what toys are we NOT buying this year - lessons learned from previous years!

[curlycat]

no more make your own badges, stickers, gift cards rubbish - they never work properly.

moon sand

hama beads

hot wheels tracks that take 6 hours to build and 2 seconds to break

anything that is meant to churn out anything near edible food - think chocoltae coins/ cupcakes.

anyone care to add - i wish i had this kind of list when my dc were little and i could have saved a fortune since i've bought most of this tat at some point over the last 11 years!

Curlycat We are also central Scotland. Unfortunately it's all she wants and so it's been purchased already. Hey ho...

Zhu Zhu pets and all the plastic crap that goes with them.

Agree about moon sand as well!

Any more cinderella dolls for nearly 6 year old son

FGHWT, DS2 (4) mortified DS1 (10) in the baker's today when he chose the Barbie princess shortbread over the Ben10 one - take heart, you're not alone!

Disagree with play-doh that is one of the most played with toys in this house (we have no carpets though). And happyland.

I would like to add:

Humongous teddies (the ones that are bigger than your toddler). Never played with, take up too much room, left to collect dust.

Baby born splashing doll. Doesn't splash.

Cheapo sandpit #1 - lid kept falling off, sand full of cat shit from the start.

Cheapo sandpit #2 - lid stayed on but didn't fit properly so sand full of rainwater from the start.

Inflatable ball pool - took too long to blow up, went all flat and wrinkly after a few hours. Now left to rot in shed.

Any of those pre-school laptop / phonic game thingys - DD loses interest after 2 seconds

Anything that eats batteries (torches, portable CD players etc)

I also disagree with Happyland. We bought a load second hand for DD 3 years ago and it is still good as new. DS plays with it now and it's one of his favourites.

Password journal didn't work for us either (but dd2 has another version where you have to put in a 'code' and that works sort of ok).
Craft kits - much rather spend money on nice paper and felt tips, and use things from the junk modelling box
'doodle' drawing type things or spiroraphs

Def disagree with Happyland. We started our (now extensive) collection 5 years ago. No breakages at all - just a few worn out batteries and missing accessories - and we wear our toys hard.

They are my #1 recommended toy for independent toddler play. They are just so intuitive. For example, driver goes in the train -> train moves; character sits in chair -> TV plays.

The village stuff is better than the spin offs (rockets and such like). Lovely gentle toys. Far better than ridiculous things with 'modes' that mean the kids just mindlessly scroll through the jingles, or complicated assembly instructions.

I'm afraid I'm giving up on jigsaws. Life is really too short to keep collecting the pieces when you've got past the 20-piece jigsaws.

I'm also giving up on science sets. Require too much adult input.

mcfee - don't use holidays, christmas or jls as your paswword then or else you'll still be roaring at the stupid thing come Christmas and yes thats all my dd wanted at one point hence 3 versions later:)

Oh I bloody love HappyLand stuff but i'm biased because i'm paid to say that!

Cheapo forklift trucks or diggers from TK Maxx. They fall apart after one play.

Pretty much anything Toys R Us own brand it's useless shit.

Elefun.

where do you get happyland?

Aquabeads and Hamma Beads get hoovered up in this house. I hate them.
:)

Any views on Lego Duplo? That's all mine (2&4) want this year.

ELC madmomma

Ben and Hollys little kingdom 'gastons cave' dd2 broke this straight away, i replaced it and that broke too (waste of money).

Zhu Zhu pets, takes bloody ages to put together and total crap (played with it twice then got put in the toy cupboard).

Hot wheels, dd1 was desperate for this last year so i bought her a small set and she's hardly touched it (plus the quality is crap).

Guess who extra, cost a fortune and has caused many arguments (again its gone to the toy cupboard)

Lego Duplo is fab, both mine still play with it even though they have the smaller lego, i also rate playmobil and elc happy land.

That's good news! It's compatible with the smaller lego though, is that right? I want it to last a while.

Moonsand gets my vote for worst toy ever.

Whyyyy can't I read new replies to this thread :(

DD was looking at Moonsand and saying "I want some"

Usually I say in a noncommital kind of way "put it on your Christmas list" when she says that. But because it was Moonsand I said "Nooooooooooooo", so of course she wanted to know why and I came out with all these reasons that I could tell sounded totally ridiculous to her; about hoovers and my sanity basically.

I should've just said "Mumsnet says it is evil".

thanks Moanna. Expensive isn't it?

Very pleased no-one has mentioned Playmobil yet.....

Shuddering at the memory of moon sand.....

play doh ice cream parlour which was stashed on top of the wardrobe since March as I hate trying to clean it after, the bits just don't come out. The play doh just got mixed together creating a pile of mush!

Harry Potter lego as dd made it once and then didn't bother with it much after that.