What was the most useless toy you have ever bought your child?

[Tinker]

Just thinking about this as I've just put my daughter to bed and I was surrounded by the morgue of discarded toys.

Spotted the Animal Hospital lurking in the corner which was bought in panic for her last birthday - never played with. Her fifth birthday is due in 6 weeks and I was wondering - what should I AVOID?

Tinker, crikey wouldn't it be better to have, have you ever bought a useful toy? I have so many unplayed with toys it's scary.

I don't buy loads for Xmas or Birthday but he's never played with little figures, cars or Action Man. We had a fort with soldiers, never played with that either or a toy garage.

He has played with his Game Boy constantly since the day it arrived. He loves anything to do with Robot Wars and Pokemon.

My darling DD loves Barbie and cuddly toys and her baby Oliver. She gets far more play value out of everything and she's got a dolls house too and the people all 'talk' to each other.

If your DD is like mine anything pink and glittery will go down a treat. R

My dd is the same, she's never without a pair of fluffy high-heeled mules, pink feathers round her neck and a tiara, even when she's unwell - well a girls gotta have her standards!

I'm thinking about getting dd one of those talking Barbie heads with style-able hair and makeup for her 4th birthday and she's desperate for an S Club 7 top as well (each to their own!)

Chanelno5 - I am totally cracking up picturing your dd!

'Baby all gone' is a good one for little girls. We have her along with baby annabel and baby born...
She is a fraction of the price doesn't require batteries and 'eats' cherries off a spoon. All the children like her and she is a big hit with visitors, she even smells of cherries too. (actually reminds me of the strawberry shortcake dolls)

I remember posting a similar message on the Christmas present thread but my DS will be one next week and the volume of presents that has arrived already is OBSCENE. As our baby arrived so late in life he is a bit of a novelty to friends & family who, I know, are just being very, very kind but how can one tactfully stop people buying gifts? I just don't know what to do with the amount of stuff he has, I put loads on one side for charity etc but obviously have to be tactful if the gifts are from people that visit us a lot.

If people ask (rare in my opinion) I ask for a small financial gift for his savings account but so many people really seem to want to buy 'something specific'.

I know this might appear ungrateful but as DS is an only child I am terrified of him becoming spoilt.

Any advice (needless to say, we won't be buying him anything ourselves!!).

Thanks or all the responses. She was begging for Baby Annabel for Christmas and I managed to fob her off with a talking doll (which was all she was really after) for about 1/3 of the price. Last seen on the back seat of the car!

Also, before Christmas, and again this year for her birthday, she's mentioned either a violin or a guitar!! Er, no.

Lindy, I don't know what to suggest. I just sympathise - they just get soooooo much.

Lindy, what about starting something like a Brio train set collection or the Plan Toys wooden town? Then you could ask for track or trains or roads or any of the little bits and pieces to go with it. It isn't cheap which means that if someone wants to spend £25 you'll only get a Brio tunnel, unlike spending £25 in ELC where you could end up with an enormous plastic something-or-other! Or maybe you could ask for individual contributions towards a set of books - Beatrix Potter?

And don't worry about 'spoiling' your baby. IME spoiling emanates from an attitude of mind, not from the quantity of material goods a child may have. I sympathise with your predicament, though, as it's my DD's birthday next week and I dread her being given too much because we're moving and won't be able to take most of it with us. In fact, I'm actually hoping for cheapo stuff I can throw away with a clear conscience!

Lindy - if some of the people who send gift won't see him play with them anyway you could always sell them ? That way you'd make money ? Just a thought.

Lindy I am SO with you on this one, it is absolutley a pet subject of mine and as yet I have not come up with a solution.
I applaud your decision not to buy anything yourselves.The slightly annoying thing is that I am sure you, like me would love to choose a nice gift but don't want to contribute to the excess. Incidentally I have a similar thing about sweets- my kids get them very rarely, I would like it to be ME who gets the pleasure of giving them but of course grannies get in there first!

It really saddens me that I am struggling NOT to bring my children up in a world of excess. How can they possibly appreciate things if they have everything ( and two of many things) ? I do agree with Suedonnim that true spoiling has more to do with an attitude of mind but I think mountains of material goods don't help to create the right values about "things".

Every Christams I rack my brains trying to decide what to buy my ten or so nephews and nieces who all seem to have absolutley every toy under the sun. Two years ago I sugggested to my brothers and sisters we stop buying for each others kids. They all agreeed wholeheartedly apart form my wee sister who burst into tears. I think she interpreted it as me not caring for her children ( I have recently posted about this on the thread about friendships) . So obviously gifts mean different things to different people.

When I have had small get togethers for my childrens birthdays ( they are just one and two so so far the get togethers have been for the adults benefit!) I have specifically asked friends not to bring gifts. Now I don't think I could impose that rule when the kids get older and know what presents are all about!

There is also a purely practical thing about your house becoming completely overrun with stuff. I cleaned out three black bags of childrens clothes for the charity shop last weekend. Many of them had never been worn. With small kids there is a short window of opportunity to fit an item of clothing and we simply could not get through all the clothes we were given. I know people are just being very kind as you say.I actually feel guilty about the waste when there are people in the world who have so little.

As for the toy mountain, I took a tip I learned on Mumsnet. All the toys are stored in two ( huge!) boxes in my bedroom and just a few are put out in the living room in a small toy box( a trolley on wheels)at any given time. The kids LOVE this arrangement. They actually play with the limited selection on offer, as opposed to just tipping everything out the box and playing a game of cover the entire carpet in toys. They also enjoy the routine of exchanging the toys every couple of days - I can even get them to tidy away the old ones because they know they are about to get a swop for "new" ones.

If anyone else comes up with any ideas on eliminating excess I would love to hear from them.
Hope you have a lovely birthday with your baby, Lindy.

I agree, christmas was obscene in our house too. ds (who is 4) got about 60 presents! Mostly from relatives etc, about 10 from us.

By the end of the day he was completely bored of the whole thing and incapable of showing gratitude. In fact, even at the beginning of the day he opened a toy and said "I didnt want that one" I was outraged! So rude, so spoilt! Didnt know how to handle it, but explained that some children have nothing to play with.

Suppose its all part of learning social graces and the dishonesty that necessarily goes with that (thanks, I love this puce jumper gran!), but I was disgusted at the whole event. Next year I'm going to ask his father (we're separated) and family to just give him ONE thing each, but any other ideas gratefully received...

Hear hear to all those of you who said their children played with sellotape and the like all day - my two are exactly the same. They do play with toys as well but make a bee line for sellotape, wires, real tools, wool, cooking equipment, cardboard boxes etc and play with them for hours (the ones I allow them to have anyway) I even bought a length of rope for them and cut two shortish bits off it for them to play firemen with 'hoses' - a great success, they have been fascinated for hours.

Sorry, I've just read some more of the thread.

We actually didn't buy anything for our children for Christmas as we knew they would be so overwhelmed with stuff from elsewhere. They are 3 and 1 and so too young to really know where things came from anyway. Unwanted things I just give to a charity shop or donate them to the children's box at church.

Sue W my son shares your daughter's love of paper.
Having slagged off Christmas cards at the end of last year my ds has had hours of fun chopping up the old cards with scissors ( kids' safety scissors from ikea, dead cheap)
Another favourite game for my two ( aged three and one) is I completely cover the kitchen table in lining wallpaper, sellotaped to the table, and sit the kids on it with no clothes on and squirt blobs of paint on the paper. They have brush each but usually just use their fingers and feet to make a right old mess.As a parent you have to be in the mood for this as it takes a bit of effort but it really is a lot of fun.
They go straight from this game into a waiting bath.

Both my girls love paper, too, and DD2 will be getting a present of different sorts of papers for her birthday from DD1. I think they inherit a love of stationery from me, cos I can't resist buying nice writing paper and so on. My DD's must have gone through a million miles of sellotape and staples and glitter and glue over the years.

Sue W, that's brought back memories of being 'Cupboard Monitor' when I was at school!! My best friend and I shared it and I reckon we turned out that cupboard at least three times a week. All those rubbers and exercise books and chalks and silver stars and the pencil sharpener with a handle on the side and even unused blackboard cleaners. Brilliant!

I can't believe you're all admitting this, remember some of you are going to meet!!!!

You stationery fetishists should get a hold of the Viking Office supplies catalogue. Think it's available online and it is FAB!! Dead cheap, reams of coloured paper,fancy cardboard, sellotape at unbelievably low prices...boxes of biros, pencils...sigh!