Sylvanian Families? What to buy to start with?

[Mandy21]

My daughter (who will be 7 in April) has decided that she'd like Father Christmas to bring her some "sylvanian families" - had never heard of it but apparently lots of her friends from school have it and she's played with it when she has play dates. Slightly worried that it'll be a passing phase - at almost 7 I'd have thought it was a little babyish so don't want to spend lots (and it seems quite expensive as everything is sold separately - a house, room sets and characters etc).

Can anyone advise on what would be enough to start with (to see if she doesn really enjoy playing with it?)

Have seen a deal for Larchwood Lodge at £35 instead of £70 but no idea whether this is "good" or not!

Any advice gratefully received!

I got dd the caravan and a family to see how she goes.

the SF caravan is probably the best thing to buy; and buy her a few animals to go with it. The rabbit and cat families tend to be the most popular. They are ridiculously expensive but if she looks after them, you can ebay them.

The smaller houses start at around £20 and come with basic furniture/character. It is addictive though dd now has a whole village...including similar to LL (it was called something else then and roof is differnet colour) and I'd say it is a good mid-range house (never been £70 though!).

I've just bought dd2 a SF tent with a rabbit and the postman and bicycle. They are sweet.

you can buy her membership of the SF club for a year. It's quite good value for money imo.

We got squirrel family and silk cats.

And the deer family may have jumped into my basket when I was in tesco earlier

I'd just get her one of the animal families to start with and see how it goes.

I wanted to buy some SF for my friend's daughter so I asked her mum if she already had any and which animal she might like. The response came back "get her a ballet DVD"

My two daughters love Sylvanian at almost 6 and 4. Speaking to other mums at school if they get into it they seem to play with it till around P6 age.

If you look in Amazon, Tescos, Toys R Us they have a lot of deals on it at the moment. Tescos have a few of the newer smaller houses for £20 instead of £40.