In a dilemma about dd2's present from ILs - singalong cd player

[Oovavu]

Bought one of these from argos £19.99 for the ILs to give dd2. They have 5 grandchildren and spend £20 on each of them so it's fair.

MIL wrapped it etc but forgot to put batteries with it so dd2 couldn't use it on Christmas Day and was really disappointed. Next day FIL bought batteries for it which cost nearly as much as the present and the bloody thing wouldn;t work. I took it back to argos to exchange but they had no stock so I had to have a voucher.

Went to elc to see of the ones they have were reduced but they haven't - they're £37 (£30 with 20% discount) but none in stock til tomorrow or I could buy online and pay the extra out of dd2's christmas money.

Don't know what to do - it's already cost the PILs twice as much due to the batteries which I feel guilty about but they wouldn't let us pay for them. Dd2 keeps asking about her 'music player' and now I find out from the reviews on the website that you really need an adaptor (£8 extra) as it 'eats' batteries. Shall I just buy the more expensive one and pay the extra? or choose another toy for her? There are none comparible with the ones we looked at in argos or elc and I know she would gets loads of pleasure out of it.

you can pick up basic cd players for under £15 - would it be better to get one of them and a couple of cheap compilation cds, and let her decorate it with stickers?

That would be the sensible thing to do... but she loves singing along. Dd1 has the keyboard with the microphone from elc and dd2 has played with that since she could stand up. We went into the shop before Christmas so I could see if she liked it and she had the whole shop annoyed entertained singing along to Jingle Bells.

God I usually hate this sort of behaviour from parents "little precious really loves it and what she wants she gets...". Ues, she'd get over it but I just saw her face when she tried to sing into it on Christmas day and she was so delighted with the microphones (shame they didn't pigging work!)

Hmm, I don't know. I suppose it is tempting to buy her the elc one, if you don't mind paying the extra yourself.

However, and I've never seen either of these before so I'm basing this on cost alone: One that costs nearly £40 is surely a different 'quality' or type of toy than one which cost your PIL £20. And they chose to but her the Argos one. So IYSWIM, if you buy her the elc player then it is not really the same present as the PIL wanted her to have.

Sorry, that prob makes no sense, but I know what I mean!

I chose the argos one as I knew they didn't want to pay more than £20. It had been reduced in elc before Christmas so I was going to top up the money myself but then they put it back up to £37 which I thought was a tad too much, esp when I found the argos one for £20.
This is the elc one
This is the argos one - still not in stock, whereas the elc one is, online.

Oh, I obviously hadn't read the OP properly! If she didn't even choose it, then no, it doesn't matter if you buy the elc one. She won't know the cost.

Also, the elc is a LOT nicer than the argos one! I like the funky flower design. HTH

Thing is on the elc reviews they say the same thing - you need the adaptor or you will spend a fortune in batteries.

I've seen this problem in kids cd players before - they use too much power for batteries.

Either you're going to have to go for an adult one or you're going to have to fork out for an adaptor whichever model you go for.

Hi dd1 has the pink elc one and has a cd story evey night for 30mins and batteries last about 6 weeks, however her godfather also bought her the red one for xmas and the adaptor so have kept the adapter (just a generic adapter from maplins much cheaprer than the elc one) and took the cd player back and got a gift card for the moment, we were going to give the red one to dd2 but shes 2 next week and her godmother getting her a cheaper version and tbh shes not botehred about microphone

My dcs grandparents give them £20 each at Christmas and I wouldn't consider asking them to pay more than that.

If you can afford to then pay the extra money yourself and buy the adapter (can usually find elc money off codes here), if not then the only thing you can do is shop around or wait for more stock to come in from Argos.

I'm not asking the dgs to pay any more; I tried to pay for the batteries but they wouldn't hear of it.

anyway I've gone online and bought it all now. The £20 credit from argos can go towards our new kettle!