It's the time of year every parent dreads. When kids get more pleasure from the adverts on TV than the children's programmes themselves.

And is it any wonder, when flashy toy cars do 0 to 60 faster than daddy's old Escort, when Barbie houses are infinitely more luxurious than your semi, when stylish kid's kitchen sets have everything but a power supply?

My eldest daughter is only two, yet I'm already getting a nasty taste of what is to come, when she drags me in front of the TV to see a Kids R Us 48-piece en-suite bedroom complete with whirlpool bath and power shower she fancies. Then there's the near life-size washing machine and tumble drier for her dollies' clothes.

Somehow the word "toys" seems inappropriate. Many of these items are so sophisticated, and so expensive, that it's probably more sensible if parents were to buy the real things and let their kids use them under close supervision.

I don't want to get into a situation where my daughter swans about in a £600 dream kitchen - albeit one you can't cook in - while I'm left to struggle with our own decrepit affair with its grubby sink unit and leaky draining board.

The awful thing is, until the onslaught of the Christmas ads, my daughter was quite happy playing with a small plastic frying pan set on top of two cooking rings I drew in felt tip pen on a cardboard box. Now she craves something better.

No doubt her dolls will soon be labelled unsatisfactory. They don't cry, talk, fill their nappies or eat (yes, there really is one who does that, though where the food goes is anyone's guess - it probably vomits, too).

The dolls popping up on our TV screens are almost human. One in particular really turns my stomach, pursing its lips, opening its mouth. Hideous. Though having said that, a more mature version would go down a storm with my husband.

In fact, I'm genuinely considering buying him a kids' DIY centre. The plastic tools - and there are dozens of them - would go some way towards ensuring damage limitations when he tackles all those little jobs around the house.

Kids' toys - near-perfect replicas of goods used in the adult world - could leave a serious dent in your bank balance. It's small consolation to parents that under a strict television Code of Practice, adverts for costly items must include the price. Prices mean nothing to children, who think the word "cheap" is a noise made by a chicken.

Some European countries such as Greece have, to parents' delight, been known to ban daytime and early-evening advertising of children's toys.

It hasn't become a major problem for me yet, but I can predict a few battles to come.

This year, my daughter will have to settle for a toy vacuum cleaner. Like everything else, it looks like a scaled-down version of the real thing. But in this case, I'm not objecting. To be honest, it's not realistic enough. If it really did suck up dirt, it would not only be a fun present for her, it would be a Godsend for me.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.