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[MoonLove]

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[babydustcass]

It's not a bad thing to encourage sharing, surely, it can only be a good thing. Mind, you have a good age gap that your youngest presents will probably not be as nearly as entertaining as her own. Of course she will want to play with her brothers too, it's natural for 4 year olds to be enquisitive of their siblings 'goodies'. I think it's a shame their grandmother thinks like that to be honest. We have a similar age gap with our children and it never really once crossed my mind to worry about how they will behave with christmas presents, and ds was so busy opening his own presents that, whilst he stopped to admire a new toy of his sisters, he was never inclined to open her presents and if he helped he was being just that, helpful.

 

[c1403]

My sister and I have a four year gap and even though we got our own presents they all got put away together and mixed up anyway. A few arguments here and there but we played great.

My DDs are two years apart and my eldest does not like to share with her sister at the moment. I try to encourage playing together and sharing but not force it. My rule is if someone is playing with something you can't take it off them because you now decide you want it, you wait it out or play with something else.

It is hard for my eldest as she likes to actually play games with her toys, where as my youngest just likes to destroy and make a mess, both end up frustrated. I give them both their own play spaces here and there so they are not constantly interrupted by the other.

 

[motherofboys]

Mine are allowed to help but not take over. When ones too small to understand unwrapping the older ones can lift a corner and encourage the little one to pull and tear it. Usually we all open at the same time so they aren't that bothered during the opening process and as long as they play with the little one rather than take things away from him then that's fine by me.

 

[leoniebabey]

I don't see a problem with it tbh, maybe when she sees' her own stuff she will be too interested to care about the other stuff anyways. I think in terms of wanting to help i know my oldest just gets himself a bit over excited and sometimes tries to take over so he needs a bit of reminding to back off but it's not malicious he just loves his little bother so much and wants to help him.
Theres 2yrs 4m between my two and once the toys come out of their boxes and into toy boxes they become pretty much free for all as they like the same sort of things.

 

[DCS]

At Christmas my DS will be 4 and 9 months and DD will be 18 months. DS knows he can help open her gifts but must let her open them her self. Same with dd although I get the feeling dd isn't quite clear on the rules yet. Ds lives his sister and gets very excited for her. So he just wants to help her. Last year we let him open all of her presents because she obviously couldnt. She tried a few but decided to eat the paper instead. In terms of playing they share all the toys. They just get out what they want and play doesn't matter who it belongs to. They do fight over toys sometimes. But like pp I tell them to wait until the others done, or pick a different toy to play with. Today they have been arguing over the play kitchen so I told them to wait, play with something else or play together. DS is now the big chef and DD is the assistant.

 

[Tasha]

That will only encourage resentment i think. I encourage mine to share too