Baby doll and accourtrements for DS (4 yrs) when new baby arrives?

[poppynic]

Am expecting DC2 soon. My mum, who is a bit of a baby/child expert, is pushing me to get a baby doll with doll's cot, etc. etc. so DS can do his thing with his doll while I do mine with baby. Thing is, DS is a right "boy", loves balls, sticks, swords, lego, Thunderbirds. At one stage I thought he might be ready for a doll but he was just using it as cargo in a digger.... We have a small flat and I don't want to go filling it up with a lot of stuff he won't look at. Has anyone tried the babydoll approach with a boysy boy?

My DS loves trucks/swords etc etc but has just discovered his big sister's doll - he loves it. He carries it around, pushes it around in the tonka truck and sleeps with it.

You could just get a cheap doll but not all the stuff that comes with it

Ds 2 brought ds1 a duplo train set with him. I don't think he would have played as much with a doll TBH, although I did buy him a little cheap baby doll as well. He absolutely loved the train set though and we got nearly 10 years play out of it.(Ds1 was 2.5 when ds 2 was born). He did play with the doll occasionally, but, on its own, it would not have been anything like enough compensation for a wailing baby brother.

We did get an awful lot of mileage out of reminding ds1 that ds2 had given him the trainset - it made up for a lot when ds1 was feeling a bit jealous etc.