to tell my SIL that DS already has the present she got for his b/day, and therefore not to take it out the box so I can exchange it?

[ilikeyoursleeves]

DS is turning 2 and got some birthday pressies tonight at the inlaws, one of which was a fire engine from ELC. He has this already (given by other SIL last year) so I told SIL this. DS had seen what it was obviously and tried to play with it / get it out the box. I said I would exchange it for something else but ended up feeling like a bad mummy cos everyone was saying 'but awwww look at his face he wants to play with it, can he not just have 2 of them, one for downstairs and one for upstairs?'. I gave in and went to take it out the box but DS then went to play with something else and forgot all about it. I still got a bit of a slagging though that I'm going to return it.

I think since he already has it HE DOESN'T NEED ANOTHER ONE or is that just me? And was it rude of me to tell SIL he already has it? The other SIL who got him the original one was sitting there and she said she didn't want to tell her sister that DS already had it, so that made me feel bad as if it was rude or something!

I think the best thing to do when you're giving a gift to anyone with kids is ALWAYS to keep the receipt and while the pressie is being opened, offer to their parent that you'll exchange it if they've already got it as a matter of course.

It definitely DOES depends on the culture of the family, ellokitty, you're right. And who the gift-giver is. If it's an elderly great aunt then they might have grown up in an era when you just accept any gift with gratitude whatever it is. But where my sister and I are concerned, we always have prior discussions anyway when buying pressies to avoid duplicates. But if we DID end up getting a duplicate we know each other well enough to say so without being offended.

Don't beat yourself up too much! I would much prefer to get a child something they wanted and didn't have already (usually try to check with the parents first - I don't know why people don't do this more often). I'm usually a bit sneaky and if I know we have the same thing already I try to keep it as pristine as possible and return it without letting the person know or give it as a present to someone else (!!!) - next time they come round they'll see the original and you can quite honestly say how much the child loves it and what a good choice it was.

Last Xmas my PIL's got my DS a Leapfrog bilingual play table.... which he already had had for about 9 months don't know why they forgot that considering it's normally in the middle of the living room! Anyhoo, I wouldn't have said anything but FIL noticed looks between DH and I and asked it he already had it and so we went to John Lewis on Boxing day and exchanged it for a smart trike

I was really worried DS was going to take it out the box before PIL noticed as I would have exchanged it but luckily he didn't so it all worked out.