christmas time should be a time of joy and magic for children, and for most it is. but for my son it is a time of confusment as well as his birthday is two days before christmas too im sure he has no idea the two different meanings at the age he is at now.

maybe if we start this thread we could all give each other advice and we could be better organised (or i could be) and knowledge armed for when the time comes. the tree is also a problem as my son wants to play with the lights on the tree and my daughter wants to bite them. we cant have presents out until the very last second as they are confusing otherwise ( i never have them out as thats just cruel). but when shops have displays my son has a meltdown because he cant open them. my daughter has to have presents over the day as i once put them all in her room for christmas morning thinking she would wake up and be exicted - instead the poor girl cried and wouldnt go near them.

please put your ideas for presents and links if thats okay, i really need some ideas. i want lots of sensory toys for my daughter, my son needs a lot of techincal toys.

Hi Becky,

my son loves sensory toys especially flashing lights. His room is like a disco at night! Lots of different lights. He has a volcano light - he loves it - it throws out little balls at the top of the volcano and is brill. Bubble lamps, ceiling projectors, solar system mobile, moon in my room, fish tube. He has a hand held laser which makes lots of different patterns.

I did buy him hot wires and thought that he would love it. He was really keen to open it and then as soon as we did open it and couldn't take it back - he said he only wanted to build the burglar alarm - as he is scared of robbers. A burglar alarm cost me 45 quid!!

(10-24-2009 10:03 AM)becky29 Wrote:  please put your ideas for presents and links if thats okay

Im happy for members to post links to external sites providing its in line with the rest of the conversation.
Just stating this so that business owners dont find this and start posting there website address.
The thread will obviously have to be watched but all regular members carry on

Hi becki, great thead, I love xmas time but imagine how stressfull it could be for you! Idea for your tree.....perhaps you could get one that is pre lit?!? so that there are no wires to chew The fibre-optic ones might be nice for your children as they rotate colours like blue and red etc. They also do some like that with bows and decorations attached which might stop them being pulled off.

I'm a little unsure about the sort of toys that would be appropriate for your son, but I'll post a few ideas, just let me know if they are no good. If he likes technical things then how about the meccano, they do different ones for different ages starting at age 2, obviously you would need to look at the size of bits etc to know what is safe for him, the next age is 4+, they do things like cars to build, I know toys r us stock them. Theres also the k-nex range that is similar.

I have also seen alot of these sensory balls everywere that are rubber and squidgy but i cannot seem to find them online. Maybe you could take a look at this website http://uk.This website is blocked due to spam from the owner/ they should have a great choice for you, and you know exactly the sort of things your children like. They are american but the link is direct to the uk sight, they ship them to you from the USA.

Also you mensioned on another post that your daughter likes pepper pig!!! they do a HUGE range of pepper pig toys....if she would play with them!? Hope I've been even just a little bit helpfull!

Lucy xx

Just to add....maybe you could spread your daughters preasents accross the house abit like a hunt....and wrap your sons and daughters in different colour wrapping paper to differenciate the two i.e hers pink his blue!? tell me if i'm talking daft

I find I need to meter the presents out over about a week! Seems mean but otherwise its all too much. Also we havent been able to have a tree only a really small one up really high but we're thinking about trying a bigger one this yr. Also if they don't like suprises they might need to know exactly whats in each present & have seen a picture of it etc. We already started on this in the summer holidays - seems mad i know!! Started by asking him what he would like - not as easy as it sounds - have tried several approaches - showing a picture of a present and saying "whats inside?" etc. This year he wants "mud" and a "green eyore" but previous years he has wanted "a bird " (a real one - a crow or seagull!). Then its trying to work out what it is or getting it down to something realistic. He has had the early learning centre catalog in his room every night since the summer and has now chosen a quarry.
On the light theme there is a good approximation of a sensory room bubble tube in the argos catalogue that has plastic fish in it too & is soooo much cheaper than the totally unaffordable real thing if a bit noisy. We got one for the start of school & its very good for calming & he loves it although you make need to buy/make a bracket to stop it getting tipped over. Also I found a site called alter eglow which has lots of light up novelty things which I've got a few of as he loves them - I got a couple to wave for fireworks night as a safer alternative to sparklers etc.