Anyone else have a child who drops toys behind heavy furniture & begs for you to save it?

Just wondering if anyone else have a child who loves to drop their small toys behind heavy furniture and then begs you to save it? DS is driving us CRAZY :wacko: because he is putting his toys under dressers, behind dressers, behind the couch, between the end table and the wall, between the crevices of our recliner couch, and any other weird place you can imagine except the toilet. I have stressed to them no toys in the bathroom from early on to avoid a toy flushing incident if possible. Then he starts begging us to save "Woody", "Buzz", the "Little People" and if we don't he throws extensive tantrums.

Yesterday we spent 1-1/2 hours with a flash light and a yard stick trying to retrieve as many missing toys as possible because so many were missing. Once we started it became a quest to check every space because DD is now asking where all the small toys (action figures and little people) are. It is like DS is obsessed with this. He enjoys dropping the toy or cramming it into a small space, but then gets upset when he can't save it and it becomes our problem.

I know this too shall pass, but it seems like he is doing this on purpose to push our buttons. I have started telling him we can't reach it and he will have to wait, but that is just asking for screaming and crying. Sometimes that is worse and just gets under my skin. OK thanks for letting me vent a little.

 

Buy him a grabber thing!

 

We actually have one for me because of my chronic back issues that helps me reach things when I can't bend due to a flare up, but he is scared to use it. He will point to it though and say "mommy get the grabber and save "X" toy".

 

My son likes to roll his matchbox cars under the stove. He think it is funny to watch us struggle to get the cars out. We stopped getting them at one point and he has moved on. I am curious to find out how many cars are hidden under there!

 

I've never had one do it to the extent your son is, but I have had various things dropped down the back of radiators or posted under sofas/cabinets. Eleanor & Ethan also like to drop things in the car, which they then can't reach because of being strapped in.

What I did/do is retrieve the item once and warn them that I won't be getting it back for them again, if they did post it again I wouldn't get it out until the end of the day (after tidying up so they didn't get to play with it anymore that day). If I try to reach it but it's really stuck then I tell them too bad it will have to wait (again usually till the end of the day). In the car I tell E & E that they have to wait until I can stop and, again, I will only pick the toy up one time.

In your situation I would probably get things for him one time. That is one time per place and one time per toy each day, so if he puts Woody behind the couch and then under the dresser he doesn't get Woody back, if he puts Woody behind the couch and then puts Buzz behind the couch he doesn't get Buzz back. If you not 'saving' the toys causes screaming tantrums then the second time I would rescue them but put them on a high shelf and he is not allowed to have them back until the next day.

I like the grabber idea too, do you know why he's scared of it? Maybe if you showed him how to use it and that it can't hurt him he would be OK?
You could also try making him a substitute squashing place. Get a box and cut some small slits he can post things through in it, then tape up the sides and cut a flap in the back so he can put his hand in to fish the toys out. Or maybe he would like some kind of house/cave for the toys to go in? It's possible he's playing a game where they're hiding or something.

 

Yes, my guys are TERRIBLE about this. They love to drop things behind the couch and cry for them. I do the same thing as the advice above; I tell them I will retrieve it one time, but if they drop it again, it's gone for good (or until I feel like moving the couch). My guys do cry and throw a fit sometimes, but they get over it pretty quickly and it beats the heck out of moving furniture 245,670 times! :lol:

We also got them the "real" Tidmouth Sheds toy after we realized that they were shoving all of their trains under the furniture and calling it "Tidmouth Sheds". This helped a bit, but didn't totally eliminate the problem.