Is it possible?

[Nickarolaberry]

Hi Mamas,

We have a lot of plastic toys. Most of them if not all were gifts or hand me downs, or bought at yard sales. Fisher Price Little People are a HUGE favorite around here, as are the plastic kitchen and accoutrements, the plastic baby doll strollers, the bendos people, legos, etc. We don't have a lot of musical noisy toys and I try very hard to keep the toys we do have in the "imagination-stimulating" vein.

I would really prefer to switch as much as possible to wood toys, etc. We don't have a lot of $$ so buying new is not an option. Is it worthwhile to even try phasing out the plastic stuff? Is it inherently awful for my kids somehow?

How do I slowly make this switch besides accumulating so much more stuff I can't see the floor? What's good for a 4 1/2 year old and a 20 month old (both girls)? Is this a ridiculous notion? My dh and my mom seem to think I'm nuts.

[prana]

e

[Nickarolaberry]

Absolutely true, my thoughts exactly. I have actually been weeding out some of the plastic stuff, slowly slowly. We came on a huge box of Barbie (ack!) stuff free through freecycle, and though my dd was intrigued she's not particularly into them (they're in the attic where the video is, and they're rarely up there-she never asks for them). I think those are going out the way they came in (freecycle).

What are good wooden things to invest in for those ages (and I'm expecting as well)? Given my budget is small. We do have a large wooden dollhouse (thank you, Costco) that has wood/wool little dolls and all wood accessories which is cool. I just hate all this plastic junk but some of it they really adore (Fisher Price Little People are the main ones). I should just slowly edge stuff out so they don't notice too much!

Any good ideas on this are most welcome! ESPECIALLY how to get my mother and mother in law to stop buying plastic junk. Ugh. THey are generally supportive of my ap/natural ways but they just adore buying the girls toys because they love to see them excited and don't get to see them as much. Isn't there a brand, haba or something, that's newly popular? Maybe I should get my mom to look at those.

[prana]

e

[hubris]

We have a mix of plastic and wood here, I would love to limit the amount of man-made materials that come into the house as much as possible. Getting relatives on board is a big part of that. I tried showing people the Nova Natural catalog, but haven't found it useful in scoring converts...the toys are pretty but expensive, you can't put your hands on them, and the internet isn't a convenient way to shop for our parents.

There are some mainstream brands of wood toys that are much more readily available - like Melissa & Doug, Ryan's Room, Plan Toys, and Haba. When possible I actually have specific items in mind that I think would be great for Griff for Christmas/birthday so that I can say "oh, I've really been wanting to get XXX for him, I saw it at this store, it's soooo neat" and then they can actually go look at it and see it. It's a nice touch if you can visit the store with them and the child and they can see the child enjoying the toy in the store. Of course, that plan can backfire on you when the child gets distracted by the plastic Barbie display. :LOL

There's a company called Maxim that makes wooden train sets that are Brio-compatible, if train sets are something you're interested in. They have very little plastic, especially compared to Brio/Thomas trains, and no TV tie-ins.

I've been seeing wood toys in places like Target lately, too. I'm pretty sure they have an inexpensive wood dollhouse and other items that resemble M&D and RR toys.

I would be careful about telling family that you don't want "junk" toys - that kindof implies that they have been giving your kids junk so far, KWIM? I have found that it's far more useful to extol the virtues of the thing you like than the negative aspects of the thing you don't want. We've been doing this with cotton clothing for Griff - my MIL insists on buying awful polyester and/or acrylic clothing for him, and it's a little insulting to tell her how tacky/awful/icky that clothign is...but she does respond to things like how well the cotton clothing holds up, how soft it feels, how comfortable for him to wear, look at the quality, it will look like new for the next child, the colors stay so bright, etc etc etc. She asked for the Hanna Andersson website address last time she was here. Took a year or more of PR for nicer quality clothing, but hopefully we're on our way to receiving less *junk* - but without having to tell her we hated what she gave before.

[Nickarolaberry]

These are excellent ideas, thanks!