Toys - do they belong to everyone or to each kid in your house?

[LlamaLover]

I was on only child and now a single Mum, so nothing to base this on really.

I'm looking ahead to buying toys for my new daughter as well as my 3 year old son for Christmas.

In your house are all toys shared? Or all toys belong to one kid but both can play with? Or only each kid can play with their own unless the other says its ok?

Currently we have my son's toys in lounge and playroom. Do I set up a few different boxes for her toys? Or bundle them all in together? We all co sleep together in one room, so no separate rooms to put things in.

I'm thinking a few puzzles and teddies for her. So not much, but want to start as I mean to go on and gently introduce my son to the fact that not every toy in the whole world belongs to him! I'm also guessing as they get older the difference in what they are in to will get bigger? I'm a hippy at heart and would love things to be shared (especially existing big expensive toys like the train set and play kitchen) but do kids benefit from having 'special' things too? How to distinguish between the two?

I'll stop waffling now. How does it work in your house?

my DC (9,7,3) would probabky disagree but as far as I am concerned they belong to everyone. They live in the most age appropriate room though.

Loads of toys here were passed down from other families so it would be churlish for my kids to get possessive over them. My big kid is 3 in a few weeks, there are a couple of presents I envisage she will be very attached to (role play) so I will keep her small brother off them until he is less likely to break them. And some beads I don't want him to choke on. But she doesn't get to chuck him off the shape sorted because it was hers first. Likewise, if she is playing on his xylophone he has to wait 5 mins for her to lose interest before he can have a turn.
I really think its ok to be a bit inconsistent about this - for each child to have one or two 'special toys' they are attached to for a while, with most things shared. So long as you are the same with both kids. My little one has a dummy the big one obviously isn't allows to share, so we keep little one off big ones sunglasses by way of reciprocity.

They're 'theirs' when they first get them but then just become part of the shared toy stash, apart from things like kindles

Mine are 5 years apart so some toys that DS1 has are unsuitable for DS2 to play with, these are kept in his room. Doesn't stop DS2 stealing them out of his room whenever he gets the chance though!

DS1 is very generous with most of his toys, but there are some we have to keep separate; but I have to say I'm thinking mostly of toys that can be shared between them now, as it's easier than trying to keep them separate.

I definitely think age gap makes a difference, there were 20 months between mine, so toys are mostly shared as they are so close in age. I can see how that wouldn't work if there was, say, a five year age gap, where dc1 was playing with Lego when dc1 was playing with baby toys and then by the time dc2 was old enough for Lego, dc1 had moved onto something older.

3dc here, 5year gap between 1&2 and 2&3. Most toys are shared/for playing together. Each has personal items and age appropriate items.
As for "communal" toys, sharing is not mandatory. Ds2 always wants something that ds1 has -- and that is very annoying.

Interesting reading. we have a 3 year age gap, and while elder dc is usually fine with sharing, younger dc is going through the "mine" stage, that has really impacted how it's all dealt with.

All of our toys belonged to the house. No one owned them ( excluding stuffed animals) I did this from the beginning, I also insisted that grandma didn't call the toys are her house babyx's. A good thing when nieces and nephews arrived. Grandma didn't like it, she wanted to shower gifts on babyx

This worked great as they shared with each other and with visiting children.

As they grew up we added their own toys that live in their bedrooms. They have to ask to play with something. It's never a problem though, they Are happy to share them. We mostly have sharing toys though, brio, duplo, Lego, blocks, animals. The toys that they choose that are their own are usually crappy things like toys phones, handbags, dressing up.

OP, you have asked the question I was thinking! We have big age gaps - so DD1 was 10 when DD2 came along, by the time she was 13 she'd got rid of all toys except her favourite cuddlies and a few books that were special to her. No issue there as all the stuff became DD2's. But DD3 is only 5 years younger than DD2, and DD2 is very reluctant to give away/share "her" stuff. Even though we point out that that's exactly what her sister did for her. How do you decide what is personal and what isn't? Obviously something like a craft set is personal as only one person can make it (unless its something like play-doh) but what about games? Lego sets? Clothes for build-a-bears?

My 2 are 7 and 3 and what can be shared now (pretty much all of it) I expect them to share and theyre mostly very good at it in fairness. the only things I don't expect them to share are their comforters.

Small age gap here too (18m) and two boys. The boys do "own" some toys each (typically things they have got for birthday/Xmas presents) but they're mainly stored in communal areas so pretty much everything is shared (apart from precious bedtime toys).

If one is playing with a toy "owned" by the other they're expected to ask the one playing to finish their turn and then hand it over (there's usually up to 5 mins allowed for finishing a turn depending on the toy/game and patience levels - they're still only quite young (4.8 yrs & 3.2yrs)).

TBH they're pretty good at playing together and sharing nicely so it works for us.

DD will be three when this baby pops out sk im assuming for the first few years theyll just muck in and share stuff. They will also have to share a room for a few years til we can find a three bed (boy and girl siblings) so im envisaging dd being oldenough to play alone in her bedroom long before ds will be old enough to do the same so hopefully thatll help.

When they get their own rooms though they wont be expected to let the other one in if they dont want and cam choose to play alone with their toys if theyd rather.

It was never an issue with my older two, There's 4 years between them and they weren't really interested in each other's stuff.
There's 16 months between DS2 and DS3 though and toys are communal. Although they hate sharing and DS2 has a knack of remembering exactly what he had for Christmas or Birthday.

I have twin DDs and approached sharing with caution because of course, from day one they have had to share everything!! To try and prevent sibling rivalry we encouraged family and friends to not buy them the same toys so they each had a surprise at birthdays and Christmas and then the fun could begin as they could swap their presents if they wanted to. They still do this although now they are 4 their different interests are more apparent so they often receive things they are really interested in. We do praise sharing and they are very good at it, play together often and have lots of sharing toys like building blocks, music centre, books, puzzles etc. But I think it's really important that they do have their own toys and they are quite attached to them. If DD shares one of her special toys with her sister she gets extra praise because it is hard to share something that's important to you, I think this way teaches them that people do have things that are important to them and this must be respected - very little is communal in the real world after all.

Luckily neither of my children has a concept of ownership so everything is shared. My eldest is 4.5 and autistic and the younger is 19 months.

The only thing I that is specially theirs are their Scout toys and their special pillows. Everything else is whoever gets to it first. I do stop my youngest getting to toys he is not old enough for but I tell him he isn't old enough rather than because it belongs to his brother.

That will probably change as they get older but hopefully the fact they are already developing very different interests should make it easier. It is likely they wont want each others toys.

Almost everything is shared (DDs are 8, 5 and 2), but they each have a box of things that they don't want to share. If they leave things out of the box they are fair game!

We have 3 kids with 2 years between each. We do have some things that belong to a particular child, especially when they were a present, and tend to go by the rule that the person who it belongs to gets first dibs on it BUT that they should also let others have a go with it. Most toys this rule only last while the toy is new and precious, after a while most toys just become for general use by all. Some things which are given to DD1 are either too old for or not of interest to the younger ones, in which case they stay hers until they get older.

Mine generally share their toys but if whoever it belongs to wants it then its handed over, so long as they're not wanting it for the sake of it IYSWIM.

The only exception with sharing are new or favourite toys which are only shared if they want to, and things like DSi / iPod which aren't shared unless they were bought to share.

In general we don't have to make them share as they just do it by themselves. Occasionally ds doesn't want the girls in his room and vice versa.

I don't think its good to force kids to share their things but we try to encourage it and it seems to be working most of the time.
The majority of my DDs and ds1s toys are in their rooms as they're old enough to play there, ds2s toys are downstairs in the toy box as he's only a toddler so can't play upstairs yet.

I have one of each and a 3 yr age gap. When they were smaller toys were more shared (happyland etc) but even so they still had more stuff that was just theirs. Now at 9 and 6 they have very few things that are shared, board games, garden toys that's probably about it. We have never really had arguments about it as they hve never wanted each others things. For example with Lego - one likes Lego friends, the other star wars. It may be in a box together but they pick out their bits iyswim

Sharing works like this in our house:

Dd1 (nearly 4): 'Muuummmy, the baby is trying to take my toys!'

Dd2 (10 months): gently moved to other side of room & encouraged to play with something else.

Dd1: 2 mins later abondons her toys to see what the baby is doing. Then, 'Muuummmy, the baby won't share with me! Can you tell her?'.

Dd2: crawls back to original toys as new toy has been taken over by DD1.

Dd1: 'Muuummy, the baby is taking my toys!' Repeat ad nauseum.

Kids ask for their own stuff off Santa, and get to play with it first, but ""We live in a sharing house", so can't keep it to themselves. Same goes with party bags, where they are quite good at giving the other a fair selection of the sweeties.

mine have toys that are 'theirs' but generally everyhitng is played with by everyone (aside from danger aspects for toddler ds, and special teddies).

I have 3 dc - the dds are 10 and 7, and all of their books and toys are generally shared. dd2 is the walking orale on what belongs to whom, but there is very little which is Not Allowed to be touched. She does get precious over her Lego friends stuff, but then dd1 (has ASD and motor skills issues) can't really play with that anyway, and we find another way around it - eg find some lego bricks for dd1 to play with alongside dd2.

ds is only 2, so there is the obvious chewing/swallowing/choking risk, but other than that it is a free for all - the dds like to fiddle around with ds' puzzles and bits (nostalgia for them, as they rememebr a lot of them from when they were little), and ds can play around with the bits of theirs that are suitable for him. Happyland/train sets are still going strong, and they all play with all of it.

oh, and the toy kitchen and the dolls house - both of those were bought for the dds when they were small, but now ds rocks up and plays too.

they all have their own special teddy, which the others are not allowed to take, and electric stuff (ipads etc) are individual. but that's it.

We not only share toys but DC2 is re-allocated toys for Xmas and birthday which used to belong to DC1. We have a 30mth age gap so with things like the jumperoo & bounce & spin zebra there has been long enough for them to be in the loft for DC2 to have a novelty factor from them in a way which wouldn't have worked with things like the toy kitchen or farm which have always been on shelves.
Over the years, both sets of grandparents have been very generous buying, for example, the sand pit, Wendy house, cosy coupe, easel etc. The four examples I have given were DC1's second birthday and subsequent Xmas presents from the grandparents. At a similar age, they have bought DC2 much smaller things as he is already getting the benefit of the toys DC1 had.
Having said that, DC2 is going to get a brand new scooter this Xmas as, whilst DC1 has grown out of it, she has used it daily for almost 3yrs so it is pretty worn.