How to spread out presents?

[May84]

This is a strange one, but here we go!
My daughters 3rd birthday was today, we had a little party and she got so many presents! Her uncle came, with a huge sack of presents from my husband's side of the family from Christmas.
So now we have a large amount of presents, about 35?
We feel very lucky, but I feel a bit uncomfortable giving them all to her in one go. We are not a materialistic family and don't want her to expect loads of presents all the time. She's a very appreciative girl who is happy with a new set of pens bless her.
I wonder if she will enjoy them if there is such a big amount?
Would you advise spreading them out over the next few weeks? Or unwrap them all at once? She had a few pressies today and was very happy with them!

For some reason I feel guilty the amount of pressies she got, we didn't have much growing up and it makes me feel bad for other families who don't have much.

I’d just let her have five presents a day for a week. It can be her birthday week.

I'm dreading this when my daughter is a bit older. I would be inclined to unwrap them all myself, and select which ones would be appropriate for her to play with/use now, and put any others aside for a rainy day or when they will be more age appropriate or relevant. You can still say who they are from when you give them to her. Any that you think she wouldn't like, or you already have you could donate?

My friend's family club together for her daughter's birthday gifts (1st of January) so she gets maybe 1 big thing and a few small bits from everyone and anything left over from the fund is out in her savings account for her to use as/when she pleases.

They found she was totally overwhelmed by everything as it was just after Christmas.

I would save half for mid-year, since her birthday is so close to Christmas.

Mine have January birthdays

They have gifts for Christmas and cash for birthdays. They save for a big item.

It worked well.

The other thing is GPs get the family Panto tickets which they love. One less gift. Aunt usually takes them for a day out. Again less ‘stuff’ and something to look forward to.

Maybe make similar suggestions next year.

I put some away for the Christmas toy appeal next year. Mine got a lot of stuff suitable for younger children and didn't notice.

Open a savings account and ask for money from relatives, save for her driving lessons etc

I would let her open them all but then squirrel then away to play with at a later date and spread them out.

If you don't open them how are you going to say "thank you" to all the people who have lovingly chosen a present for your child?

Wow my kids never got presents except from one uncle (out of five) and their grandparents outside of us.
I'd spread them out a bit but also have a word with your relatives - a combined bigger gift would be better, maybe even something like music lessons or similar?

Open the gifts and put any aside that will be better when she is older. And rotate the rest weekly so she plays with them but isn't overwhelmed by them all. And donate/sell any that are not suitable. Some might not even be toys.

Let her open a few each day, encourage her to play with them. We have a large family and combined with a class party my eldest often had a lot of gifts for birthdays when younger but enjoyed opening each one and playing with it straightaway so we just let him go at his own pace and thought it was better than just going from one to the next hardly looking at what was received. I also had much less as a child, but think teaching gratitude better than depriving him of the gifts (and the pleasure people had giving them).

DD opened her Christmas presents gradually between Christmas Eve (relatives visiting that day) and the 27th. She is 2.5 and doesn't get enjoyment out of opening presents one straight after another. Also it would take an age to do it all in one go!

On her birthday she will open only the gifts she receives that day from people we invite over (so from me and a few close friends) and other gifts she can open as she sees that particular person in the days/weeks surrounding her birthday). I'm a bit resistant to establishing gift exchanges with lots of people as I feel it just adds to the plastic tat on the planet so if someone asks me what they would get DD for a present I will sometimes suggest that we meet up and have a fun day out instead of buying gifts for each other's children.