to be sick of MiL buying dd stuff everytime she looks after her! Rant alert

[minxofmancunia]

Dd 2.10 has 3 yes 3 HUGE baskets of cuddly toys, only 1 toy ever bought by me as a Christmas pressie, the rest have been well-meaning gifts.

We live in a 2up 2 down terrace, very lovely but very small, the soft toy contingent is taking over! We are hopefully moving in a month,(to a bigger house) I'll be 8 months pg and want to pare down all the c**p rather than add to it. Dh had a word with satan MiL a while ago to tell her not to get dd anymore soft toys or branded stuff (last week she bought her a high school musical base ball cap horrid horrid) as it was taking over the house.

Yesterday came back from yoga at 7.30 to kiss dd goodnight and found her in bed with a huge scarecrow (nearly as big as her) and a penguin. Didn't say anything in front of dd but went mad at MiL to dh,(she'd, luckily for her left at this point) he said he'd had serious words. The point is SHE'S BEEN TOLD NO. MORE. STUFF.

He said rather than apologising she did her usual petulant childsih things and pulled a face saying "Grandmas in trouble again is she" and "well it's only 2 toys you can take them with you" (re the move) when asked why she'd bought them despite our specific instructions she said "well she wanted them so I had to get them"

What!!!! The issues for me are 1. The clutter, 2.the disobediance 3. the fact that IMO dd is getting a bit spoilt and is beginning to believe she can have what she wants, when she wants and 4. in light of this when we're with her we get the most almighty tantrums everytime we say "no".

For information yes of course we're lucky that gps look after dd once a week (alternating between MiL Dm and my dad) but it was something particularly with MiL that she asked for, so we reduced her days at nursery accordingly thinking it would help.

I'm starting mat leave in 2 weeks for a year so we're stopping it apart from a visit once a month for a few hours (again at MiLs request not us being mean), has caused lots of problems.

Take note: Gps looking after dcs isn't always a handy solution.

Am still fuming!!!!

My MIL used to do this, then my DH said (to his mum) that for every new cuddly toy we received, 2 toys would be taken out the back, blindfolded and shot.

It worked.

Would it be possible yo open a savings account for your DD and ask nicely that instead of buying her stuff that they put the money in there for her university fund. After all she is a bright girl and will surely be going on to further education and getting herself an 'ology'.

ROFL at blindfolding the toys!

My mum used to do this - then I said, in a casual way, what a pity it was that dd was starting to look forward to Grandma's visits because she would get presents, and what a shame it was that she no longer got excited about seeing Grandma. Seems to have worked.

I'm anticipating similar gift over-kill with both my mum and my MIL! Thanks for all the good advice already posted.

Although I'm very grateful that they want to buy our (unborn!) DC1 things, it's tricky when my mum arrived with a huge laundry bag full of many items we wouldn't use. However, after taking a carrier bag full back to ASDA, we've swapped it for stuff we will

MIL is going to be a nightmare on this front too as DH and I still get large Christmas stockings full of £1 tat . Every year, the stationary goes to work and the rest goes in the first charity bag that comes through the door in January!

As others have said, MIL (and mum) get lots of pleasure out of buying stuff and the giving of the gift - it's not about whether we'll use it. Therefore I don't feel bad about sending it back with them for their house, exchanging it or getting rid in other ways! I am quite heartless though

PMSL theinvisibleone!
Mum and MIL both look after DS and each time it seems to involve a shopping trip and a new toy (or two). My mum also sees my aunt on the same day as she loves seeing DS, so that's 3 proud 'grandmas' a week to rein in! We've tried dropping hints that we are bursting at the seams and it works for a while...and then starts again. I will start doing the one in one out thing, but I hate getting rid of stuff that DS likes (and given the chance / enough hours in the day he would play with everything) or that he hasn't quite grown into yet just because it's been replaced by something newer but not necessarily any better!
Soft toys though - they either go through the washing machine or in the bin when mucky. If they fall apart in the machine, in the bin they go. Exception to that is DS's giraffe - that reminds me I really must get another one to hide away as a spare in case anything ever happens to him

Rofl at being found in bed with a huge scarecrow and a penguin

I always say now - how lovely. Now you have somemore special toys to keep it at grandmas when you visit. (Grandma tones it down cos it's her house that gets cluttered up)

My mum presented dd with an enormous dolls house one Christmas.

Eventually I said it would have to go - we had no room at all for it and dc weren't playing with it.

I suggested my mum had it back at her house. She was most indignant - 'I haven't got any room for it!'

My parents live in a big house - just the 2 of them. Whereas all 5 of us are squished into something the size of the blimmin dolls house

Aw. Our house is full of junk treasure but I am at one with it. I have reached acceptance.

I hear/read of so many difficult relationships within families, I am just delighted my dc's have great relationships with 'the nannas'. I am pleased the the nanas/Grandad are alive and well enough to do a Saturday morning trek to the shop, dd in tow, with a fistfull of coins. Especially as this is childcare and nursery would charge a bomb for this service.
I also think there is an element of the nanas feeling they couldn't do this for me/dh when we were young, so they are having a golden age of hanging out with the children and not having the boring mundane stuff to worry about. Such as 'where am I going to put a 3ft long digger'. I let this happen. It's good karma.
Plenty of stuff comes home, but on an eco and finacial slant, a lot of it is second hand and therefore not a waste of resources. Financial or ecological.
We make sure we also have regular trips to the charity shop with various mahhhosive bits of plastic, so the cycle continues.

Apologies now if any one here has a greatly despised bit of plastic from our house

I do sympathise with you minx (although yes I am jealous that you have grandparents near enough to look after your dd regularly).

Dp's dad used to buy the boys toys every time he came to visit, usually cars. This stopped when ds1 said 'CARS AGAIN! WE HAVE SO MANY CARS!!'. I was very because we had taught him to be grateful for any presents people brought him. But inside I was because it meant I didn't have to cull them every month or so.

I think culling is necessary. Your dd might even appreciate telling you which toys she really wants to keep as opposed to the ones that look attractive in the shop but she never plays with. I like the one-in-one-out rule but have found it hard to enforce in practice.

At school we have cuddly toy tombolas at the fairs and I see other parents trying to steer their kids away from the stall! But I quite like them because i only let the boys choose one toy each and it more than makes up for the piles i have donated . Culling just has to be done.

PurpleCrazyHorse, just watch out for the cheapo clothes from supermarkets. I am overrun with t-shirts which I have never asked for and the boys hardly ever need or like. In this case it's dp's dad's partner (i.e. a mother-in-law equivalent) and I don't feel I know her well enough to ask her to stop buying them. Sometimes they go straight on Freecycle without even being worn.

MIL actually asked us what DS wanted for his birthday this year. We said he'd like a dressing up costume - maybe a Sportacus one. He did get the costume but also Sportacus underpants, socks, dressing gown, pjs, trainers, t-shirt and a toy with the plane thing that Sportacus sits on . DS loves the costume but isn't really into Sportacus other than that!

can we swap MILs? My MIL hardly ever buys my DD anything, but buys her other GD everything she wants.

YABU

If you dont want it, give it to a charity shop?

yanbu...

we have similar things here..mil comes most weeks with gifts (sometimes tat) for dd and ds.

Both sets of gp's have been asked to curb the spending and maybe limit it to one gift a month..? or money in savings.

90% of the time it falls on deaf ears..

I sympathise totally.

Those that say you abu have no idea of what its like to have gifts bought constantly...

Dh often tells mil to stop buying..no change. They came last week while dh was away with gifts. I TOLD THEM..Lets see if its worked..

Oh and we also get rubbish clothes..or ones not to our taste.Why why why...

Totally with you - I hate it too. But I just let them do it (maybe this is just naive) because I love them, DS loves them and they're getting quite old and there's no need to upset them in my book. I just have a regular cull and to my shame sometimes after I have proclaimed that there is no way that DS is going to like that horrid bit of tat the ILs have bought him, he totally falls in love with it and carries it around for weeks...

ginnny
"All I can say is that I hope my dss don't marry women like you. DISOBEDIENT??? Your MIL doesn't have to obey you - she is your DH's mother not an employee . Your dd is her gd and she obviously loves her, just because she shows it by buying her tat presents doesn't make her evil. Take the toys to the charity shop or sell them on Ebay if you don't want them. This is what I used to do when my Dad used to buy my dss unwanted stuff. I would never have told him to stop buying things for them.
I bet you'd be on here complaining if your MIL ignored your dd or refused to look after her"

I expect her to follow our basic childcare practices when loking after our dd, and if she didn't behave like a child re dd and these issues I wouldn't use words like disobedient. I bet she wishes her ds hadn't married someone like me, someone who won't pander to her or allow hostile, critical, undermining behaviour to go unchallenged. She's no longer at the centre of dhs world which is what rankles and does for many MiLs of women as far as I can tell. When I hear my friends who have boys come out with the "I know no women will ever be good enough for my boy" clap trap it sets alarm bells ringing, as a side issue what IS that all about? This little one I'm carrying might be a boy but I'm determined not to fall into this, it's toxic.

Obviously gps who're not involved, distant and uncaring is horrible and I can understand why some posters feel this need to point this out but being intrusive, undermining and unhelpful can be stressful too. I am grateful for her input in some ways as she does love dd, but showing her love and trying to win points by present buying smacks of insecurity and I don't accept it I'm afraid. You can give little ones love and affection without spoiling them which this is essentially, and point scoring.

And it might seem like a little thing but to those of you who say "sell it on EBay/take to a charity shop", why should we be doing that when we don't have to? If it's unneccessary? I DO take stuff to the chairty shop sometimes but sorting through unwanted junk and bagging it up for chairty shops or posting on EBay is not what I want to spend my free time doing. We both work, we're busy, our free time is to spend doing activities of our choice orneccessity, not imposed on us by a relative because they can't resist junking up our house with a load of tat.

And MiL can't afford it, she uses her benefits to treat dd then borrows money from BiL supposedly to pay bills but more often than not for stuff like this or to swan off to Blackpool for the weekend .

I've offered alternatives i.e. "if you really want to get something while you're out at the shops you could buy her bubbles/colouring book/small jigsaw/puzzle/sticker activity book, she really likes those!". She uses them , gets a lot of pleasure out of them and you can bin them once they're spent!!! (in the recycling of course )

Minx - don't start a war about this, it's a very minor thing.

My Mil takes my kids charity shopping and they come back with all kinds of stuff. If we don't want it (and we usually don't), it is quietly put in a bag and returned to the charity shop.

Mil also gives the kids blue slush puppies, cheese pies from Greggs and, it seems, all the ice cream and cake they can eat. It happens on one afternoon a week and for the rest of the time they are in the care of mean witch mummy.

The important thing is that she is building a relationship with your child, in her way, and although it might not be quite the way you want it, this relationship is incredibly valuable for your children.

Just grit your teeth and smile - this is just the beginning of the 'I want to live with granny,' years

treedelivery - yours was a lovely, reasoned post. Anyone who chooses a strawberry hat that cute has to have a good take on the world!

Minx - how is buying your dd loads of toys hostile or undermining though? That's what I was talking about. She might be those things in other ways but the post was about the toys.
I have 2 boys myself and I don't think "no woman will ever be good enough for them", that would be ridiculous, but I hope they end up choosing women who will respect that I am their mother, who has bought them up to respect women and be good husbands, and not call me disobedient when I buy toys for my grandchildren.

Even if they asked you not to because they were worried about the DC being horribly spoiled and because they didn't have space for all the tat?

This isn't about the OP being annoyed with her MIL for buying toys - it's buying a ridiculously excessive amount of toys that are ill-judged and not needed. Nobody would complain about a thoughtful granny giving nice presents once in a while or at appropriate times of year. It is when it's too much.

Yabu.
My MIL doesn't look after ds, or buy him things.
She bought him a coat from George at Christmas (5 days before his 1st birthday) in age 18-24 months so he could 'grow into it' So it fits him now, in the summer.
I do feel jealous of people who have caring parents and ILs but complain about them.

minx - you do sound like a nightmare. Maybe you could look at your own childish, petulant, controlling behaviour instead of trying to bully your MIL.

I would go with what sparkleandshine suggested
We have a fairly large home but I still get overwhelmed with the amount of toys DS has. I'm getting better at donating them to the charity shop whilst they are still in very good condition though.
I agree Muffle - this kind of thing can develop into a powerplay situation.
My IL's aren't too bad with presents (my Dad was at one point but has since calmed down a lot) but MIL has a horrible habit of asking me in front of DS if he is 'allowed' to have something or always using my name when reprimanding him (Mummy said you cannot do that/Mummy won't like that). Horrid behaviour.
I have a friend whose MIL keeps giving her large second hand (often dirty) items for her DC's - she lives in a small cottage and I know she absolutely hates it.
It's all just too weird. I keep vowing to myself to remember all these annoying things when/if I am a grandparent. Hopefully I will....