Babies and Dolls

N’s never really shown an interest in dolls or babies.  He’s pointed at babies in books, but any dolls in pictures he’s also referred to them as babies.

He has no dolls of his own (he did have a set of twins won in a tombola, but I got rid of them as he didn’t play with them), but at friends houses, he’s never shown an interest.  Just thrown them out of whichever pushchair they’re in, and replaced them with a car or teddy.

It’s only in the last couple of months that we’ve been around new babies, so he’s never really had to deal with them or understand them.

Today was the first time I saw him being interested in them.  We were at a friend’s baby shower (for no.2) and the usual NCT girls were there.  Two of them have second babies around 3-4 months old, and one was in a bouncer.

N had found a little doll and was wandering around cuddling it.  He’d tried to remove her sleepsuit and hat (obviously wasn’t keen on the pink fashion statement), so once I’d helped him get her naked, he then decided that it was time the real baby had a toy to play with.

After watching baby A for a bit, he edged closer, and dumped the baby next to her.  It fell off, he tried again.  Finally he got the doll to stay.  Chuffed with himself, he then decided the doll needed a hat, located one and tried to pop it on her head.  Missed as it was too small to get on (obviously harder putting a hat on something else rather than on yourself), debated whether he could try and put it on the real baby.  I was relieved that he decided it wouldn’t be possible, and actually the baby hadn’t responded to him giving her the doll, so it was time to go and find something else to play with.

It was the longest I’ve ever seen him interested in dolls or babies, so was really cute to see.  He’s obviously gaining his people skills and starting to interact more with other children.  Maybe it’s time to try and find him a boy doll?