NWPR: Sharing Toys

[saraml13]

Those of you with multiple kids, how do you handle toy sharing between siblings at home?

My boys are 2.5 and 8 months.  The baby is now super mobile and getting into the toddler's toys, which is causing lots of conflict.  Both boys are the aggressive in different situations.  The toddler will be stacking blocks or lining up all of his trucks and the baby will crawl over and grab one.  Or the baby will be happily playing with (chewing) a toy, and the toddler will come over and grab it from him and say "That's mine!".  

How much do you step in and regulate toy grabbing in either direction? Do you ignore it if it hasn't escalated to hitting or tears?

I'm also trying to figure out communal versus individual toys.  There are some toys that are clearly not baby appropriate that largely stay in DS1's room (puzzles, matchbox cars).   The rest of the toys were largely bought for DS1 for various holidays and birthdays, and the toddler gets very protective of "his" toys.  Do you treat all toys in common areas as communal toys that anyone can play with on a first come first served basis, or are kids allowed to claim dedicated toys that only they can play with?

[twinmomma]

In our house, basically everything is communal. Special stuffed animals are literally the only thing that they can lay claim to and they each have a couple of those. Otherwise, a toy is fair game. (And clothes, and cups, and everything else. Ain't nobody got time to sort crap for twins. lol)

For kids with an age gap, I'd say that your older son has to learn that the toys the baby can play with safely are communal, just like at school/daycare. I'd let him have a few special toys, including his "big boy toys" that are his alone, but set the expectation that general play room type toys are fair game. Maybe if you treat it like school, where kids have to share and it's first come, first serve, he'll understand better?

[k3am]

We don't really have an issue with it. Maybe because it's a girl/boy dynamic, maybe because DD is 3 years older than DS and has a better understanding.

She'll occasionally get upset he has one of her special toys, so she knows she needs to hide those from him. Or she'll want what he's playing with, and we work on trading. If she wants something he has, she has to find a suitable replacement before she takes it. He's pretty cool with this.

In general, they're communal toys. Minus the non-age appropriate ones.

[billie]

I've been thinking about this. Baby is not yet mobile but will be soon. We've packed away some toys DD didn't play with anymore and have been unpacking them for baby. But in general most of DD's toys are inappropriate for baby - small pieces, tiny dolls etc.

I'm thinking about making an area of my living room a baby area and kind of close it off with a gate so baby can play safely there. That way DD can play with her toys in her room and rest of the living room.

[supertrooper1]

I only have one, so I'm no help in real life. But this reminds me of the Daniel Tiger episode with baby Margaret called Playtime is Different, where Daniel is encouraged to find a different way to play if Margaret interferes.

[mommyatty]

In our house, all toys are "share toys" with the exception of their loveys.

Mine are 16 mos apart. Boy/girl. They fight over toys quite a bit. The rule is that we don't take toys away, we take turns, and if you can't work it out, get an adult to referee. And if we believe both parties are at fault, the toy goes into timeout and NO ONE is playing with it. They play together well, and the toy timeout I think has been the biggest motivator to having them work out their issues on their own. They now don't have a 50 % shot of things going their way in an adult arbitration, it's more like a 33% shot.

[saraml13]

twinmomma, I think part of the problem at home compared to daycare is that the toddler gets upset that the baby is playing with the toys "wrong". So there's lot of, "No, baby, that truck not for chewing on" and then grabbing it away.

k3am, I've tried to encourage trading, but am not sure how to really do it before the baby can consent to trades. Right now, the toddler will go up to the baby and ask, "Please give that toy to me, baby", wait a couple seconds while the baby stares at him, grab the toy in question, and shove another toy at the baby. It's about 50/50 on whether the baby is distracted and happy with the new toy, or cries that his original toy was taken.

[mommyatty]

Also, no one in our house gets "all" of something. If one kid is playing with blocks or trucks or magnatiles or whatever and the other kid grabs a few, that's sharing in my book. You can make a house or play pretend without access to the entire collection of whatevers.

[k3am]

saraml13, right now, DS doesn't really consent to trades. He's usually pretty happy with whatever it is she gives him, because she's amazing and the center of his universe and all. He's usually just happy that she's near him. If he cries, she gives back whatever it was.

(side cute note, when he cries, she usually says "OH DS, you're breaking our hearts!" The first few times. Then it switches to less cuteness, usually along the lines of "where's his paci so he'll be quiet.")

[hocus2]

There are no wrong ways to play so you can explain that to your toddler (over and over and over). As long as it is safe you should discourage him from interfering.

Most of our toys were communal. I avoided having an unsafe toddler toys to prevent the issue of age based rules. Note that turn taking and sharing are not the same thing so A huge box of duplos can be shared. A truck can't be.

You can have a rule for turns (first come, first serve unlimited time) or your turn today and their turn tomorrow. I'd avoid having short turn rules like 1 min or even 5 mins. I've tried to have an oversupply of shareable (so lots of duplos, lots of playfood etc). The issue is what to do if you you're in the bathroom or kitchen and don't see your baby taking stuff or visa versa.

[saraml13]

Thanks, all, you've given me some good ideas.

mommyatty, I like the idea that no one gets "all" of something. The toddler likes to line up every single one of his trucks in the "fire station", and then gets mad when the baby grabs one of the parked trucks. Same thing with blocks, etc.

I think part of the problem I'm having is trying to make straight forward rules that make sense in a toddler's mind. For example, I explained to him that he couldn't let the baby chew on his matchbox cars because they have little wheels that could break off and hurt the baby. Then every single vehicle that they baby tried to play with, the toddler snatched away because "He can't have that! It has wheels!". Maybe I just need to do a thorough pass through all the toys and pack away anything not shareable with the baby for awhile.

[akafred]

Also only have one kid, but I would handle it like they do at school. No grabbing toys out of other people's hands. If a toy is a "one person toy", and someone is using it, you have to wait until they are done and put it away to get it. If it is a 2 person toy (like blocks) then they can share, each in his own way.

This is very hard to create the environment for in a toddler and next to impossible with an 8 month old, but I would really work on creating the language and work with DS1 on how to handle these situations so it becomes his normal and the baby grows into it.

In general, playroom/living room toys would be available for anyone, and big boy toys stay in his room and are not communal until baby gets bigger because they aren't safe for baby. That will hopefully buy you 2-3 years .

[2chatter]

With the age difference (3.5 and 4.5 years between the three kids) we were deep into the baby needing not to touch some of the toys. We just made rules about what infants were allowed to have (matchbox - no) and kept the toys that loved in the main play area to toys the crawler could have. It made it easier - if a bigger kid brought something in, it would be shared, unless it wasn't safe - in which case it was redirection of the baby.

I don't think there's anything wrong with not sharing or saying no - especially when it's task oriented like all the trucks. It gets better too! By the time the baby is three this will be super easy.

[traveltheworld]

Our rule is that if you don't want to share, you take your toy and play in your own room. That works because: (a) DD (2) is usually not the one that would grab toys from DS (5); and (b) DS hates playing by himself.

[welly01]

At that age, I would intervene when things start getting rough. DD is 1 (almost 2) and DS is 4 and recently I've started letting them try to work things out while keeping an eye on them. If DS is quietly playing with one of his age appropriate toys and DD is really interrupting/knocking things over, etc I try to intervene and distract her. But there's also times where I make DS take the toy to his room. At the current time, we have all toys stored in the same room. If you're playing with it first, it's your toy. If you put it down, it's fair game to who can play with it.

[judyblume14]

DD2 is only 5 months, so we're not quite there yet. But just before she was born, DH and DD1 (an S14 baby) went through all of her toys and put them in 3 categories: 1) "Baby" toys that DD1 would give to DD2 (chew toys, lovies, baby books); 2) things to share; 3) Toys that DD2 gets to keep and doesn't have to share.

DD1 was actually excited to go through the exercise. And every once in a while when she plays with a new toy, or a toys that had been in hibernation, we discuss whether it's a toy that she can "share" with baby, a toy that she doesn't have to share, or a toy that should be kept away from baby.

At this point, since DD2 isn't mobile, our bigger concern is DD1 wanting to share things with DD2 that DD2 really shouldn't have.

[judyblume14]

My post was unhelpful. I like hocus2's ideas.

[mellym]

All of our toys are shared. They can't take a toy out of the other's hands - we take it back and say something about it being disrespectful to take something out of someone's hands. If they keep fighting over one toy, it becomes "ours" and no one gets to play with it. We were lucky in that DD1 didn't really mind sharing when DD2 was a baby. They're starting to fight over toys a lot more as they get older.

[HeartofCheese]

Trading was more like "taking" when DD was little. DS's trades were very inequitable, i.e., "Have this sock and I'll take the magic robot."

The toys are also communal. It's "assigned" to whoever is the first to play with it. Then the other has to wait for his turn. If one is refusing to share and the other is crying, I'll give them 1 minute to clear it up otherwise the toy gets a timeout. I've tried to make it a punishment for them if I have to get involved so that they'll learn to work it out on their own. And for the most part they have. I'll hear them negotiating and setting their own rules, and I'll back up whatever agreement they made. So if DD refuses to share and DS later refuses to share b/c of that - I'll back him up and tell DD that he doesn't have to share with her.

This has inevitably called upon how we deal with hitting, also. The last time DD hit DS (a few days ago), he called her out and I said, "DS, have you ever hit DD?" Yes. "Well, if you hit other people, then they're going to hit you." Then I turned to DD and told her, "You may think you're getting out of a time out, but the same applies to you. If you hit other people, then they're going to hit you." Then I walked away. So far, so good surprisingly enough.

My kids don't know it, but they are one giant experiment. I just keep trying stuff until it works... But when my kids were littler - like yours - it was all about safety and catering to the baby. But it was hell. DS was so young he just didn't understand the different rules and why she didn't understand his rules and didn't have to play by them and so on and so forth. Eventually DD just got older and it resolved itself.

[sdlaura]

We tried to teach the older one that if she wanted whatever the baby was playing with, she needed to find something else the baby was interested in so that the baby would give her the toy.

We also did a lot of counting once kid #2 was old enough - I would say 'ok, you get the toy while I count to 10, and then he gets it for
10, and we keep switching back and forth' and usually I'd only get to the second or third 10 before someone got bored and gave up. You can do this with a timer too (we set Alexa), but obviously this only works once baby is old enough to get the idea.