Sylvanian families - any good for 3 year olds and can they be incorporated in to dolls houses?

[BiscuitStuffer]

Just wondering whether to get DD the usual dolls house stuff or sylvanian family stuff to be used with a dolls house. Does it work like that?

Sylvanian family has all it's own houses, cars etc but I'm sure you could use a normal doll's house.

3 is maybe a bit young though? My DN is 6 and she has been into Sylvanians for just over a year. Before that she liked the Little People and Dora.

Sylvanian stuff is very, very, very small. dd started playing with them when she was 4 but found stuff like plates just too small to deal with.

Dd is 5 and has only recently discovered that she likes to play with really small things, like Sylvanians. She much preferred big dolls at 3.
But I do know of children enjoying playing with Sylvanian families at around 3.

3 a bit young I would say. Maybe wait a year or two.

I did read in a book once that some children will only play with a doll's house if it is populated by badgers rather than dolls. WHich I assumed meant sylvanians or similar.

DD was given a Sylvanian house for her 3rd birthday and she loves it. She has found the smaller items such as bowls and accessories too small and fiddly so we've put them away for when she's older. However she's had no end of enjoyment from rearranging the furniture in the house. No different than a dolls house really. She also has a fsacination with stripping all the clothes off the animal familes and swapping them.

My dd had the ELC wooden dolls house when she was 3 and the SF bakery and nursery when she turned 4. She's just getting into SF and has evicted the wooden dolls house family and moved in her mouse family which fit perfectly. She'll be 5 at Christmas.

A wooden house would be good for the early years but I have to say I now have a hankering for a SH house as they're so cute,dd informs me she doesn't need one as they like her wooden house .

Couldn't justify or find house room for another house anyhow but be warned if you go for wooden you/she may hanker for a genuine SF house later. Having said that I only like the SF kitchen stuff,not keen on the rest(hideous 3 piece suite, I sooooo need to get out more) the ELC stuff is much nicer.

Thank you everyone for your replies.
I've just had a quick look at SF houses and they do look like normal dolls houses to me except less accessible to the inside on the whole?

Good tip about the very small things too - are the actual animals etc very small or normal dolls house people size?

I'm trying to make sure that whatever we buy now is played with for as long as possible, so if sylvanians are inevitable in a year or two but fine to introduce now, then I'd rather go straight for them if that makes sense.

It looks like the bigger stuff would be ok for a 3 year old? I can't see any measurements though and as I haven't seen them in real life, I have no idea about them whatsoever!

SF gets played with over a long period of time. DD is nearly 9 and still loves hers. My frind's DD is 12 and still plays with hers. So good value imo.

The animals themselves are about 12cm high for 'adults' and more like 7cm high for the 'children'. The 'babies' are very small, but my sisters always found them a bit boring to play with as they can't play much of a role in a story, if you know what I mean. I'd say the animals are bigger than normal dollshouse people, but different animals are different sizes - IIRC, bears are quite a bit bigger than mice. Natch.