Best imaginary play toys (dollhouse, etc)

November 20, 2021 9:10 PM

My 2-1/2 year old loves imaginative play: dollhouse, a baby with a stroller, etc. What is the best stuff to get?

Metaphor: if your kid likes building, you'd want to get magnatiles or equivalent. My kid likes little figurines, so I want to get...?

She really likes interacting with the little figurines, so I'm hoping I can find some people for the house where you can dress them, tuck a baby into bed, and do other interactive things. Diversity is also a must.

I'm also hoping to find something where we can add to it over time. You know how all the train tracks from different brands seem to fit together? Is there something similar for dollhouses or a brand with a lot of accessories?

In researching while writing this question, I learned that there's sort of a standard 1:12 dollhouse size (example of one at that scale) so I could find one and then buy 3-6" dolls separately. Before that, I'd been thinking Playmobil stuff, maybe Calico Critters, and the Baby Stella line of dolls and accessories. Opinions on those ideas, or any tips or recommendations would be very welcome!

posted by slidell to Shopping (20 answers total)

So I have two little boys aged 5 and 6 and they had a doll house they used with this family of beanie babies and their cuddle toys… when we moved when they were 3 I threw it away. It was one of those crappy girlie ones… hot pink…. anyway they never forgot and I recently replaced it. I got a lovely house looking through the small adds on eBay on my area and found a huge house with light switches and a doorbell and it’s BIG so it would be good for imaginative play because you could pretend to cook in the kitchen and the bedroom is big enough for a small baby doll, although barbie sized dolls and smaller dolls are fine too. Maybe look for something like that. It’s just brown wood and gender neutral. 3 foot wide and 4 foot tall maybe… square shape with 4 rooms and simple furniture… You’d have to keep your eye out.
posted by pairofshades at 9:57 PM on November 20, 2021

Have you considered Playmobil? Playmobil 123 is for smaller kids your daughter's age, but as she gets old enough for small parts the versatility and range of regular Playmobil is unmatched. Vehicles, dolls houses, figures, accessories, boats, and planes come in multiple different themes including fantasy, contemporary, Victorian dolls house, zoo, history, police and fire fighters, hospital... there are numerous lines all of which can be combined.

Playmobil figures are 1/24th scale which means they are an excellent size to fit in a child's pocket. They are durable and totally designed for imaginative play. Recently Playmobil has moved into making licensed characters so if your daughter gets heavily into Scooby Do or other franchises they may even have figures from her favourite series.

On preview I reread your question and see that you have considered Playmobil. Yes, I think that's a good place to look.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:19 PM on November 20, 2021 [5 favorites]

A vote for Critters if she likes to take off and put on clothes.
They are not exactly the same proportion but the can happily live in 1/12 dollhouse and the furniture and accessories used seamlessly.
Get a basic play dollhouse with very tall room and basic wood furniture, so small hands have room to play.

If in years to come she keeps the play passion you can help her upgrade the decor of the house and get better furniture.

I still have as an adult the same house I had as a kid, it because a fixer upper
posted by thegirlwiththehat at 12:55 AM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

Playmobil lasts ages and can be passed to other kids. You might get lucky and have a friend or family with some playmobil kits waiting for a new happy child. Combined with Lego = awesome. Calico Critters are very pretty but do not stand up to intense playing or co-ordinate with other sets well in my experience.

American Girls' Wellie Wisher dolls are smaller and IMO better dolls in that their hair tangles less and they're easy to get other clothes and accessories in a similar size.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 2:28 AM on November 21, 2021

I have always loved Playmobil because it's so versatile, and made to last.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:42 AM on November 21, 2021

Calico Critters itself is very not-diverse, as in: yes it's a bunch of different animals living together, but actually the official canon is that each family is made of one species and there's a mother, father, brother, and sister, plus some number of babies also usually of alternating binary genders, plus perhaps a grandma and grandpa who also look just like everyone else. And you have to search around a bit to find species where the animal's natural coloring hasn't been really desaturated in a weird "white folks" way. And and they're prone to having the doctors be male and the nurses female and that sort of thing . However, other than subtle differences in overall size, there's nothing to indicate what gender any figure is supposed to be once undressed (unlike everything else where the girls/women have at least eye makeup going on and usually hair differences too), and ones that actually look like the animals they're supposed to be certainly do exist. Overall my verdict is that they're still adorable and well-made despite everything, so I just buy them used in mixed lots and present them as open-ended figurines instead of the official stories with all the cultural baggage, and we use a generic wooden dollhouse and wooden furniture of approximately the correct scale with ours and it's totally fine. People also like them for Waldorf-type open play with felt or wood elements. We haven't had durability issues and routinely buy from people offloading their childhood collection, though I'm sure Playmobil is tougher if one is going to be rough with them. Buying them second-hand also helps keep you from getting locked into them as an ecosystem where there's always another shiny thing to purchase just over the horizon.
posted by teremala at 4:57 AM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

My 3yo really likes her Timber Tots treehouse and playground set. They have an expansive line of different structures (a school, different little houses, etc.) It is sturdy and holds up to toddler play. We’re getting her another Timber Tots toy for the holidays this year.

She also has Calico Critters but I’m not sure if I’d recommend it this young. The playsets come with a billion tiny accessories (a tiny fork, a tiny tea kettle, individual bitty flowers) which is cute but also impossible for little hands to grasp and they’re constantly getting lost in the carpet. She’s often frustrated with it and asking me for help, it might be better for an older kid.
posted by castlebravo at 5:16 AM on November 21, 2021

I played with Playmobil for years and years as a kid, and had elaborate backstories and family trees drawn out for all of my figures. I also had Sylvanian Families (which I guess are called Calico Critters now) and interpreted all the families as related to each other, so like the bunny HAS to marry the raccoon, because the other bunny is her brother. Before I got into Playmobil I really liked our Fisher Price Little People city set.

I got a lot of mileage out of Lego (just plain/basic bricks, not kits) and our childcraft wooden blocks, but that was a different kind of play. Mostly I built cars for my brother or ramps/parking garages for our hot wheels, or built furniture/houses for my character toys to play in.

For a kid the age yours is, if the Fisher Price Little People sets are still high quality, that's where I'd go. I probably played with those til I was 6 or 7.
posted by phunniemee at 5:22 AM on November 21, 2021

In addition to the recs above, don't worry too much about matching or size. Kids will play with toys of all sizes in their stories, so you may well find a stuffed dog that dwarfs the family taking up residence, and possibly a giant Barbie someone gives her. It's fine.

The only other thing I might add is look for diverse skin tones on whatever people dolls she gets.
posted by emjaybee at 7:00 AM on November 21, 2021 [4 favorites]

this is kind of vague, but as a kid who loved playing with Little People and all sorts of other critters, I would have LOVED some sort of flat surface for them to "play" on. I would also like to organize them into families and groups, and trying to do so on a shag carpet (hello, 70's) was super frustrating. I remember using record covers as a "flat ground" so that they could all be set up without falling over (and my mom getting mad, because that was not the purpose of records).

So, one vote for a table/collapsable flat surface for the people and critters to play/be displayed on.
posted by Gray Duck at 7:17 AM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have a simple dollhouse and my grandkids (3, 6, 9, 12, two youngest are siblings, as are the two older ones) love to play with it, I recently moved it to an old coffee table which gives them more flat surfaces and it's at the right height for the youngest; she especially loves pots and pans and dishes. (It does not always look so chaotic, they're good at putting stuff away, usually.) She takes them to the nearby bathroom sink and washes them, a lot. She also likes small random pieces of cloth that function as blankets, tablecloths, capes etc. Anything with doors and drawers that open. Random assortment of dolls, china and wood animal figurines, a wide cast of characters. Shells, rocks, shiny old jewelry. Boxes live under table for sorting things. Stuff mostly came from thrift shops and things that belonged to my sisters and me. I did buy this set of dolls, but the clothes don't come off.
posted by mareli at 8:01 AM on November 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

You might also consider searching Etsy for sets of diverse peg dolls--we have some that my 2.5 year old incorporates into several different types of pretend play, including in a small doll house.
posted by pril at 12:59 PM on November 21, 2021

This family of Black figurines is great- the facial features are nicely made and not racially caricatured, they are very durable, nice colours that don’t wear off with normal play, they stand reliably on their own, and they are a great size for a little hands. Plus you get a 3-generation family: Grandparents, parents, two elementary aged children, two little tiny babies. Good Black dolls are extremely hard to find, and these ones are excellent. I have gifted them to many kids and toddlers (of all races, age range 2-8 years) and they all adore them and all their parents have remarked on the deep play this set inspires.

The same company also makes a set with physical disabilities which are a bit strange bc all the dolls are unrelated adults rather than a family, which is fine but may be a bit less intuitive for a child to role-play - but it’s very valuable for kids to see disability normalized.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 1:36 PM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

My daughter absolutely loves mixing her magnatiles into her imaginative play- she builds zoos and houses and hospitals and whatever she needs and then plays with her animals and dolls etc in the magnatile structures. It’s kind of like plays where the set is just boxes that get moved around to represent whatever is needed for the scene.
posted by rockindata at 1:39 PM on November 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

Speaking of which, the little realistic plastic animals (Schleich is one brand) have been (and continue to be) used for endless hours of imaginative play. They are pretty expensive new, but it’s not uncommon to find baskets of them cheap at garage sales.
posted by rockindata at 1:43 PM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

Little eirias likes play food and I wonder if that would feature here. She has some for her dollhouse that are explicitly dollhouse-sized; she's also got some little food-shaped novelty erasers that will do in a pinch, as they're right-size-enough.

Second all the suggestions about not worrying if stuff matches -- none of our stuff does and that has been zero hindrance when it comes to imaginative play.
posted by eirias at 3:30 PM on November 21, 2021

Duplo makes play sets for everything you can imagine and you can use the generic bricks that come in the themed sets to build other things too. There is typically at least one Duplo dollhouse in the mix and they generally are very well tuned in to what kids like to play. I just got my toddler the Duplo garbage truck and it comes with a little bench and a kid so they can sit and watch the garbage truck, which my kid immediately realized with delight as she would like nothing better than to sit on a bench all day and watch the garbage truck do its thing. My kids are 2-8 years old and they all have fun building with Duplos.

My kids who love imaginative play get a ton of mileage out of play plates, cups, and food.
posted by potrzebie at 7:17 PM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

My daughter (almost 3) loves her Melissa & Doug Take-Along Wooden Doorbell Dollhouse. The figurines aren't diverse, but it would fit figures from other toys.

It's a small dollhouse with doors, doorbells and keys, and she loves to fiddle with locking and unlocking the doors and having various toys move in and around the house.
posted by champers at 4:05 AM on November 22, 2021

Fisher Price doesn't get a mention here? Ha ha, my sons had all kinds of FP pirate ships, castles, islands, and all kinds of figurines to go with them. They could play for hours with these items and their imaginations.

I think it's great to expand her imagination, and there's tons of great suggestions here....I almost wish I had small kids to play games with, since my kids are grown.
posted by annieb at 2:30 PM on November 22, 2021

Another vote for Playmobil.

But my three year old loves the crap out of her Bluey house and car. She has spent hours and hours in imaginative play with that house.
posted by guster4lovers at 7:40 AM on November 24, 2021