S.
I have had the same problem with my MIL for years. Her expectations is way out of line for babies and young toddlers. She wants to sit back and relax with a glass of wine while my twin babies sit quietly like proper children; and she wants to buy novelty gifts that they can't really play with - the idea being that the doll would be put up on a shelf where it can't be reached just for the child to look at - which of course we don't have one of those shelves. At least she did not expect for the gift to be in reach of the childrent. Finally I told her, very calmly and respectfully, that in our house she should expect that anything she buys for the children will be played with by the children, and she should just not buy anything that she could not stand for the children to play with. We have moved on from that and it has worked out fine.