I bought DD a sylvanian families doll's house, or rather Bramble Cottage, Department Store and Cafe, with some sylvanian families animals and furniture (not all the original stuff, some of it but lots of animals) from a Mumsnetter for DDs birthday. I spent a long time agonising over what to get her as she is 4, so didn't want to baby her, didn't want to get her something she would grow out of too quickly and eventually felt this would be good for her. Did not consider
a) how breakable the little peices are, including the doors. DD has broken some of the furniture, although only pulled a door off, put back on easily this time
b) there are LOTS of tiny peices and DD plays with her brother who is almost a year old, so we have to keep all the bits away from her
c) it is much more grown up for her than I thought
d) every time we see a big wooden doll's house she wants one, and every time we visit a friends house she wants to play with hers. But is not so fond of playing with her own one. She does play, but perhaps not as much as we had hoped, although loves the animals and plays with them all the time.
I have just been on a website and they have a wooden doll's house for sale, for £50, half price including some furniture. It is pink! She would love it, absolutely love it. So I asked her if she would want a different one and for us to sell that one and she said straight away 'yes could I have a pink one, and with doors and stairs like xx' (this is almost the same). I said it would mean having toget rid of the sylvanian families one, but we could keep all the animals and most of the furniture. She really wants the other one, and said 'it could be my birthday present instead'.
I could easily sell the Sylvanian Families one on ebay for the cost of this new one, perhaps lose £5-£10 and accept that as loss due to making the wrong decision.
WWYD. Just keep the sylvanian families one, even though it is not that right for DD, that in hindsight it is not ideal, but accept the decision made, because it was her birthday present, or would you sell it and replace it with a more appropriate one that DD would love and play with for a long time and re-consider sylvanian families again in the future when she is older? What if she changes her mind? I feel bad for considering it as it means selling her birthday present which I spent ages finding, but, i have never really felt pleased with it as the right choice.
Help! I told DD I would need to talk to daddy about it before we decided what to do.