what toys/kid stuff do you regret buying?

[elephantmeg]

For me:
-most of the leapfrog stuff: leapsters, tag jr, tag pens. It just really isn't getting used. I think I'll be selling a lot of it soon to buy something else. DS really just uses my phone and DD really isn't interested!

[rin]

Currently an outdoor slide/climber; we got one of the step 2 ones off CL for DD this spring, and I think she's gone down the slide a half dozen times in the 3 months since we got it. Harrumph. I'm waiting to resell it until the end of the summer, since I suppose she may come around, but it's just a plastic eyesore to me at this point.

[crl]

A kettler trike for ds. We splurged on one of the pricier models and in retrospect I am confident we would have been just as well off with something much less expensive.

An easel for ds. Again I splurged on an expensive one (partly because he had significant fine motor delays and his OT said easels were better than a table or the floor for developing certain skills). Ds did not like it and probably used it for a total of five or so hours over the two years we had it. I sold both of these items for next to nothing at a garage sale because we were moving and I just needed to get stuff cleared out.

Catherine

[hillview]

agree with catherine -- easel was a mistake but we got a good deal on a M&D one years ago. A LOT of our large plastic toys were a mistake. Examples include Imaginext (ALL of them) and assorted other items.

[KLD313]

The tumpette cow, she's never used it but she may be young for it so I'll try again. Also a rocking horse, the furry expensive kind, she's never been on it. The slide was a waste so far. We have so many toys I'm sure there are others that I can't think of.

[hellokitty]

Learning tower- It's just to big and bulky and my kids would try to push each other off of it. I has spent more time in storage than in use and now it's a PITA to sell.

The majority of wooden toys/puzzles- My kids prefer the plastic crap. I spent tons of $ on the nice stuff and it just sits there. I sold our wooden kitchen, tree dollhouse thingie, rocking boat for two kids, castle, toy car garage, etc. in the past few months. Such a waste of $, my friends got a good deal on my stuff.

Our childlife wooden swingset- I am majorly pissed that this company which has been in biz forever went out of business. I was supposed to upgrade to an eagle's nest, monkey bars and a taller side and well, they got absorbed by another company, which discontinued the line, ugh! We spent tons of $$$ building up a flat surface in our sloped backyard (5K to be exact, it's full of tons and tons of pea gravel). The kids don't play with it as much as I thought they would, and the set is already looking really shabby, plus the stupid paper wasps love it. The only, "good" thing is that I'm using that area to garden with (earth boxes), so it's not a total loss. However, still, we dumped about 8K in the whole project and I feel like it was very short sited of us.

New beds- I should have just bought used, crappy beds for my kids. They have put teeth marks all over THREE beds, which includes our very expensive vermont furniture bed in our master bedroom.

Expensive shoes- My kids ruin shoes (always get holes in the front), expensive ones and cheap ones, so IDK what the point is of buying the expensive stuff.

Balance bike- Neither of my older two were able to learn to ride a bike with it. I will try with DS3 (he's still too short), but have very little hope. Luckily, it was a clearance find at target.

Easel- I just don't trust my kids to run around with a paint brush. Luckily, it's just an ikea one. I may let them play with it outside though this summer, since the older two are a little more trustworthy now.

[edurnemk]

Our step 2 outdoor play set, he outgrew it too soon. I should've gone for something with a longer lifespan.

Baby Einstein Excersaucer. DS hated it, couldn't sit in there for more than 3 minutes.

And I'm really hating the Playmobile sets, although they were gifts, he does play with them but he makes such a mess with the trillion tiny pieces!

[Staraglimmer]

Little people
Train table
Doll house
PBK doll stroller

DD just isn't interested in them.


-Stephanie
Mommy to Hailey Michelle 4/08
& a new addition due 7/1/12

[Green_Tea]

Doll House
Train Table
Mini Trampoline
Playmobile anything

Things we like but I am glad I never paid a lot for because they don't get used THAT much:

Swingset (paid $500 at TRU - my kids and their friends like it as much as the $5K models they've played on. Maybe more.)

Bikes/trikes - every bike my kids have ever owned we bought used for less than $10 or had given to us as a hand me down. They were all in really good shape, and my kids never lasted more than one season on each size bike.

[citymama]

agree with catherine -- easel was a mistake but we got a good deal on a M&D one years ago. A LOT of our large plastic toys were a mistake. Examples include Imaginext (ALL of them) and assorted other items.

O.M.G. Our easel paid itself off a hundred fold with my artsy kids! We keep it on the back deck.

But the Kettler trike really doesn't get the kind of use I was expecting it to. Still, no regrets buying it used for $50.

Generally we've done pretty well with toys. Smaller toys like the Manhattan Toy birdhouse, basic wooden blocks etc don't get a lot of love here. i hate all sound and noise toys but they were all hand me downs and I'm trying to make them disappear. ;)

[hellokitty]

Oh yeah, I will ditto the train table (gave it to the preschool teacher as a craft table), little ppl and playmobil. All wastes of $ for us. By far, the theme of toy my kids seem to like the best are building toys and they are not really into imaginary play.

[KrisM]

These threads are always so funny. I love our easel. DD draws and paints on it 2-3 times a week still. We loved the train table as well.

My regrets:

Little People - never got much play
Kidkraft parking garage - got about 10 min of play ever
FP Loving Family dollhouse - I totally thought DD would love it as she loved the My First Dollhouse. Nope. Never gets played with.

there are more things, I am sure, but that's what sticks in my head.

[crl]

I agree there is just huge variation in what gets used.

Little People have been a HUGE hit here. Ds loved his set and eventually started playing with just the people in all sort of other ways. We got rid of the vehicles, etc but kept the people and he is still playing with them and he is nearly nine. We rebought the LP bus for dd and she plays with it a fair bit and it is a hit with visiting kids too.

I don't exactly regret the easel because I still think it was worth a try, but I really wish I had bought a less expensive one. I had a whole big rationale at the time, but I should've just gone with the Ikea one.

Catherine

[hillview]

yeah little people total waste here

[kristac]

Train table here too- though we built one out of an old kitchen table. But it was still alot of work and the boys have geotrax so our collection fit on the table for about 2 months untill Christmas and then it moved to the floor where it lived for the next 5+ years. Meanwhile the train table got shoved into a corner and cluttered.

Also regretting playmobil. Love the play value- can NOT take the mess.

I just took an older imaginext set to goodwill earlier today. It was a firestation that you could put together 3453 different ways which means it had 34957934587589032 pieces. Again- great play value but also high mommy headache value. My kids LOVED it.

Automoblock minis. So fun but my kids don't keep track of the pieces and it makes me nuts! See a trend here?

Another treasure goodwill recieved today was the hotwheels custom motors set that I was thrilled to get a great deal on last year for Christmas. What a piece of cr@p toy that was. Of course my kids loved it but it was so difficult to put together and poorly designed and again with the million tiny parts. Glad it is GONE.

Remote control anything... Never last long before they break.
Most things with batteries.

Our easel is not getting much love either but I'm not ready to part with it just yet. Same issue with the beautiful solid wood waldorf-ish dollhouse that I scored for $8. My boys never touch it except to occasionally park thier cars. For some reason I can't part with it though.

[elbenn]

Little People have not been played with much here. They were all hand me downs or gifts, so at least I didn't shell out a bunch of money, but they still take up a ton of room.

We have one imaginext toy (the rocket) and it's not used much.

Our wooden train set hasn't been played with much, but our geotrax gets played with some.

[Giantbear]

graco sweet pea swing, dd hated it and loved the $45 simple one instead

[WatchingThemGrow]

I feel like the easel is my fault for not having the paints accessible.

Wooden dollhouse got no love. DD said, "Great, I'm glad you're getting rid of it. Wooden toys are no fun anyway." Replaced with a FL Loving Family that gets all the love.

I notice that whenever I think about getting rid of something, it pops into fashion within the hour. For example, I thought yesterday that puppets were on the outs. Planned to take them to the storage unit asap, but when I walked down the hall, each DC had 2 puppets on and they all had "voices" going.

Imaginext is the meat of DSs' existence. They would run away if I took their vehicles or their guys or any accessories away.

[MamaMolly]

Putting the easel outside is a really good idea. I sold ours in our last moving sale. I'll have to really think about it before we replace it, though.

Most of the toys that would have been $$$ I bought second hand, so I don't mind too much if they aren't a hit.

[Neatfreak]

- the easel
- Cariboo Island game (the original was awesome, this one is always falling apart on us!)
- Hi Ho Cherry O game (hate all the small pieces
- the wooden dollhouse
- DD1's two-wheel bike (she uses her Razor scooter instead)
- Leapster (something happened to the screen early on)

[new_mom_mry]

Zany Zoo

[hellokitty]

Ok, I *JUST* finished my purge and tagging of stuff for the yard sale I am doing with friends this wknd and I've basically decided that ALL of the toys were a mistake. I would recommend to new parents not to buy any toys, just use the ones ppl give your kids' as gifts, b/c otherwise, you just end up with too many. It's such a waste of $. I had to price everything pretty low, b/c I know ppl around here won't pay much for stuff and knowing what I know now, the best thing to do if you buy toys is just to get them at garage sales. Too bad, I didn't figure that out until a few yrs ago. I'm stewing, b/c I purged at least half of my kids toys and they still suck at cleaning their toys. When I recover from this garage sale, I am purging another half of their toys, grrrrr!