Should I encourage my 20 mo 's obsession with trains?

[GandalfsPointyHat]

Hi,

My DS (20 mo) is absolutely obsessed with trains. We have lots of Thomas TTE trains/ tracks as Ds1 enjoyed playing with it and was given loads by friends/ family. He builds track and long trails of carriages, makes only train- related sounds, knows how to find clips of steam trains on the ipad ( if he gts his hands on it, or my phone), and will watch it endlessly. He doensn't play or is intested anything else. This has been going on for about a month. I'm not sure whether I should let him be or make the trains 'dissapear' for a few days. I'm worried that this obsession is detrimentral to everything else he should/could be doing. Any advice?

TIA

Prozacbear - Drayton Manor theme park Tamworth outside BHam, it was really good even the DDs enjoyed it, there was a bit where DS was sitting in Clarabel, being pulled by Thomas and waving at the fat controller, it was almost too much for him.

Most days I am Victor and he is Kevin, I ask him where he is going he says "into a siding"

He's my first boy after 3 girls, one of which is an utter Tom boy but she's dinosaur mad not Thomas.

Haha! DS often goes 'into a siding' too! And holding hands is 'coupling up'

DS1 was like it- it is just a phase- let him enjoy it.

I think this is absolutely normal. My mum believes that small boys go through phases of obsession. She always talks about a boy in my class at school who was of average intelligence but knew everything there was to know about dinosaurs with a huge amount of detail.

My DS was quite an early talker and could differentiate consistently between diggers and tractors before he could reliably attribute mummy and daddy to the correct parent. His first word was car. At 27mo he still loves vehicles, particularly construction and agricultural vehicles, but has broadened out to include trains and buses... Basically anything with wheels. I don't think it is unhealthy for them to have interests. He'll likely be obsessed with something else in a few months time.

A side effect is that you will forever know all the bloody names of the engines in Thomas and your DS will have forgotten most of them by the time he's 10.

Ds2 - 2.8 - is obsessed by trains - we're taking him to the National Railway museum in the summer. At least its a change from the tractor obsession that DS1 had. DS1 is 7 now and a tractor barely lifts an eyebrow of interest. Let him enjoy it before you know it you'll be onto Star Wars!!

My ds, now 14, was train obsessed too at that age. He didn't talk much but knew all the thomas trains and their corresponding numbers and took every engine to bed with him
It passes although he still has obsessions with things, mainly ww2 atm.

GandalfPH - seems we share more than a name!

My DS was so train obsessed that whatever toys you gave him, they were lined up to make a train. This sounded alarms with hv who arranged assessment for autism. DS duly demonstrated his train making skills, by taking all the toy cars that the tester wanted him to describe colours of, and carefully lined them up to make a train!

He wasn't/isn't autistic and now, 12 years later, is doing just fine, but the train phase lasted a good 8 or so years, and he ended up with enough track to make layouts that went in and out of all the rooms on the ground floor of the house.

We used it to our advantage, so when we wanted him to progress on reading we found interesting train books and one of our favourite holidays was on the Rocky Mountaineer (Canadian train through the Rockies) - what 5 year old would sit still on a train for 2 days normally? mine did!

Enjoy, as others have said you Star Wars/Yu-gi-oh/Skylanders etc.etc. to look forward to!!

My dgs2 was obsessed with tractors at that age.His first word was 'takta'.He only played with toy tractors and wanted to watch endless Tractor Ted dvd's followed by little Red Tractor and Tractor Tom. now,aged 4 ,he has passed through trains [including stats on Mallard and Flying Scotsman] and is obsessed by...wait for it...a]Spiderman and b]Peter Rabbit!!!!!

DS is obsessed with cars and always has been - he likes trains and other vehicles, but cars are far and away the best.

At that age he just played with them, but now he does line them up by size/colour, they have little conversations with each other, rescue each other, so there's a lot of imaginative play too.

Makes birthdays/treats easy too - relatives don't always realise that in his opinion there is no such thing as too many cars getting boring!

I think it's normal for toddlers to fixate on something, so the only reason I'd disappear them every now and then is if you did a toy rotation plan so he doesn't get bored (I don't... he just scatters them around the house and gets excited when an old one is re-discovered under the settee)

Another one of DSs sayings, he hurt his foot and I put a plaster on it and he said "thanks for fixing my broken wheels Victor"

He often eats his dinner with his fork as a hook if he's being Kevin.

Today he was waiting on a train and a diesel train whiz zed past the platform with trucks, it made his day, love him

It's not just little boys who have cycles of obsession/interest - my DH has had periodic 'themes' for as long as I've known him!