Mumsnet users share their memories of playing with dolls with Baby Annabell

[LucyBMumsnet]

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Most people have some fond memories of playing with dolls in their childhood, from sweetly changing their nappy and rocking them to sleep, to taking them everywhere or ‘customising’ what they look like. Baby Annabell would like to find out more about your memories of playing with dolls, as well as how your children play with their dolls.

What was your doll’s name, and do you still like it now? Did your doll cry real tears, drink real water, burp after feeding, or need its nappy changing? Or did you have to make pretend because the technology wasn’t available yet? What were your favourite games to play with your doll? How does your child play with dolls now? How does it differ from how you played with dolls?

Share your memories on this thread and you will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £300 voucher for a store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

I wasn't that much into dolls until I was given a Sindy doll. (Barbie was too trashy, apparently) and even then I didn't get into it until my mum started making some furniture for her, with me, Blue Peter style, and some new outfits for her. I hand sewed some skirts for her, myself, decorating them with Ric Rac (it was the 70s!) but my needlework skills were a bit rudimentary, back then so they didn't fit very well.

I also had a hard plastic doll that I'd been give - an old one of my cousins - and it had eyes that closed, but its tongue disappeared into its head when they were shut. Creepy as....

I had a Baby Alive doll but didn’t really enjoy playing with dolls until i got my first Sindy doll. I had a collection of sindy dolls, all with weird hair styles (my attempt at being a hair dresser, not good!). Spent hours making clothes for them and dressing them up.

My first doll eventually lost an eye and actually looked rather spooky in old photographs

One of the best memories of my childhood involves my Sindy, whose head came off, and the rubber ring at the bottom of her neck, which held the head on the body, tore so that her head was just floppy.

There was a Sindy factory near where we lived, so mum rang them up and then took me there. Clutching my headless Sindy body, we were taken round by a quite scary man (whom I remember as wearing a business suit under a white coat). We stopped in front an enormous trough full of Sindy heads and the man asked me what colour hair I wanted. He picked one out for me, put it on the body for me. I remember being very cowed by the enormous strange place, the tall man, the noise, but very happy when my Sindy was no longer headless.

I was about 3, so 61/62. WOW!!! I am so old!

i had a daisy doll (now very collectable) and me and my mate sarah used to pretend our dolls where the two liver birds (showing my age now!!)

I had a Tiny Tears and a similar sized doll called ‘Bonnie’ in the mid eighties. My mum kept them really well and ‘Bonnie’ has now been passed on to my four-year-old DD who plays with her a lot. She also has my dolls’ pram and rocking crib.

I think the quality of the dolls I had is much higher, I can’t see the ones we have bought for DD lasting as well. I also have a lot of clothes my Mum, Aunt and Nan made for my dolls, again much better quality than shop bought equivalents now, the clothes that have come with DD’s dolls bobble quickly and are mostly Velcro fastenings, even the shop bought ones from my childhood often had poppers and buttons.

DD plays with the dolls in a similar way to me at her age. She plays families and has birthday parties for them. They do change names quite frequently, where I always called them the same thing. I had an older brother and DD is an only child so often pretends they are her siblings rather than her babies. She takes them places with her and bathes them which I am more relaxed about than my mum was, although the ones I have handed down to her don’t get taken out where they are likely to get messy or lost.

II only had one doll that I can remember - but for the life of me can't remember whether I had her long enough to give her a name! As most of my 'toys' were books I would leave the doll in front of an open book as if she could also read. She had a circle on top of head with a ponytail you could pull out to give her longer hair - the only feature I really liked. One day I came home to find my little sister had given my doll a new skinhead-style haircut! I was not happy and think I told her to keep the doll and her crappy haircut - and I didn't want a replacement either as I dreaded what my sister might do to a new doll. Pretty sure my sister had dolls she would play with, mother, take out, do tea parties for etc. I used to lay on my bed, sit in the garden or take the dog to the woods and read (some of the stories involved dolls of some description if that counts). If the dolls of my childhood had been as life-like as those available today I might have been more interested - I do wonder whether kids that play with these new 'baby' dolls nicely will learn how to care for a real baby better when they are older.

I remember coming down Christmas morning with my younger sister to find that Santa had left two wicker moses baskets and two gorgeous dolls! We adored them and dressed them up in our baby clothes that my mum had kept! We still have these clothes and my children dress up their dolls in them :)

I have memories of playing Barbie with my best friend. She had a Ken doll and all the accessories to make Barbie a house, so we'd play house at her place and make up silly and hilarious (to us) scenarios.

I'm very very old and where/when I grew up dolls that cried/weed didn't exist - I'd have given my right arm to have had a doll like that!

I had a big and quite rigid doll I called Angela and I spent a lot of time brushing her hair and changing her outfits. She had big glassy blue eyes that closed when she lay flat. She wasn't easy to cuddle though... I'd have loved to have had a soft doll!

The dolls available now are completely different - they do all sorts of cool things, and while I think less imagination is required from the children who play with them, I'd have been delighted to have had one...

I can remember playing with my Tiny Tears doll. She was my friend when my big brother had got me into trouble after he'd broken a plate in the kitchen and I got the blame!

My main memory is hiding my sisters doll from her, she named it Andrex for some reason but whenever she annoyed me I would hide it somewhere.

I loved my dolls like friends. I was quite a lonely child and relied on my dolls for comfort. That's the first time I've really thought about it ☹️

Dolls were quite simplistic back in my day, but i loved carrying mine around. There are some lovely realistic dolls around now with gorgeous outfits, shame I don't have a daughter!

We loved playing with Cindy dolls because they had dark hair like us unlike the barber dolls! I remember my sister cutting their hair when she got her hair cut

I had an action man! Not sure if that was my Dad, but I loved him. I thought he was my husband.

I had a Tiny Tears. DD never liked baby dolls and had a brief flirtation with Monster High dolls.

I used line up my dollies along the pillow and I would be lying on the edge, my mother told me I would often fall out of bed, lol

I remember i had a doll that was nearly as tall as me and i loved her!

I was obsessed with Sindy and my father made lots of wooden furniture for me and some of it I still have

I don't really have any! We weren't given gender-specific toys when I was a kid...the only time I had dolls was Barbie and Cindy dolls I was given when I had birthday parties, and most of the time I just pulled their heads off :-/

One doll for me. I was a little girl who played with transformers to my mother's despair, no doll had ever interested me.

Until I saw "Mickey." She was (is, she's one of three toys I've kept 30yrs on) from Zapf Creations. Dressed in a pink pinny with frilly pantaloons, she has the most incredible thick hair down to her waist. It doesn't look synthetic at all, if you didn't know it couldn't be, you'd think it was real. I'd brush her hair every day.

She had an all in one sleep suit that I'd change her into each night for bed, and it helped my sleep routine, by settling her, it settled me too.

I have a DS age 11, so we're a doll free household now. Expecting twins this Christmas though, one boy one girl, so I'll be passing Mickey down to her