Romeo turned four this week. Despite being in lockdown, we had a beautifully simple day. Romeo opened his presents, spent most of the day playing with them, we baked a cake and did a chaotic zoom call with 10 of his friends (you know how it is!).

Today I’m going to share how I handle birthday presents, otherwise known as a potential avalanche of clutter! If you are someone who isn’t bothered by the amount of gifts your little one receives, then this post probably isn’t going to serve you. However, if you are someone who struggles with the accumulation of birthday ‘stuff’ (particularly if you have more than one child) then I hope by sharing my thoughts on this, it may help you set some boundaries during birthday season and put you back into the driving seat in determining exactly what is coming into your home.

Step One: When it comes to choosing a gift (or gifts) for your child, the first step is to control yourself! I believe less is more. I am an only child and will be the first to admit that I was spoilt rotten. Birthdays and Christmas meant that I would have at least 30+ presents from my parents (and that was before all of the other gifts from family members and friends). I used to have a wonderful time opening them all, feel very excited for a short period of time, before stressing out about where I was going to put everything and then once I found a place, that’s where they would stay, unused for years.

I failed to use these items and I found that when I was faced with a mountain of presents on these special days, I would fail to see the significance of each item. And often, when I was very young, I ended up just playing with the cardboard box they came in (anyone else guilty of this?!).

So when it comes to buying gifts for your little ones, make two decisions:

How many gifts are you going to buy? This year for us, it was 7 (4 dinosaurs and 3 train track parts).
I am not going to be swayed into purchasing other things when I buy these items. We all know how tempting it is to buy numerous items online and before we know it, we’ve added over 20 items to our shopping cart. Online platforms make everything look so appealing and it’s so simple to purchase things with a swipe. It sounds simple, but think before you buy: will buying additional items allow more joy? Or more clutter? Furthermore, I know we may not be physically shopping for a while, but we need to remember to apply the same reality check when things return back to normal. Yes, those dinosaurs look great as a set of 15, but once you’ve committed to buying 4, let’s stick to that. That’s good news for the wallet and great news for the already overflowing toy storage unit.

Step Two: Set clear boundaries with family members. (Note: This may make you unpopular at first). Some of the biggest contributors to birthday clutter are well-meaning family members (from my experience, many grandparents - sorry guys, but it’s true). I’ve had to have what seems like hundreds of conversations with my parents and in-laws about how we want to live a life of less clutter, and how we want Romeo and Hermione to grow up in an environment where they are not feeling overwhelmed by stuff.

As I’ve mentioned, my parents used to shower me with gifts as a child so they found this concept very difficult to take on in the beginning. Even during lockdown, we’ve received around 5 different gifts for the children ‘so they have something to do’. And these things weren’t even for their birthday! So believe me, the conversation about respecting boundaries is ongoing. What has changed though, is the volume of items that are coming into our home and the type of gift. This year, my parents gave us money for Romeo to contribute to our choice of gifts, which is a wonderful alternative. In previous years, both sets of grandparents have invested in an annual pass to a local soft play or National Trust park. So they’re getting it.

When it comes to your relatives, be open and honest about:

Your goal to live a less cluttered life and why this is important to you (and why you need them to respect this for maintaining your own wellbeing).
What your child may like and give them a few options to consider buying if they’d like to. That way, you’re being intentional about the gifts coming into your home.
Your preference (if this is your preference) to receive vouchers, an annual pass or tickets to an event, over more physical items for your child. I always love this option as the gift lives on… when you spend the vouchers or go to an event, you can take a photo and share this with your family members long after their birthday.

Step Three: When it comes to friends, offer a no-gift option or share a list of gift possibilities.

For every party we’ve held for Romeo and Hermione (granted, we’ve only had two), we told our friends that they didn’t need to bring a gift. Celebrating with them on their special day was enough. For those friends that did want to buy something, they asked us in advance what Romeo or Hemmie would like, and of course we respected their desire to bring a gift. What was wonderful to see, was that our friends chose gifts like vouchers, or items we had suggested. I’ve heard from other friends and clients about what also works for them:

One client’s son was saving up for a trip to the zoo, so for the people that wanted to give him a gift, they each contributed £5 to this trip.
A friend of mine told me her daughter wanted to support a local charity for protecting horses. The friends that wanted to give her a gift made a donation to the charity in her honour.

I love these examples above because they provide the opportunity for children to see their birthday in another way; a chance for them to contribute meaningfully to something they feel passionate about.

It’s my hope that I can inspire Romeo and Hermione to do the same… but I’m going to be honest, they’re only 4 and 2. I appreciate that things will become more of a challenge when they’re in school with 29 other classmates, all having birthday parties at different points throughout the year! As they grow, I know that they will develop their own opinion about birthday presents and what they would like to do. I will continue to write about our changing approach to birthdays as they grow older.

Step Four: When someone wants to buy a sibling a gift, because they ‘don’t want them to feel left out’. This year was the first time that a family member wanted to buy Hermione a gift on Romeo’s birthday for this very reason. I don’t know if this is because I’m an only child, but I found this idea really strange. Why would Hermione feel left out? It’s Romeo’s birthday and she needs to understand that it’s his day. I loved reading a comment from someone about this on my Instagram post last week: ‘This generation is known as the snowflake generation as parents want to protect their kids from real life disappointments by making everything right for them’. I couldn’t agree more! I want Hermione to understand that it is okay for Romeo to celebrate his day with presents and attention, in the same way she will experience the same celebration on her birthday.

When we were asked by a family member if they could buy Hemmie something, we politely declined and shared with them our thoughts. That said (remember our discussion of boundaries is still ongoing!), one book crept through our doors… on the first page, it said ‘This book belongs to… Hemmie’. All it needed was a little change (see the after photo). After all, being so close in age, Hermione and Romeo share all of their things. Hermione didn’t actually need any gifts on Romeo’s birthday, because she was quite happy to play with all of his new things anyway, and for the time being, Romeo is happy to let her. Fingers crossed if this continues as they grow older!

These are my thoughts on what works for us at the moment when it comes to birthday presents. I understand that what works for us, may not work for you. But if any of the above resonates with you, and can help you moving forward, share your thoughts in the comments or feel free to send me an email; I’d love to hear from you, as always.

My Thoughts on Managing Children's Birthday Presents

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