding from Dunelm that my DD has.. and I see you've found it yourself!

My thoughts exactly - but try 1850. Has your friend even heard of the famous 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning?

Please continue to support and nurture your child’s interests without judgement. Gender stereotypes are so damaging and limiting. I’m afraid even if a ‘joke’ I wouldn’t have left this unchallenged.

FWIW my son played with Barbies, had toy kitchens etc and I encourage my DGD’s interest in trains as much as that in unicorns - and love that she insists on wearing purple tutu dresses (albeit over leggings) while playing in the mud, climbing and generally exploring the outdoors 🤣

Your friend is a moron. She wants your dd on Barbies and dolls only I expect? 🙄 Get the dinos and stop listening to that friend. Ugh

My almost 3 year old DD loves dinosaurs, batman, spidey and PJ masks. She's no interest in 'girly stuff' and if anyone calls her a princess she says she's not a princess she's a zombie!

It's fine

I was born in the 1950s too. My sister and I had dinosaurs, cars, trains, Lego and Meccano. Things seem to have got worse not better.

Purrrlease. You still questioning ‘boys toys and girls toys’? It’s 2024. Get your child whatever they enjoy and tell your friend to upgrade their brain 🧠

My granddaughter is 6 in a few days, she’s having a dinosaur themed party as she’s loved dinosaurs since she first went to preschool. She puts me to shame as she can name (and now read) all of the dinosaurs in her 100 Dinosaurs book! She wants to study them when she grows up she says - it begins with P but it’s too late for me to bother looking it up haha

Your friend is the weird one, why wouldn’t you buy your DD dinosaurs if that’s what she likes?!?!

My niece was really in to dinosaurs at that age.

She might grow up to be a palaeontologist.

If I were in your position she would get a set of dinosaurs, a dino onesie, books, stickers etc etc.

Not odd in the slightest. Your friend is outdated!

Yes the pattern is lovely, material a bit thin but OK vfm.

Op do you watch Dinosaur Train? My little Ioves it, he is a boy but it's not gender specific

Yes get her the dinosaurs! And cars and cranes and other boy toys. (Odd for a girl, ffs. Jane Austen was a great novelist but we are no longer living in her era.)

Toys are unisex

Both my Dd's were the same, especially my oldest. Her first week at nursery (when she has just turned 1), her key worker came out excitedly telling me she had just said 'dinosaur'. She has always loved dinosaurs. By year 1 at school she had decided she wanted to be a Paleontologist when she grows up. She is now in year 4 and still saying the same. Mary Anning is one of her idols (her and Greta Thunberg). I think it's great for girls to have such good female roll models.

When your daughter is a little older there are some great books on Mary Anning aimed at children. For now I would strongly recommend the book '10 little dinosaurs'. Both my girls loved it when they were little, especially joining in the big roar at the end. Also look on CBeebies for the Nick Cope Popcast - dinosaurs, they loved this (that and the babies done a poo were firm favourites).

As for your friend, does she have children? If she does, I hope she isn't spouting such nonsense to them. My oldest came home upset a couple of times when she was younger as another child had told her 'dinosaurs are for boys'. I told her that as the first Paleontologist was a woman, it clearly wasn't true!

Oh, and my youngest's 3rd birthday cake(from the 10 little dinosaurs book). So definitely not alone!

Not outdated, plain wrong. I had lots of dinos and Dino books, and an Action Man, and toy cars, as a child in the 70s

Toys like dinosaurs are popular with young children because they can grasp them easily. giraffes have long necks for holding in small fingers too. One hand will do.
Never, ever associate any sort of toy as for a girl or boy. They should all have the chance to play with all toys, even dolls. Action Man was very popular because if fired imagination, and that is exactly what toys are supposed to do.

not at all odd. dinosaurs were never considered gendered when I was growing up (born 1980) it was just a normal thing that pretty much all children loved. nobody then would EVER have said there was anything unusual about girls liking dinosaurs.
I've always loved them. I was able to say some complex dinosaur names before I was a year old, and was obsessed with them. in my 40s now, and I still love dinosaurs. even have a dinosaur tattoo, and my husband gets me the jurassic park supercollosal dinosaur figures most christmases.

I think the fact that in more recent years, people have been trying to make out dinosaurs are "for boys" is a weird step backwards, when loving dinosaurs was never gendered before. in fact, many of the major early fossil discoveries were made by women.

exactly. not outdated. the idea that dinosaurs are for boys seems to only be a thing in about the last ten years. before then, dinosaurs were always considered a unisex interest.

that sounds AMAZING!