AIBU to ask MIL to stop bringing flashing noisy plastic toys?

[tulipsandcherryblossom]

I know MIL threads are everywhere here at the moment but I genuinely don’t know if I’m being precious or if this is actually a reasonable thing to feel strongly about. DS is 13 months old. From the beginning I've put a lot of thought into his play space. We have lovely open-ended wooden toys, rainbows, stacking rings, sensory bits, simple puzzles, instruments, lots of books, Duplo, animal figurines sort of thing. He absolutely loves them and will happily play independently for good stretches. His keyworker at nursery has also commented on how well he concentrates for his age.

MIL visits every couple of weeks and without fail arrives with a bag of VTech type toys. Flashing lights, tinny music, buttons that shout colours at him in an American accent. DS clearly finds these overstimulating and often cries at the blaring noise but MIL takes this as evidence he’s bored and needs to learn to get used to it. But I’m an adult and also find it overstimulating so I’m not surprised he does too.

I've tried the gentle approach. "Oh we're trying to keep things a bit calmer for him." She laughed and said the wooden toys are boring. I’ve tried the vague “oh we’ve got loads already, no need!” I’ve sent her his wishlist with things he’d actually love. She ignores all of it and turns up with another piece of plastic playing a tinny version of The Wheels on the Bus. I've also tried mentioning that open-ended play helps their imagination and concentration and that overstimulation can affect sleep but she told me I spend too much time online.

So am I being unreasonable? Has anyone actually managed to get a grandparent to respect this kind of boundary or do I just need to accept that the tat mountain is coming and become our charity shop’s biggest donor?

Straight to the charity shop. I was very firm with this. I stick to lists and links for Xmas and birthdays. If people get anything I've already said no to it goes.

She'd be better off putting money in his savings or buying a book

But she wants to do what she wants to do.......

I had a no toys with batteries rule when the kids were small - I am autistic and super noise sensitive and just couldn’t handle it. My in-laws took a bit of reminding but I kept telling them I’d just donate it and they did remember eventually. It just wasn’t an option for me to have them around so I didn’t have any grey areas.

For anything bulky and too annoying, I would take them to her house for the next visit and ‘Joke’ anything bigger than x and noisy lives at grandmas house’. And leave them there. O did this with garish clothes too.) didn’t stop her from bringing things back again, but I would just keep on bringing them back to hers.

I’d say you have three options here. One is to say “MIL, we really appreciate how generous you are bringing DS toys, but we don’t want all the plastic flashing noise making ones. I understand you think I’m being a bit precious about this and I respect that you have a different view, but that’s going to be our rule for DS in our house so please stop bringing them. We won’t be giving them to DS to play with.” Ie don’t hint, say what you mean clearly albeit politely.

Option 2 is that you just quietly put the toys away when she leaves, or charity shop them. That technique gives you less grief now, but it won’t work once your DS is older because once he’s 3 or 4, if MIL gives him a toy and he wants it, you’ll have a very upset child if you then take away a gift.

Option 3 is a version of option 1, where you add on “You can keep those toys at your place for him to play with when we visit you.” That works if you don’t mind him playing with that stuff occasionally, just don’t want him distracted by in away from the toys you have chosen for him.

Take any toy she brings straight off of her and don't let her give them to your child. Sell them BNIB and put the money in savings for him or return them and exchange them for something he likes.

She is rude to ignore you, be rude back.

Why hasn't her son told her to stop buying these toys?

Just put them straight in a bag for the charity shop. I found it pointless having the conversation - we live in a 2 bed flat and get given endless soft toys i’m talking handfuls every time we see them (and they even get posted to us when we don’t see them for a while!). I have tried to say that we simply don’t have the room but it doesn’t seem to register. This will probably sound awful too but I wish people would put some money in savings or toward a farm membership etc instead, my mum will but the in laws insist on more toys!

Don’t get me wrong I love a wooden toy and open ended toys and loads of the plastic stuff, especially cheap unbranded stuff is tat, but I actually think a lot of vtech stuff is pretty good - the toot toot cars for example with the garage, track etc. We have other stuff like glow tracks, hot wheels that are plastic.

Just have a think about some of it if she actually is bringing over stuff like vtech. Especially as your child gets older they might start to enjoy playing with them even if they don’t now. It’s good to have a range of high quality toys and it doesn’t always mean a hundred percent wooden.

If it is all a load of crap though then maybe a list would help? I have a similar problem with my MIL constantly buying them clothes not to my taste but having a list of things I actually want or need is always quite handy.

My MIL is similar for not listening. If you’ve said already he doesn’t like those toys and she keeps bringing them anyway then just give them away. Only if she mentions it do you need to say anything and at that point you can just say we’ve told you he doesn’t like them so we passed them on. If she gets annoyed then that’s on her.

If they’re new/in good condition you could pop them on Vinted or Facebook marketplace or just give them to charity. Someone will be happy to have them (kids who do like loud flashy toys or other MIL’s who don’t listen ☺️

Charity shop !

Don’t be subtle. Tell her you hate those kinds of toys and will take any she brings straight to the charity shop. Then do it.

A bit rude. I had this with my Dad. he brought the kids a whole list of unsuitable noisy and potentially harmful presents. We made it clear we did not welcome this and then when he did not stop we simply started chucking them in the bin. The most memorable was a couple of whistles which were designed to be used if attacked, i.e. incredibly loud . They went straight away.

I just don't have the space for large toys so ds also has a fairly 'curated' play space. If my parents buy anything like that it stays at their house and he can play with it when he visits there. They generally are quite good at getting what I tell them he'd like though. To be honest I find ds gets bored of flashy plastic toys much quicker as they are usually closed play style toys so as soon as that happens I take it to charity. I try to balance it with not wanting to offend people who care about him and are technically wanting to do something nice for him. Because storage is an issue I've also held off on buying clothes and requested clothes as gifts instead of toys at times and opened a savings account and got ds a money box so if anyone wants to give birthday/Christmas money it will go in his money box and then we take it to the bank together.

Ds is 3 now and at nursery so I'm not just as strict but when he was a baby, I would have been stricter about certain toys and kept some in 'storage' and rotated gradually which i do with all his toys anyway so he's not bored of them.

I offload these kind of highly irritating toys to my parents' house.

Nope, it's a grandparent privilege to bring the noisy toys. You just grin and bear it then quietly put them away when they leave. My kids still have very found memories of all the noisy toys my late Fil brought them.

Does she not like you?
I would take most to charity shop. Others, take to hers when you visit and make them into granny home toys.

Agree with this tbh. Perhaps not at 13 months old, but more like 2 yrs old. We had a couple of Baby Einstein ones that were actually quite good.

I think its all about balance - 1 or 2 noisy toys from Granny won't wreck his concentration, but shedloads of them would annoy me. As a compromise you could take the batteries out, then he'll have to be more imaginative with them!

Say you’re now a plastic free house.

@tulipsandcherryblossom I'm amazed nobody else has suggested it, so I will.

Get your DP/DH to talk to her, and tell her that she's not to bring them any more. She's his mother, so make him do it.