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Toy Dolls and Bottles  

post #1 of 37
6/15/08 at 11:45am
Thread Starter 
I was at Target yesterday and found it VERY interesting that every play doll in the toy asile has a bottle to go with it.Moms with daughters do you buy these doll for your LO'S?Are your kids courious to why there is a bottle with the dolls?I know my LO a boy likes to nurse his toys LOL....I guess if I had a daughter I would have a hard time buying one of the dolls seems to support formula feeding as being the normal way to feed a baby KWIM?
post #2 of 37
6/15/08 at 11:57am
DD will simply NOT have dolls that come with bottles. At 19 months, she's started pretending to nurse her toys... I love it. DH thinks its a bit odd, but he'll come around, lol.
post #3 of 37
6/15/08 at 11:58am
I throw away the bottles that come with the dolls.
post #4 of 37
6/15/08 at 12:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by boobyfeeder View Post
I throw away the bottles that come with the dolls.
me, too.

DD(3 - still nursing w/her younger sis) nurses all of her dolls at home (tandems, even, LOL). However, when we go to our babywearing group, there are dolls at the nursery we meet in and tons of bottles around. DD informed me last time that her doll gets a bottle and that it has formula in it. . Hmmm. I was very non chalant and said "oh, interesting" and moved on. Her 11m old cousin gets bottles of formula and we babysit ocassionally. She is *fascinated* by bottles/bottlefeeding. I don't make a big deal of her "FFing" her dolls at the playgroup because she KNOWS what breasts are for and she loves to nurse and sees me nurse her sister and all of that. So, I'm not too concerned. However, in my house, we will not have bottles available for her dolls.
post #5 of 37
6/15/08 at 1:04pm
well, my son nurses his babies, and his animals, and his trains

We don't have any bottles, but i wouldn't be opposed to them being there either. He knows that babies (and big boys!) eat na-na, but he also knows that sometimes babies get bottles since he goes to daycare. he rarely took a bottle, but he did drink lots of pumped breastmilk from cups starting when he was six months old.
post #6 of 37
6/15/08 at 1:31pm
We managed to get one without a bottle. We paid a bit more for it but figured it was worth it. She has one at Grandpa's house that has a bottle. Even that one we don't really mind. Charlotte knows that mommies have to pump to put milk in bottles so she wants a play breast pump. I haven't been able to find one of those yet.

I do throw out the bottles with juice. Babies aren't supposed to have juice in bottles anyway. I'm amazed they still make them.
post #7 of 37
6/15/08 at 2:12pm
Until the dolls come complete with a toy medela PIS then my daughter won't be needing toy bottles.

It's like, let's drill it into their heads as early as possible that bottle-feeding is the normal way to feed a baby. Whatever!

Have you seen this article? It's awesome...

http://www.mothering.com/articles/ne...ty-bottle.html
post #8 of 37
6/15/08 at 2:32pm
It kind of bothers me, but then I think, "what, are they supposed to come with toy boobs?"
post #9 of 37
6/15/08 at 2:56pm
Until I encounter an adult female who refuses to breastfeed solely because her dolls as a child were all bottlefed, I don't think it's worth worrying about one bit.
post #10 of 37
6/15/08 at 3:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lasciate View Post
Until I encounter an adult female who refuses to breastfeed solely because her dolls as a child were all bottlefed, I don't think it's worth worrying about one bit.
It's not that they'll base their decisions solely on toys, it's that baby dolls coming with bottles normalizes bottle-feeding. It's just like when you go to the baby shower section of the craft store. All the decorations are covered in bottles. For so many people babies = bottles. They don't even consider breastfeeding as an option.
post #11 of 37
6/15/08 at 5:21pm
Please don't misinterpret my tone (difficult sometimes online). What else could they give with babies so that your LO's would have another little something to use during their baby play? Stoller? Sling? Diapers? Extra clothes? I guess I think of the bottles as something small and cheap/easy to include with the babydoll so that it looks like you're getting something "extra." Looking forward to your thoughts.....

And I"m gonna say it because it needs to be said: bottles do not automatically equal formula.
post #12 of 37
6/15/08 at 6:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandstress View Post
Please don't misinterpret my tone (difficult sometimes online). What else could they give with babies so that your LO's would have another little something to use during their baby play? Stoller? Sling? Diapers? Extra clothes? I guess I think of the bottles as something small and cheap/easy to include with the babydoll so that it looks like you're getting something "extra." Looking forward to your thoughts.....
Your ideas were all good ones.

Quote:
And I"m gonna say it because it needs to be said: bottles do not automatically equal formula.
Doesn't need to be said to me, for one. But for the record putting breastmilk into the bottle instead of formula still doesn't make it the default way to feed a baby. Building a strong association in childhood between bottles and babies is a great way to ensure that we'll never again go back to a true breastfeeding culture. And that means families will suffer. Bottles themselves have their place but they are NOT harmless.

pookel-- see the plastic boobs are already included-- they're called bottles.
post #13 of 37
6/16/08 at 12:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquafina View Post
I was at Target yesterday and found it VERY interesting that every play doll in the toy asile has a bottle to go with it.Moms with daughters do you buy these doll for your LO'S?Are your kids courious to why there is a bottle with the dolls?I know my LO a boy likes to nurse his toys LOL....I guess if I had a daughter I would have a hard time buying one of the dolls seems to support formula feeding as being the normal way to feed a baby KWIM?
This is kind of off-topic, but why is the question only posed to moms with daughters? Boys have dolls, too...is it because grown men use bottles to feed babies?
post #14 of 37
6/16/08 at 12:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lasciate View Post
Until I encounter an adult female who refuses to breastfeed solely because her dolls as a child were all bottlefed, I don't think it's worth worrying about one bit.

Yep.


I had bottles for my dolls, and I also pretended to nurse them. (well, when my dad wasn't around). I just assumed women nursed thier babies-that was normal in my world, and how my mom taught me.

I wasn't able to nurse my daughter, so of course she is used to bottles. She has seen her friends nurse, and she sometimes nurses her dolls/stuffed animals. She also has toy bottles.

If children don't have bottles for dolls, it would limit their play somewhat. I sometimes pretended my doll was my sister, or a child I was babysitting or something. And I still wanted to feed the baby.
post #15 of 37
6/16/08 at 1:26am
Quote:
Until the dolls come complete with a toy medela PIS then my daughter won't be needing toy bottles.
post #16 of 37
6/16/08 at 3:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by minkajane View Post
It's not that they'll base their decisions solely on toys, it's that baby dolls coming with bottles normalizes bottle-feeding. It's just like when you go to the baby shower section of the craft store. All the decorations are covered in bottles. For so many people babies = bottles. They don't even consider breastfeeding as an option.
i agree with this. its not a HUGE issue but its part of the bigger problem. babies drink from bottles and take pacifiers. thats just how it goes.

the problem with 'the norm' is that the norm isn't always the best. i could rattle off many things in america's past that were 'the norm' and even though images of said things were harmless the association that this is how we do things just causes more people to associate it with what is the norm because its everywhere.

i was even asked a few times in my pregnancy "what formula will you be using?" because that is what is expected nowadays. im actually shocked that i didnt get any bottles or pacis as gifts.
post #17 of 37
6/16/08 at 4:26am
I would get a toy doll with a bottle but only if the bottle can be separated from the doll. I wouldn't get the Elmo doll with the bottle because that's all it does it take a bottle, but I would get a regular doll that happened to come with a bottle. Some babies take bottles, even breastfed ones, and even though he didn't take one, I'm not going to totally censor bottles from him. It's just like how I wouldn't get a book that just talks about bottles or even mentions bottles that much, but if it's a good book that happens to have a bottle in there, I wouldn't put it down just because of that. Also, since I have a boy, it's different to me because he can't breastfeed any of his toys. I would let him pretend, but in real life, he would need to give the baby a bottle, so I would have one or two around.
post #18 of 37
6/16/08 at 5:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by minkajane View Post
It's not that they'll base their decisions solely on toys, it's that baby dolls coming with bottles normalizes bottle-feeding.
See, this really bothers me. This kind of attitude, and I am not just picking on you as it's rampant, is one of the factors that contribute to guilty feeling mothers.

It "normalizes" bottle feeding. So, is that to say that if for whatever reason you have no choice but to bottle feed (I had very low milk supply and had to suppliment) that there is something less than normal about you? Should me daughter be made to feel that the way her mother nourished her was terrible?

Not everyone using bottles is evil or even choosing to do so.
post #19 of 37
6/16/08 at 8:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by angelcat View Post
If children don't have bottles for dolls, it would limit their play somewhat. I sometimes pretended my doll was my sister, or a child I was babysitting or something. And I still wanted to feed the baby.
Kids are smart and creative; they can find a way to play with a doll without needing to bottle feed it. I mean, that's what cross-nursing is for, no? :

Quote:
Originally Posted by hannahsmummy
So, is that to say that if for whatever reason you have no choice but to bottle feed (I had very low milk supply and had to suppliment) that there is something less than normal about you?
oh of course not. "normalizing" bottlefeeding just means re-inforcing it as the cultural norm as opposed to (or excluding really) breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is the *biologically* normal way to feed a baby, so let's try to make it the *cultural* norm is the whole point of lactivism, IMO. of course there are situations where breastfeeding doesn't work out for a particular mom/baby pair (for what ever reason) so in that case, thank god for donor milk and milk substitutes. but, i think, in a lot of cases (not saying this was what happened to any particular person reading this thread), in a lot of cases where breastfeeding doesn't work out, more support and more/more accurate information would go a long way in overcoming whatever obstacle(s) prevented a successful nursing relationship from developing.
post #20 of 37
6/16/08 at 8:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by minkajane View Post
It's not that they'll base their decisions solely on toys, it's that baby dolls coming with bottles normalizes bottle-feeding. It's just like when you go to the baby shower section of the craft store. All the decorations are covered in bottles. For so many people babies = bottles. They don't even consider breastfeeding as an option.
ITA. This is why the big bottle in the Monterey Bay Aquarium exhibit was such a big deal to me and many others who posted on that thread.
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