2 year review - confused now!

[Olishi]

Hope this is in the right section, but I took my two year old for his 2 year review today (only to be told they usually see children at 27 months and he is 25, but they booked the damn appointment) and the HV seemed a bit concerned when I said he doesn't really play make believe with dolls/ teddies. He likes anything with wheels he can push or ride on, building blocks, physical toys to climb on etc. He has cuddled a few teddies before, but surely not every child wants to play 'feed the dolly/put teddy to bed'?

I never really thought about it as he has his preferences for toys and is otherwise a very confident, affectionate and social child. I don't want to waste money buying toys I know he won't play with.

So does it really matter? Why would she have been so surprised about it?

It's a question on an Ages and stages (ASQ) check . Shouldn't be an issue if he scored ok on the rest of the section .
2 yr check is commissioned in most areas between. 2-2.6 as part of the Healthy Child Programme. In my area 2.7 would be considered too late !

Can you not do an exercise at home with him. Get some plastic cups or plates with one of his teddy bears etc and have a pretend tea party and see if he engages and plays along?

I wouldn't worry. Mine wasn't really into imaginative play at that age, would maybe make the odd pretend cup of tea in a play kitchen. He hit 3 now though and I genuinely don't know where he gets all his ideas from, the house is full of tigers and dragons, his favourite bear needs his own bowl of cereal pouring in the morning - it's all imagination play.

Does he seek out your interest? Bring you things to look at?

I agree with MattDillonsPants, normally as parents we don't have to "guess" what children's interest is, they will show us.

Yes he's always bringing us toys or taking us to what he wants. He will play with things like a tea set or even just plastic cups and a bottle of water, pretending to pour drinks etc

He's very headstrong, so when we're playing if he's not interested in what I'm trying to do he either walks away or tries to do something different.

I thought about it over night, there's been a change in the HV and how they run things so I'm with a different group of HV's now. They seem different to who I saw before, who were brilliant. The new ones seem more about box ticking than anything else. Whenever I tried to discuss one of the questions she would cut me off and give me what I felt was a very text book response. In the end I just sat and nodded while she told me things I was already aware of.

Anyway, I've decided not to dwell on it. Over the last two weeks he's picked up 8 new words so he seems to be in the midst of development leap. I know he's growing at his own pace. I have to go back in a few months just to 'see where he's at' but I'm going to try not to worry that if he's not playing make believe with a dolly than he's behind in some way.

I mean he's just build himself a track for his cars to race round out of blocks! He can't be that behind!

My ds won't do this with dolls and teddys as he has no interest in them at all but will do imaginative play in other ways.

So for example he will pretend to vacuum after seeing me do it with his toy Hoover (which he likes because it has wheels a bit like a car and balls inside that spin so a bit more exciting than a doll)

I bought my little boy a bag of plastic food too that you can pick up really cheap and did pretend cooking and eating with him which he enjoys even though he's very much like your son and into cars blocks transformers etc.

Another thing I bought him was a tea set but one which is a bubble tea set so it's just a bit more fun that a boring t set. All of these toys cost me £8 or less and he tends to enjoy them but never in a million years would he ever play with a doll because it's just not exciting enough for him it sits and does nothing.

If he's having tea parties then that's imaginative! He sounds fine OP.

Playing with tea sets pouring drinks and pretending is role play and make believe play he's fine and using his imagination I wouldn't worry to much.