Putting together toys - how long does X take?

[FireflyGirl]

I thought I'd start a thread to give people an idea of how long some (relatively popular) toys take to put together, so we know if it's an 'early hours of Christmas morning' job or 'get Grandad to make it up in his shed 3 weeks in advance'.

This is prompted by spending quite a long time on Christmas Morning last year putting together DS'S Vtech toys, but I've seen on other threads that Playmobil is a culprit for this as well.

So:
Toot Toot Hospital - 15 mins
Toot Toot House - 20 mins
Toot Toot garage - took DH over half an hour, and I then had to stick the stickers on.

Happyland Zoo - can be played with straight from the box!

Sylvanian - from 20min for the car and caravan to 2.5hrs for the hotel.

Goalie nets - forever!!!

The kids make the playmobil though, that's the point.

Have you ever seen the contents of the box of the playmobil school? About thirty odd bags, 9 million pieces, pieces not bagged in any order, plus a gazillion teeny tiny stickers. There is absolutely no way a five year old could do that.

It's like Lego part of the fun is making it then playing with it. A five year old would need help but not by age eight.

Make sure all the pieces are with your toy too

Mil and Fil bought dd a smart trike for Christmas last year

No matter what we did, we couldn't get it to work properly. The handle would not control the wheel.

Turns out there was a piece missing. Couldn't take it back by now either. So we have an almost brand new smart trike stored in our out building that will never be used

Oh no we currently have a cosy coupe car sat (unassembled) in our garage for my sons Xmas present. It can't be that hard surely?!?!

We spent about 3 hours putting together a dolls house last christmas eve. Finished it, opened the wine and dp remarked that it was very posh to have an outdoor dressing room.... walls had been put up wrong way round. Took another hour to take it apart and rebuild..

Allow 4 hours at least to put together this little tikes wooden kitchen - and that's 2 people doing it who are good at flatpack!

Mouse Trap - hours and hours and then it's a pretty crap game anyway.

That Christmas really stands out in my memory, - we became parents in our 40s & I can remember putting a forced smile on my face whilst DH put the game together and silently thinking back to all the quiet, sophisticated, adult focused celebrations we'd had over the years .............. and now here we were trying to put a game of Mouse Trap together and pretending to enjoy it.

And if that makes me sound a horrible parent I really don't care.

Barbie house all night.

Plum Activity Train Table anyone? Have bought this for DS' second birthday in December and it's been sitting in its box at the end of our bed for months already. Should I make a start now?

Glad I started this thread!

DSis has got him the Plum kitchen (although I did read the reviews on that so I've invited her and DBIL round for the day after Christmas to assemble it and drink wine) and DGP have got him the Cosy Coupe. I will be warning them to have presents ready to be played with!

5 years and a divorce over the Ikea kitchen made me laugh!

This my little pony castle isn't too difficult to build. But you build it way more than once if you lift it it falls apart and then you start again! can you tell this fell apart again today?

Buying a barbie house this year can see that being fun

This was my Everest last year. I stupidly started it at 10pm Xmas eve as didn't want to wake dd. Finished at 3am. I am a whizz with ikea flatpack. This was different. Ferrero and baileys got me through probably doubled the time taken

ELC diner kitchen took my DH and his bro, several hours I'd have bloody done it myself faster ---- Ikea easel is easy to assemble. Happyland - remove it all from the box beforehand! DD has asked for Playmobil camper van and water slides pool thing this year, will definitely be assembling beforehand. Have got imaginext stuff secondhand so not sure about assembly timings. Also bought a Cosy Coupe secondhand a few years ago, but lots friends who bought it new day to took aaaaages to build.

Has anyone put together the shop/theatre from Great Little Trading Company?

I don't have anywhere to store it once it's built, so may have to leave it til Christmas Eve once the DC are asleep. Having read this thread I'm now thinking that is a crazy idea!

X Box One - hours of downloading. Luckily DH did it the night before.

DS is a bit older now, but he had lots of Imaginext toys...really brilliant but as they come in a display box they used to have hundreds of wires and even some plastic strips with screws

I used to clip all them off when I was wrapping them. I have noticed the plastic ties have been replaced with paper ones but still annoying

ELC diner kitchen took about 2 hours as every single little bit comes separately!

ELC wooden workbench/walker is adorable but took 1-2 hours to assemble despite being fairly small!

The kitchen from asda George is quite quick - under an hour for 2 of us and easy to move if needed. Toot toot toys are the work of the devil and have been charity shopped within a year

These are also a massive pain in the arse as you have to thread the elastic/bungee cord all around and get it the right resistance. Feels really unsafe as could ping and whip you at any moment! Definitely don't do with a toddler around.