doll advice for a 4 year old please- asked for Barbie.

[Liveinthepresent]

Hi there - my DD has a dolls house and a my first baby Annabel.

She has asked for a Barbie doll ( literally no idea where she has even heard of this unless a school friend has mentioned!) and clothes for baby Annabel.

Does anyone have any good advice on how best to spend my
money.

Am keen not to buy Barbie for a good while yet and don't really want to steer her away from the dolls house too much.

What makes more sense -

1. Another doll she can dress / undress etc - was looking at groovy dolls.
2. Clothes for baby Annabel - though am not sure whether they do much for the,one we have I think the normal dolls are bigger - is it worth upgrading this doll for her ?

3 something else entirely that I haven't thought of?

Don't want to spend too much as already bought lots!
TIA for any help!

Is she into the whole Disney Princess thing? My daughter has Barbie size dolls of them and IMO they're better quality dolls than the real Barbies. They bend their legs better!

And Lottie dolls are very cool for non stereotype dolls.

Just looked at those lottie dolls. I love them.

I have got 4 yo DD a Lottie doll - she also asked for a Barbie.

If you are after something cheaper, Evi dolls are quite affordable, and have the body shape of a 3-4 year old, I think they are quite good, they seem quite well made and sturdy. I think you can get them in John Lewis, as well as Amazon. They are to scale with Barbie.

You can also get Barbie "little sister" dolls, not sure what they are called.

My 4 year old loves her Lottie doll, I'd definately recommend. It's stood up to some quite rough playing, and she has a selection of clothes for her for changing

I'd buy a BArbie tbh . Dd has some - she also has some Lottie Dolls coming for Christmas . She also loves Magiclip dolls and animator Dolls.

Not sure about sizing but I buy actual baby clothes for the dolls - they tend to be cheaper!!

Thanks for replies - am loving the Lottie dolls so much! Happened to go past a toy shop earlier and they had loads of them in, definitely going to get one of these - DD will love them.
Can't believe I hadn't come across these until today.

Happy to keep Barbie on hold for now.

Really don't think DD actually knows what a Barbie is ( unless they have them at school??) and she isn't fussed about the Disney stuff yet.

I came on to recommend Lottie dolls too! They are really nicely made and get a lot of use by my 4 yo. You can get extra clothing sets for them, we have a superhero set and a surfer set for stockings this year.

For doll's clothes look up Frilly Lily, they do really nicely made clothes to fit various dolls including Baby Annabel.

Another though, we get a lot of use out of our doll's bed, would that be a potential for you? We have a plain wood IKEA doll's bed, it wasn't expensive and is very study and relatively tasteful. It comes with the covers and pillow too.

Barbie dolls clothes are a right pain to get on and off, be prepared to have to ram it's leg in different pair of trousers every 5min!

Does anyone have sewing patterns or other sources of dolls clothes for Lottie? Have bought DD a lottie doll and she is DESPERATE to make dolls clothes, so was hoping to buy some patchwork "fat squares" and a buy/print a couple doll dress patterns to fit Lottie. The simpler the better, though...!

I felt the same about Barbie dolls (even though I loved them as a kid). I think I waited until DD1 was 5. With DD2 I didn't get to be so precious sensible as we had a draw full of disney princess dolls and barbies by then, she has played with them since she was 2, last Christmas I got her the Anna disney doll and she has played with it a lot. Does your DD have a favourite princess?

Lottie dolls are cute and we have two, they usually play 'little sisters' in any doll stories.

This year I wanted to get DD2 her own barbie and I found a really sweet set, called fairytale dress-up, it is one barbie with four different outfits (with clip-on tops so easier for littler ones) ballerina, fairy, mermaid and princess. IMO It is a good first barbie, if you wanted to get her one next year...

www.barbie.com/en-us/shop/productdetail?id=10000367&ProductName=BARBIE-Fairytale-Dress-Up-Doll&Category=collection&SubCategory=Fairytale&SeoName=Fairytale

DD and I make little clothes for her Lottie (and playmobil!) just from tying on bits of fabric with ribbon. She's 6 now and can mostly do this herself.

I did make two loom band dresses for her on a camping holiday in the loom band summer. The campsite kids were super-impressed! That was a Barbie pattern - Lottie is shorter but the patterns can be adapted.

Wow more replies this has been so helpful!

**oobedobe
That Barbie is amazing DD would love it.

We are going with Lottie and I am loving the creative outfit ideas!

I may well keep that Barbie at the ready fir the next birthday though.

Can't scroll back now but also thanks for ideas for baby Annabel we may well do a bit of both