Toys toys toys!

[triggersnappy]

New mum friend is extremely minimalist with the toys her son has. I thought I was minimalist too until I went to their house for the first time. Our children are both just about to turn 3.

Her child has:
Toy kitchen with food etc
Large box of brio tracks and trains
Few puzzles
Few soft toys
Small box of various vehicles
A toy telephone
Ball drop toy
Ball to kick around the garden
Scooter
About 10 books

My child has:
Toy kitchen with food etc
Large box of brio tracks and trains
Large box of duplo
Large box of magnet tiles
Basket of puzzles
Basket of soft toys
Basket of musical instruments
Basket of wooden blocks
Collection of numberblocks figurines
Toy garage and small basket of matchbox cars
Small box of "real" things (old push button mobile phone, old camera, calculator, rotary dial phone, set of keys, keyboard etc)
Toy barn with animals, tractor etc
Doll's house with furniture and people
Basket trolley
Sand/water table
Little treasure box that he keeps things he finds in
Mini yoto player
Torch
Selection of colouring books and pencils
Balance bike
Garden- swing, mud kitchen, various trucks and diggers
Lots of books, maybe about 100

I'd say 90% of what we've bought over the years has been purchased second hand. We also do toy rotation so not all of these toys are out at once- my son's head and mine would explode! After seeing my friend's house I'm torn between thinking her son doesn't have enough and thinking we need a major clear out as we've too much stuff.

I feel we need a variety, especially of open-ended toys, otherwise I would get bored, more than my son. It's easier for me to get down with him and play if theres a good rotation of things to build and create with. He'd be happy playing with two cars but my brain would turn to mush!

Where do you stand on toys? Do you go crazy and have lots of toys for your kids to play with, or do you prefer to keep things really minimal? I honestly enjoy getting toys for him (extra thrill if they're a second hand bargain!) but thinking we've maybe gone overboard before he's even 3 years old.

Bracing myself if we decide to have a second!

Most of his car/truck collection was bought by grandparents as well as the barn and mud kitchen. They know we're limited with space and buy a lot of other things than toys- books, clothes, national trust membership etc. He also has lots of toys at their houses that they've bought for him.

You aren't minimalist, you sound well organised and keep well stocked baskets, with availability of everything you think important. The other family are doing their thing ,their way. As long as the children are happy and well cared for and developing, that's all there is to it.

Either list is fine and so much depends on individual circumstances?

We were like the minimalist list. But with more books. Partly we didn't feel DD needed lots of toys, partly we have very few relatives so she didn't really get presents from other people (bizarrely her only grandparent seemed to prefer buying clothes to toys!), partly we had the amount we had space for.

But she was in nursery 3 long days a week, then we'd go to a toddler group a couple of times, library once a week and usually a meet up somewhere at a weekend. So plenty of opportunities to use open-ended toys in other places. And we had a garden with a set of outdoor gardening type toys so in the summer particularly she wasn't in the house playing that much.

Yes this is true and as I said in another post they've a gorgeous home and a happy boy.

I do notice that his speech is far behind where my son's is. He can only string one or two words together and his speech isn't clear at all. Now I'm not at all saying that his speech delay is caused by a lack of toys. He has a dummy nearly 24/7 which might be affecting his speech clarity, but I sure he's just on the lower end of normal for speech development and will just suddenly catch up at some point. He's chatty, just can't put more than 2 words together.

But what I am saying is that I don't think my son would be content with the number of toys his friend has because he talks non stop. He likes toys that he can engage in intricate small world play with and talk constantly while doing it. His friend seems to be at the stage of "look look" and then pushes a ball into the ball drop, whereas my son wanted to put all the brio together and make big scenes with the trains talking to each other. When they're playing outside this difference is far less apparent as they're both content running about and climbing.

Our toy collection seems to have grown with our son's speech development. Certainly until the age of one and a half at least all we had was one basket of treasure basket type things to explore, books, and a few play silks and teddies. No actual toys whatsoever. Maybe as his friend's speech explodes, so will their toy collection!