What NOT to buy

[feelingfairlyfestive]

We have had lots of very useful threads suggesting some lovely presents for our loved ones. After stumbling across this, I was inspired to start a "What NOT to buy" thread to share the crap not so lovely present ideas.

Baby Annabel grew up and developed an eating disorder

National Geographic night vision goggles are crap. I don't even want to give them to charity shop because they will definately disappoint somebody else.

The shaker maker clay model things - rubbish.

Mag warriors have hardly ever been played with.

'And transformers!!! Who on earth can build them without them breaking into little plastic pieces in your hand?'

My kids can! They absolutely love them. The older ones are better though. I'm not buying the shitty newest ones. Managed to get loads of G1 Transformers off of ebay in the summer :)

Any doll that poo's itself - the fiddly cleaning of the pipes after each poo is a nightmare. Also I found not putting batteries in things unless asked works well. The singing potty is a delightful mute toy as DD has no idea of it's musical function.

Kids don't seem to have any imagination as these toys do it all for you and so i am holding off as long as i can. My DD is 6.5 and still plays with teddies, she talks to them and makes them answer her and it wouldn't be as fun if they answered back in the 3 or 4 sentences that they have inside them - she would soon get bored.

you have to clean their poo pipes?

Seriously fell out over Funky Felt? Go on tell us more.

Chipping, that's about it.

For some unknown reason my (really quite bright 5 yr old, honest) is ridiculously happy with it, despite it's shitness

OK, well, please do not buy my children:

1. Mega Blocks as they get all mixed up with Lego and my house that I spent an hour constructing will have weak bricks and will fall apart. Just me?

1. Toys from Poundland. They will just fall apart and how they pass BS safety is beyond me.

1. Zhu Zhu Pets. Biggest pile of crap since Tomogotchi.

Never bought Moonsand, pretty obvious to me that it would be a disaster.

Also, any thing that eats batteries unless you provide said child with a few to keep them going (I am already skint, do not add to my misery)

One more tip, if you are buying for my child, do me a favour, take it out of the box, undo all the wires, put the batteries in and know how to work it so you can spend that quality time you wanted with my child rather than doing it on Christmas afternoon. You can put it back in the box for the unwrapping and it is such a help. Thanks

Have to disagree about Hot Wheels, got a set for ds for his birthday. I was able to assemble it and has been a firm favourite. For £20 was a good buy.

We love Playmobil and Lego, but would agree that 4 is a bit young for Playmobil, especially the sets with lots of fiddly pieces. And Lego is only any good if you have dc who like putting stuff together and can concentrate quite well.

Have heard a lot of people say Moonsand is rubbish, but have no experience of it myself.

But really it depends a lot on your children. Some things which are really popular with other children don't interest ds at all, and vice versa. So I'd say try to find out what sort of thing the child likes and already plays with before you choose!

The McFlurry maker, I don't know if that is still available, it went back to the shop after we realised making it took vast quantities of salt and water, messy and also the flurry mix worked out more expensive than buying a flurry at McDonald's. I would agree with Moon Sand, I have never had to clean up such a dreadful mess.

We love lego here, although we are still on Duplo as DS is only 2.5.

DH and I both loved it as children though and are eagerly looking forward to having some really complicated sets to put together

I hate Playmobil though, we won't be buying any for DS and any we do get given will be e-bayed!

Scaletrix ... always seems like a good idea but takes ages to set up, never works properly, the cars either go in fits and starts or whiiz off the first corner they come to

hama beads - too disappointing when we have nearly finished putting the beads in and some one breathes and a whole load fall out.

And Scalectrix takes such a big chunk of floor space out of whatever room it's in.
Wikistix, someone gave DC some of those one year. Totally no point.

Scalextric. Always, without fail, breaks. Bits of the cars fly off. We've had three, none lasted into the new year.

The cars break, the controllers may work well for one race then not at all the next. I really, really dislike Scalextric
now and they're not cheap either!

Deffo pooing dolls, dd's friend been today with a doll and dd said "oh I hate dolls, I had one that pooed and it was gross, I prefer animals".

Deffo Elefun, takes 45 mins to put the butterflies down the tube thing and 10 seconds for them to flop out again (they don't even whoosh, they just flutter weakly and drop on the floor)

Also junior scrabble, The words are already spelled and you just add the letters. The point being????

Thanks for moonsand tip off!

bucharest, try taking the elephants trunk off and chucking th butterflys in there on top of the fan. Then just click the trunk back on. Simples.

but we LOATHE Cluedo Junior

it is the single most complicated game ever devised, far more tricky than the adult version.

Barbie Glitter Hair thingy is obviously shite, as are most Barbie toys.

Pig Goes Pop was another big disappointment here, it never goes pop unless you press the head 100 times which defeats the whole object of the game!

Polly Pocket Shopping Mall was much loved for all of 5 minutes, until all the minuscule shoes/coat hangers etc disappeared and the main bit snapped in half.

The kiddy version of Operation (the one where it's a pig instead of a person) is completely impossible, I have trouble with it, my 5 year old has never once managed to get a piece out successfully despite approx. 6 million attempts - it has been a source of great frustration for both of us!

oh Elefun, I second/ third/ fourth that
our Ele-no-fun-at-all is so flipping weak that he can't snort the butterflies to the top of his flipping trunk. and no, it's not the batteries, it's just the whole flipping hateful thing.....

(I have enjoyed reading the linked reviews for the cupcake maker though )

Oh yes! Operation 'junior' is flippin' well impossible, the tweezers don't even open!

my dd wants the golden egg maker thing, the only thing on the list

I will have to lie and say it's sold out