Toys that sucked, toys that were awesome

[JumpingIn]

You know those hugely expensive toys your child only looked at for 10 minutes vs that thing you found in the charity shop for 50p they can't put down...Let's compare notes on what has been a waste of money and what has been good value for you...

For me (and my 17-month-old) these toys were worth every penny:

Play kitchen
Doll in pushchair
Pack of coloured lolly sticks
Stacking cups
Nesting boxes
One or two of his vehicles
Duplo
Shape sorter
Board books
Play Doh
Train set
Basic wooden blocks
Sand pit
Water table
Paints and canvases
Crayons and craft stuff
Basic ride-on
Mini sweeping brush


And these sucked:

Toot Toot stuff. Don't get me wrong, he does like the really loud and annoying vehicles. But sitting there pressing the button to switch through all the songs and sayings over and over and over didn't look much like play to me. It looked weird. It also drove me nuts when one of the bloody things went off unexpectedly, like that time I was driving down a narrow country lane in the dark and I nearly had a cardiac arrest when Car decided to belt out 'BEEP BEEP! I'm a car, a little car, a MARVELOUS speedy car!' I also find the play sets bulky. We don't have much room. And ge can't put the tracks together or even take them apart.

A million different vehicles. No, he didn't need 10 diggers, 4 mixers, 5 tractors and 6 fire engines.

Push-along walker and sit-in walker. He used these for all of a week and much preferred cruising on furniture and once he was able, walking unaided.

DVDs. I wish I hadn't bought bloody Peppa Pig DVDs. He doesn't get screen time any more and we have every episode ever made.

Hetty vacuum cleaner. It's not that he didn't like his vacuum cleaner. It's that he'd much rather have the big grown up one. And when he realises he can't push the big grown up one, he'll either steal its nozzle or use a stick. Any stick will do. Free sticks from the garden.


Please share!

 

[SarahBear]

Both kids liked rocks, sticks, and junk as toddlers.

Leo is starting to also like board books.

He doesn't really use his push-along trike.

He doesn't use the play kitchen too much yet, but I have a feeling that will get used more as he gets older.

He's also starting to like duplo.

He's starting to like wind-up cars.

He likes dolls.

 

[Scout]

Daughter likes bugs, leaves, rocks (I can't tell you how many 'collections' we have of ordinary road rocks!)
Play kitchen is an off and on thing but I got it free so well worth it LOL
Doctor kit
musical things
balls
and now at 3 any and all craft things

total bust:
thomas tracks and trains (spent a fortune and she never EVER plays with it)
baby dolls and anything baby related (she's never been into babies)
ride on toys
tricycle
scooter
any itty bitty...palace pets and so forth. She loves for me to buy her really tiny things and then loses interest after a minute and I have tons of tiny crap that I end up stepping on.
bath toys (cup and a spoon are still her favorites in the bath)

 

[broodymrs]

Best things: jumparoo, duplo, books, playdoh, baby walker, playmat (it was a fancy one with lights and music), play food, BBQ, kitchen, shop.

Waste of money: magazines, Ben and holly stuff and peppa pig stuff. He seems to prefer stuff he can use his imagination with to play a game rather than fiddly characters. But generally he's played with most of his toys

 

[darkriver]

My daughters favorite toy was a stetescope that she got from a peppa magazine. Who would have known it would be so cheap!!

Toys that mainly sucked
A plastic kitchen that fell to pieces with in two seconds.

 

[krissie328]

My son loves pretty much everything he has from three thrift store.

A small keyboard
Small tool bench
Various cars and trucks

Things I bought full price he loves:
Wooden tool set
Wooden blocks
All yellow construction vehicles
Board books

Things not worth it:
Water table
Puzzles
Stuff toys
Hand puppets
Play table
Bead toy (like at the doctors office)
Sorting toys

 

[catty]

Also agree with toot toot im just not a fan! I do like the parking garage but he doesnt use it for his cars he uses it as a water slide for his little people.

Garden playhouse - expected hours of use but they never go in it!
Ballpit with balls. Now the kids probably did enjoy this but was the most annoying thing ever having to pick up 1000 balls all the time, would much rather leave this for softplay.

Ride on cars - dont feel they got much use really although have still had them around for the odd play.

Also a trainset i had with a battery operated train. They watch it for a min and there done, wooden ones are much better

Good toys -

Pram,dolls and accessories (mainly daughter)
Playdoh my kids loveeeee playdoh will play with it for a good hour at a time.
Motion/kinnectic sand - fantastic for them and not overly messy.

Toy kitchen mainly my daughter likes this.

My son absolutely loves little figures such as - little people, any sets like ben and holly, peppa pig, pokemon etc etc he will sit for long periods and play with these.

Until now id have said duplo was a total waste of time but the past month they have really gotten into it and build me allsorts of things.

 

[Fruitmash]

A couple of years ago we hunted high and low to get DD that Elsa doll that sings when you lift her arm. It was sold out everywhere and took an eternity to find it. Last year she begged for they sing along Elsa and for her birthday she wanted a hairdressing Ariel. And I also got her that hair glow Rapunzel for Christmas last year but preordered it so I wouldn't have to struggle. No more than a days play out of any of those dolls and they were all around £40! Best thing was her Nemo, a little comfort blanket with a stuffed Nemo on the top. Found it in a bargain bin on sale for £3 in the Disney Store when she was first born and it still hasn't left her side. She sleep with him every night, he calms her down and we even have to take him to and from school so she can hold him on the bus. If I'd known then I would've bought tonnes of those

 

[Willow82]

Best toys:
-Thomas trains, track and accessories. DS has been obsessed with trains since he was 2 and he generally plays with them every day.
- lego. He's got really into it and is starting to create his own structures. He doesn't play with it every day but tends to play with it for hours when he does get it out.

Not so good toys:
-chalkboard/easel. He doesn't like crafts and doesn't like getting his hands mucky so it's been rarely used and it takes up a huge amount of space.
-farm and animals. Again, it's massive and is rarely played with
-playmobil playground. I thought he would really like this as he was always making playgrounds out of bricks etc. but he'a not bothered. I don't know if it's the type of playmobil or the playmobil itself that he's not bothered about, so I'm unsure whether to get him any more.

 

[Gym knickers]

Best toys:
play kitchen- both girls plus anyone who comes over always goes straight to it (large wooden one with hanging utensils, pots, pans, cutlery, crockery and wooden cakes
Toy sweet shop (plastic sweets in jars and scales) from ELC - the amount of times they are presented to each other on plates in a week I can't count!
Dolls and cheapy prams
Colouring books and pens
Dressing up clothes
Shape sorters/jigsaws
Books
Paints

Toy flutes


Waste of money:
Duplo (so far- I'm really disappointed as I loved lego/duplo)
Big silver cross carrycot pushchair
Happy land- very little use even though I keep encouraging it
Anything v-tech and noisy- chase me cat/ dinosaur/laptop etc
Hungry hippos/ buckaroo etc- all broke straight away and just cause arguments!
Barbies (until very recently)
Peppa pig interactive play mat- about 3 min use in 3 years
Scuttlebug

 

[Rainbow82]

Best toys played with most days:

Play kitchen
Doll in pushchair
vehicles
Duplo
Shape sorter
books
Basic wooden blocks
Sand pit
Water table
Paints and canvases
Crayons and craft stuff
Basic ride-on
Mini sweeping brush
Toot toot track and garage
Cheap basic ball run
Baby piano
Drum
Dinosaur set
Balls of any size
push along walker before he could walk.

Waste of money
Bounce and spin zebra
All the electronic singing baby laptops etc
Train set
Play dough
Anything which songs and has loads of flashing lights and buttons but dies very little else once he's figured out all the buttons.
Ball pit-he loves the balls but just throws them out.

 

[kellyc1987]

Best Buys:
Any vehicles
Pens/pencils
Duplo
Trike (we live opposite a park so get a lot of use out of it)
Play kitchen
Tea set
A cheap version of connect 4 from wilko.. he spends ages putting the counters in, emptying it and then doing it all over!

Not really a toy but petition filous Yoghurt- he can spend 30 mins feeding himself that with a spoon, giving me time to have a quick bath ( we have an open plan flat so if I leave the bathroom door open I can see him from the bath)

Not so good:
Mega blocks
Anything musical
Soft toys (was really hoping he'd have one soft toy he really loved but never really took to them)
Homemade busy board (played with it a bit but never plays with it since he started walking)

Right now he is putting one of his toys cars through an empty toilet roll and calling it a tunnel, he has been doing this for like 10 minutes!!

Tried play doh today but wasn't really sure what to do with him with it, I had him in his high chair and got some cookie cutters out but he just wanted me to do it all the time and didn't really play with the play doh himself... what do you guys do?

 

[.Mrs.B.]

Mine have way too much but they play with EVERYTHING!
I'm trying to get rid of stuff before christmas but over a week they literally play with every one of their 10 billion toys. My son has about 30 hotwheels cars and once I left a few at my mums house as spares and he descibed to me each car that was 'missing.' I was shocked.

A massive favourite for my son (4) is all his paw patrol toys which are played with daily.
My daughter (2.5) loves drawing and plays with her easel daily.