DD wants a Barbie but I can't bring myself to do it

[crybabybunting]

Any ideas for a similar doll that won't make her think she has to be a size zero? She can't read so probably won't notice if the packaging is different. Or are they all pink and skinny?

[ThePosieParker]

If she can't read will she really remember once she opens her gifts that she didn't get a Barbie?

[HoneyPablo]

Just get her the Barbie. The more you resist, the more she will want one.

[pinkytheshrinky]

It is just a doll, I know what you are saying but you need to keep it in proportion. Buy the doll and stop over thinking it.

[crybabybunting]

I'll buy her one if there isn't one on the market that is better. I don't think I'm over thinking it. I've brought her up to believe she is gorgeous the way she is and I think Barbie is part of the reason girls grow up thinking they need to be thin. Isn't there a cool doll that has a normal-ish body?

She won't forget! She's still talking about the walkie talkie my dad got her last year (she had just turned 3) that didn't work.

[HoneyPablo]

I think there are worse dolls than Barbie on the market. Bratz are hideous.
www.bratz.com/

[cheeseandmarmitesandwich]

I think Barbie is preferable to slutz Bratz anyway- MIL got one for DD's 3rd birthday that was wearing a bikini, a bunny mask and bunny slippers, I mean, wtf??

I have lost the Barbie fight, DD now has various Barbies in various states of undress/hair chopped off etc inherited from her cousins. She plays with them in the bath.

I guess you could always go for a character instead, like a Tinkerbell or Cinderella doll though I dunno if that's any better. But I wouldn't overthink it, girls love barbies! I had one and I'm normal, honest.

[tummytickler]

Just get a Barbie.
I don't for one minute believe that a doll had any effect on how girls percieve their weight when they are older. Magazines/super models/pop stars maybe, but nobody I know has ever grown up and wanted to be like Barbie! Get her Vet Barbie or something.
My dd's have barbies, and tbh they are rarely played with anyway. She might not want it this time next year and it will sit unloved at the bottom of the toy box, no matter how much she wants her now.

[tummytickler]

Oh and Bratz are awful!

[NHScutback]

The Disney store do the princesses now in barbie-esque style but the bodies are bigger. they are quite nice. I refuse to buy Barbies as the quality is so awful but if you don't want to spend much they have them in Sainsburys for a fiver at the moment.

[AKissIsNotAContract]

Do they still make the doctor and the vet barbie? Maybe that would be preferable to the princess type ones?

[SummerRain]

Don't worry.... Barbies these days don't survive long anyway, it'll be decapitated and legless by Easter

[Pavlovthecat]

DD aged 5 has barbies and dolls like barbies which are not them. She has boy dolls and girl dolls. Most are skinny, but not all are long haird big boobed and wth tight dresses. One of hers is a surfy style girl.

She does not tell, or care about the fact they are not actually 'barbies'. She also has some 'disney princess' ones, and they lasted a few minutes before being undressed and wearing something else thus losing that particular character. She is so not bothered about it, but absolutely adores all of them and plays with them for hours and hours on end.

[BedHog]

At least Barbie has a variety of different careers and interests, she's not some vacuous, simpering princess type doll.

I can't say I really noticed Barbie's strange proportions when I was growing up. All I remember is that I hated Sindy because she had a really big head.

[Pavlovthecat]

oh and I should add, she is not a barbie wannabe either. She is typical 5 year old, loves dresses and looking pretty but also loves wearing puddle suits and jumping in the mud, climbing trees. She is not bothered by makeup or having beautiful hair, or worried about weight, why would she be? she is 5. they are just dolls for her to do 'make-beleive' with and not the only influence she will have to forge her identity in life.

[AKissIsNotAContract]

I liked Sindy because she could do the splits both ways where as barbies legs would break off if you tried it with her. I never noticed Sindy's large head.

[HoneyPablo]

I would rather be barbie any day than a disney princess.

[pramsgalore]

lol i love sindy, she is so much nicer than barbie, i was busy telling dd this morning about sindy and how she was better than barbie, moxie, brats

[whatdoiknowanyway]

I resisted getting a Barbie for my DD aged 4.
She challenged me on it "you don't like Barbie mummy, why?"
"well I don't think she's very clever"
"But she's a teacher, a doctor, a vet, a pilot, a ballet dancer..."
DD got her Barbie

BTW she is now 20, 5'10", size 12, totally confident in her body, at uni and taking part in a range of sports.

Barbie is a doll-that's all

[Bunbaker]

"I think Barbie is part of the reason girls grow up thinking they need to be thin."

I don't agree at all. I think tummytickler is right about children (and adults) being influenced by the media rather than dolls.

DD has several Barbies and I really don't think she has noticed that they are a shape that she thinks she should aspire to. They are just a plastic plaything.

[crybabybunting]

Didn't realise you could get a Doctor Barbie. She would love that, she's always dressing up in her doctor's outfit.

How is it that super models, pop stars etc are able to make us feel that we should be thin, but not Barbie? I'd have thought Barbie would have a strong influence over a young girl who is constantly dressing and undressing the doll.

I had about 400 Sindys by the way and am quite normal too. But I do have quite a big head

[giyadas]

not sure if this of any help, but I found these designafriend dolls
They seem to avoid the pinkness of Barbie and fashiony-ness (? ) of bratz, etc.

[whatdoiknowanyway]

I've never been convinced that supermodels etc have such an invidious effect.
What happens at home is much more important.

We never spoke about dieting, needing to lose weight, avoiding 'naughty' foods. We just ate sensibly. We didn't have scales in the house. We discussed what models had to go through to look so slim - airbrushing included.

We had lots of barbies when the DDs were small but I never heard the girls saying that they wanted to look like her. Maybe do some of the things she did but not the unnaturally skinny stuff.

Now Becky Adlington or Kelly Holmes - they were real role models.

[Bunbaker]

"I'd have thought Barbie would have a strong influence over a young girl who is constantly dressing and undressing the doll."

It certainly hasn't given DD that impression. Mind you, we are all skinny in our house anyway.

[pinkytheshrinky]

I think the most important influence on how a girl perceives herself and her weight is her Mother, ime hung up mummies make hung up girls so you are in charge, not a doll.

[pinkytheshrinky]

That said, I wouldn't have a Bratz doll in the house - they give me the willies and all our elderly Barbies look like various types of glittery road kill.