My soon-to-be 5 year old daughter has suddenly shown an interest in Barbies. She has requested them for her birthday and to have a Barbie birthday party. She has older friends (school age) that have them and have had them since they were younger than she is. I kind of wanted to hold off on inundating the house with Barbies until my youngest reached school age but I can't seem to get away from it. She has received several as gifts that are hidden in her closet. I personally do not have anything against Barbies in general but I just don't want clothes, shoes, accessories strewn around the room and house for someone to step on or swallow (my youngest is almost 2). I know I can teach her to only play with them when her sister isn't around but that would be never and not entirely feasible. At what age did you let your kids first play with Barbies and how did you handle it with other small children around.
We just took away all the small stuff like the shoes and other accessories when the youngest is still putting stuff in their mouth.. Let them play with just the barbies.
Get her a cute little chest or storage bin she can specifically put her Barbie accessories in and teach her how to put them away.
It's the same with all the other toys, leggos/blocks/puzzles... just teaching them how to store them and treat them right.
I played with Barbies from about 4-9 years old or so.
For playing with them with small children around, just have the box high on a shelf and get it down for her during the youngest child's nap time or when the younger one is occupied.
My DD is 3 and has had them for about 6 months (just before her 3rd birthday). Clothes, shoes, accessories & all. She doesn't eat them or anything. We got her a little suitcase & this is where the Barbies belong. When she's done playing with them she has to put them all away in the suitcase. It works great.
I also babysit my niece during the week. She just turned 2. She's been playing with Barbie as long as my DD has. Also, no eating of pieces or anything like that.
:) Hope this helps.
My kids are almost the same ages (almost 5 and 2). My little one is doing okay with her brother's Lego obsession. She can play with it if supervised and has duplo (bigger Lego for her age). I try and keep it picked up but it isn't perfect. With the Barbies I think the doll is okay but the tiny accessories are the problem. Limit the amount of tiny accessories (maybe put them away until she is older) and let her play with the dolls and easier to put on clothes for now. When I was a kid we played Barbies for hours and hours until we were 11 or so. And BTW, it hasn't made me less of a feminist either ;-)
My one year old baby girl got a couple of Barbies for Christmas. I took anything that could and most likely would be a choking hazard and put them in a ziplock bag and stored them away. Maybe just let her have the barbies and clothing they come with and keep the extras hidden until your youngest gets older!
My daughters both love them. I guess we started about a year ago with my 6 year old. Recently my 2 1/2 year old has show a lot of intrest in them as well. So both girls share the barbie collection. Shoes, clothes and other barbie accessories are often found around the house but i guess that comes with the territory! I try my best to teach them both that they should keep all the shoes in the little tupperware container for shoes, accessories int he make-up bag i gave them and all the clothes in another container. Both girls seem to understand and like to keep this organization. Somehow the shoes just walk themselves around the house though! It's just one of those things that you constantly have to watch out for. My youngest is a boy (he turned one in Nov)...will try and play with them but usually just ends up throwing them around. I try to keep him away fromthe girls while they play with the barbies for the simple fact that he WILL eat the little things. Sometimes if they are going to play i have them shut the door so he wont go in and rummage through everything r eat one of those little shoes. Good Luck!
K is 7 and has had Barbies for several years now. She never played with baby dolls. We had strollers, clothes, little beds, everything she could possibly want for baby dolls but, well, nothing...she would push the bins away to get to dress up clothes and other things in the toy storage areas. J is just 4 and has never really been around the Barbies at all. K is not allowed to bring toys in the living area. Any toys that find their way out of the bedrooms goes in to time out. Some Barbies found themselves in time out in a trash bag in grandma's closet for quite some time. They never wanted to go there again so they have pretty much stayed in her bedroom. Jis not allowed to play in her room That is her place for privacy and she is older and needs to have time to herself. She does pretty well keeping her Barbie stuff up off the floor too. She does not want J to get hurt by swallowing her stuff.
I didn't buy extra clothes or shoes for my daughter's barbies. They have the outfit they came in - to switch around as desired - but no extras. You can always hide the shoes... they are realy unnecessary anyways - not like Barbies can stand with or without the shoes.
My younger daughter "gave" her big sister a Barbie on the day she was born, when big sister was almost 3. (They exchanged gifts to celebrate becoming sisters, to try and make big sister maybe not so jealous of learning to share the limelight. ;) Anyhow, once baby sister became mobile, I just put the shoes and tiny accessories in a box on the closet shelf, and we'd play with those only when the baby was sleeping. I think we took them back out again when my younger daughter was around 2. She was pretty good about not putting things in her mouth, though.
Of course, now that they're 5 and 8 and only the younger one plays with Barbies, I am forever stepping on those darned poky little shoes. I swear I could never be tortured because walking across hot coals or waterboarding or whatever could NOT be worse than stepping on Barbie shoes! Ugh!
