Present Ideas for a 2.6 year old ds please. I keep getting it wrong and am fed up of toys he ignores!

[tutu100]

Can I have suggestions for toys for my ds please. Preferably ones which are quite quiet and will hold his attention span for more than 30 seconds thus given me time to do things like wee, breathe and clear up the general mess and choas he creates.

He has quite a lot of toys, but nothing seems to interest him much. I try rotating toys and making sure he doesn't have too much out at anyone time, but so far he doesn't actually play with anything much. Even when I'm trying to play with him.

Please somebody come up with the perfect Christmas present and save my sanity!

When my son was two we gave him a cheapo (Asda) wooden train set. He played with it all day, every day for the first four months, then every other day. You get the picture! I took him into the Early Learning Centre a few times to see what he wanted to play with then bought the train set. Good luck!

Train set a hit. Also fire engine. Big (ugly) playmat rug thing with road buildings etc and pack of matchbox cars. Toy food and cooker or cash register? Trike/scooter? Duplo? Dressing up clothes?
Have to admit though DS's favourite ever was a plastic firemans helmet from his Nana which he wears every single day....

happy land stuff from ELC
playdoh
playfood
toolset and workbench-have a good one at focus £20

Playdough with lots of gadgets to use; ds1 loved thetrain thing from elc at that age.

Any garage or other building that has lots of doors/ramps/rooms/places to shove cars and things, and genrerally fiddle.

A tent or a little wendy house. Seriously. You'd be amazed how exciting it is to build yourself a nest in there from cushions, hoard your toys, and just be in there! Ds1 used to sleep in his wendy house in his room

The fact that he doesn't play with what he has got should surely lead you to conclude that he doesn't need more plastic tat.

Don't buy him anything.
He wont notice anyway.

DS1 is 2.5 and loves the following:

Play tools and bench
Plastic policemans helmet
Spiderman figure (Bought from a carboot for £1. Same as an action man, probably for ages 5+ or something but not dangerous at all)
Trike.

Good point moondog! I do wonder why I bought so much for ds1 (albeit second hand), when I'm only now starting to see him really wanting certain things and developing real interests.
But the wendy house was £1 from the hospice shop, and its the best £1 I've spent on either child I reckon!!

There is fuck all in my house in terms of toys.
I spend the money on myself.

Thank you for al your suggestions. Part of me agrees with you Moondog that he doesn't need anymore toys, but then another part of me thinks that it's my fault for getting stuff that he's not interested in the first place. We buy most of ds's toys from the car boot so at least we haven't spent that much money on them. I just want to get him something that he will really enjoy.

The wooden trainset sounds like an excellent idea Barbiehair. He has a toy cooker and play food and will play with it occasionally, but on the whole it gets ignored (I think I bought it for me really!)

He does like playdough, but also he likes rubbing it into the carpet which is my only reluctance with that one, but maybe if he had some more accessories to go with it.

We do make tents, but they don't hold his interest for long unfortunately.

He is a very active boy with little attention span (except for Pingu dvds which I do limit). I just want to get him something he will really enjoy and focus on.

Thank you for all the suggestions so far I think I will definately look for a wooden train set and some bits to go with his playdough. Maybe some kind of storage box with compartments would be good as he could have fun getting stuff out and putting it away.

Maybe that would work with cars as well.

Keep your suggestions coming they are appreciated.

There's lots of toys in my house, but I enjoy them very much . Shame ds doesn't.

have you got a local toy library?
i'm a childminder and use ours loads because we can get something new and exciting very cheaply for a month then change it

or go and buy the thing if it was a hit

I'm not sure if we have a toy library. I'll have to look into that. I've bought stuff that he's played with at toddler group only for it to be ignored at home, but played with at group.

He loves the little tikes green and yellow push along trike at toddler group but I think it must be pretty old as I can't find it anywhere.

Our boys were into,

Duplo, but you need loads to make something really interesting.

Tomica World Thomas the Tank trainsets.

A piece of gutter pipe which they prop up on sofa/windowsil etc and roll cars down.

Water play at kitchen sink, hard to see how you could make this into a gift!

Painting, (maybe an easel).

Most of all they loved (and still do) DD's polly Pocket collection!

SSC the gutter pipe sounds fantastic! I will definately be finding a piece of that. Infact I don't think that one will wait for Christmas I think I'll try and get some this week end. I think he'd really like that.