[ihugtrees]

How do you explain to extremely mainstream relatives that you don't want all of the plastic, painted toys that flash lights and play annoying music?

As I'm registering, I'm registering for baby toys made of natural materials, that are handmade by work-at-home-moms, etc. These things are obviously more expensive that cheap plastic from Walmart, but I'm not asking them to spend more...one rattle handmade of all natural materials is worth more to me then ten plastic ones made overseas in a factory. For environmental purposes (sometimes made of recycled items, recyclable), for safety purposes (chemicals), for aesthetic purposes (the toys that most stores sell are garish and not baby-like to me), for ethical reasons (the standards of most overseas factories--we are trying to cut out as much mass-produced items in our house as possible), and finally, for the sake of supporting work at home moms, I'd really rather not have a lot of toys like this in my house.

We have a HUGE family (100+ people) and every single one of them will be buying our child (the first grandchild on both sides) lots of gifts over the next few years, so I don't feel like it's something I can ignore...we will end up with a lot of stuff new in the box that we don't really want to give our child.

We also don't feel the need to put a huge emphasis on toys with our child...as a nanny, I've seen so many children with playrooms and bedrooms full of toys that they never, ever play with. It seems like such a waste to me, and like it really encourages materialism--'he with the most toys', or 'newest toys' etc... We plan on being very active with our baby...taking her places, doing crafts and games, songs, activities, and reading TONS of books...so she doesn't need hundreds of toys, either!! Yes, some toys...I want to encourage her imagination and play, but again, most kids I've known have a few favorite toys/activities that they like to do out of the huge amount of material items they own.

Has anyone else had this problem?

 

[murphysaangel]

Um, yeah. It didn't work. All I get from the family is the noisiest, most plastic horrible toys they can find. I just stopped caring after a while, and now that my ds is almost 1 and bored with everything after 10 minutes, I'm very grateful for some of those things. I try and rotate stuff so that there's not TOO much in the room for him to be overwhelmed, but it really adds up quick.

If you get stuff you didn't register for, I'd return it and get what you want. No point in trying to "explain" your POV to people who will probably never understand. Maybe you could put a note on your registry like: "We appreciate your generosity! We'd like to keep the toys to a minimum and concentrate on stocking up on clothes/diapers/whatever. Gift certificates would be much appreciated as well! Thank you all..."

 

[akayerich]

i just kinda tried to bring it up in coversation when i was talking to people. i didn't come right out and say "don't buy us this, this, or this". it was more like "i saw these cute wooden rattles the other day. that's the kind of stuff i plan on getting for our baby...". my hope was that somehow, the word would get out to the family and friends, and at work. it seemed to work.
i think the fact that you registered for natural things helps, too.
you probably will end up getting things you wouldn't buy yourself no matter what you do. i've already donated some things to goodwill. when baby gets older, if he gets things i don't like, but he really likes, i'll just hope he gets bored with them quickly and then donate them.

 

[Peony]

I've had to go about it different ways for different family members. Some I am able to say "Oh I saw a cute toy at X store that baby/child will just love!". Others I've told that those toys (noisy, flashing ones) drive me insane and I can not have them in my house. Sometimes people listen, others don't and I either return those toys or donate them if I don't want them in my house.

Since you have such a large family, I'll tell/email everyone and say that you are afraid of being overwhelmed with multiples of the same toy so we have created a online wish list. And just keep that updated.

 

[tjlucca]

We tried to explain to our family. The Just didn't get it. Really...didn't get it. They challenged our views. We have come to the point of "no gifts, thank you". We are currently trying "Time spent with family is a gift, all by itself". We are being challenged on this too. Treated as is our DD is deprived because she doesn't have a room full of cheap plastic, toxic toys.

We are not big on toys anyway. DD has a wooden art easel,lots of art and craft supplies, wooden train set, lots of musical interments (real instruments), one cloth baby, one teddy bear, lots of books, puzzles. We are more experiential in our parenting style. We also don't want to teach allot of attachment to stuff. In our household, whenever we get something new, we give something away. Which we decide together.

These days we try to intercept toys and send them directly to Good Will/Salvation Army, when appropriate. As a result of all of this, we don't see extended family as much. Not just the toy issue, but alternative, holistic, parenting altogether is not well received in our family. It seems we have had to create some distance to parent the way we feel is important.

 

[acp]

Good luck! We haven't had much luck with my ILs, though we've tried.

My suggestions are: DO explain, in as nice a way as possible, so they at least know your preferences. You can tell them that you don't want to get a lot of toys, since you think too many toys isn't really a good thing for a child, and that if they *really* want to buy toys, you really prefer to have fewer, more natural toys and are trying to avoid plastic. No need to go into too many explanations of why unless they ask. We also tried telling our relatives that we didn't want toys made in China since (with DD) this was right around when there were a lot of scares about lead from China and we thought maybe this was a reason they'd understand, and that it should disqualify pretty much all the plastic stuff they'd otherwise get at wal-mart. (Note: It did not. Most of the stuff they got us WAS actually made in china, though they clearly thought it wasn't).

I'm lucky that it's really just my ILs who give us these kind of toys, but I've given up trying too hard. They aren't going to buy the kind of toys we like (since they don't use the internet and live in a rural area where walmart is the only option, they really couldn't), and they DO want to buy our kids toys, so I've just learned to suck it up and quickly make most of those gifts "disappear" - usually to the goodwill. It's a waste of their money, and i wish they wouldn't get them, but all our comments in the world aren't going to change their buying habits - they like to get more, cheaper stuff; I like fewer, better-quality things (whether toys or clothes). They also persist in not "getting" our reasons: they think we don't like electronic toys just because they "annoy" DH and me, and say, "Well, Willa [DD] likes them, so you ahve to deal!"

If you CAN get your relatives - or even a few of them - to get where you're coming from, more power to you! And it's certainly worth trying. Especially with so many relatives!

 

[sapphire_chan]

Encourage them to put the money towards your kids' educations instead. Or things like memberships to museums.

Meanwhile, just think of the things that come from the big box stores as gift cards to those stores. Even if you only get store credit when you return them, that's money you won't be spending out of your own pocket so you'll have more money to spend on the toys you want.

 

[peainthepod]

We make sure to list nothing but books, clothes, and wooden/more traditional toys on his wish lists, but I feel strongly that it's impolite to try and control what people give us. If a toy is inappropriate for our family, we write a thank you note and then donate, exchange, sell, or return it.

The more astute relatives have caught on; the less observant ones never know the difference and no one's feelings are hurt. I don't know if this approach would work for everyone but it's perfect for us right now.

I do think that as DS gets older we will have to politely ask relatives to limit themselves to one gift per occasion, with the caveat that they are always welcome to buy him unlimited books. We live in an apartment and simply don't have the room for a ton of toys and decorations and such.

 

[To-Fu]

I posted a variation of this letter on my blog:

http://www.mothering.com/articles/gr...oys_side1.html

It worked for most people! Even if they don't understand and think we're jerks, they respect our wishes.

 

[junipervt]

I've explained to them that I've done quite a bit of research & there are somethings that I don't think are safe for DD. plastic- some are linked to cancer, batteries contain toxic ingredients, toys from china have been recalled in large #'s b/c of lead. I told them that if we recieved a toy that I believed to be unsafe for DD that we would exchange or donate it.

They think I'm a little crazy, but so far they've been following our wishes.

 

[luv-my-boys]

Have you tried making a book registry? There are some nice bookstores online that let you make a book registry online and you can even email some of them to family/friends. We ended up doing this to help cut out some of the *stuff* they give to us, although it has its downsides. We envitabley end up with other books as well like spongebob and Elmo

 

[lach]

I'm really lucky in that my parents completely understand, and are even stricter about it than I am. And one day I was feeling super snarky to my in-laws, so I told them outright, and they've actually been pretty good about it. I wouldn't actually try this, as I was very rude.

For the most part, I think it's an uphill battle. Things that I don't want never make it to DD (I have a whole bag downstairs of "big sister" gifts I need to jettison!) Obviously, at some point she'll be old enough to notice, or to be asked about a specific present that she's never seen, but I'll worry about it then.

Explain what you can, and to give it an aura of respectability in their eyes, blame someone else: say that your pediatrician is worried about her lead levels because of your old house (or something) and said no toys from China, or that you saw it on Oprah or something. There's also the redirect route: "She has so many toys, but what she really needs is clothes. Her favorite color is purple" or "she has so many toys, but she loves looking at books. She just loves pictures of dogs in books."

Don't forget to remind people that gift receipts are always appreciated. Y'know, in case she gets duplicates.

 

[Ligeia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by To-Fu I posted a variation of this letter on my blog: http://www.mothering.com/articles/gr...oys_side1.html It worked for most people! Even if they don't understand and think we're jerks, they respect our wishes.

I kind of did that too. I didn't find that letter in particular but I posted on my blog various articles about the china toy recall and such and explained in a couple of posts how careful we need to be today with what we have available choosing what to buy. I have shown some of them the local toy stores I love so that they have something to go on and sent far away relatives websites for natural toys so that they don't even have to work at it! It's worked well so far. No plastic came in from Christmas this year!

 

[Anissina]

We've recently been discussing this. We'll send out a "wish list" around the occasion for those who just might listen. But we'll probably just end up doing a lot of returning, donating, or reselling. Fortunately, we live in a different state from most of our relatives, so they will most likely never know that we exchanged their gift.

 

[asoulunbound]

I too have bore the first grandkid on both sides. It is a great responsiblity!
Here is my experience: For the shower we got a lot of stuff. A lot. Like we have a basement full of stuff, and we took back about $1000 worth of stuff to the boxes. Every holiday so far she's gotten some sort of battery operated thing, even though I expressed my opinions. I think well prob end up regifting, donating, or returning. I hope it kinda cools down when shes bigger or has cousins.

 

[saritajoy]

I love this thread! Thanks to everyone for great input.

I have tried this and it's worked pretty well so far - I've only gotten one plastic rattle from one aunt and of course my LO will never have it. Amazon.com has a universal wish list that I've been using - that way you can add items from Etsy or other independent websites, but keep it all in one place. My baby's wishlist is mostly books!

For the baby shower, instead of getting lots of baby things we don't want or won't use, we asked for anonymous contributions towards a custom-made padded rocking chair for nursing. It's awesome - we did receive contributions for all but $14 of it!!!! It's pretty darn comfortable and I use it every day - something that I couldn't have said otherwise! Of course a few miscellaneous gifts showed up too, but I'm amazed that our plan worked out so well!

 

[Harmony08]

We have this problem too. We even gave our parents lists of websites that had toys we "approved" of during the holidays. Well we got some of those but we also got some plastic, light up, battery operated, "educational", crapola. It is like, they get it but they don't "get it".

 

[Pam_and_Abigail]

We tried giving out letters. It didn't work. Relatives got offended, and still didn't listen. Some did, but not most. It gets harder when the kids get older and they open their own gifts and would notice if a toy went "missing"