girl brushing lullababy doll's curly dark brown hair

Benefits of Doll Hair Play for Toddlers

For so many little girls and boys, hair is a huge part of their identity. Start introducing hair play and hair fun while they’re young using baby dolls. This gives them the opportunity to experiment with different styles without worrying about painful knots, tangles, or ouchies were they to play with their own hair. Once toddlers are introduced to hair play, the benefits and opportunities are endless. Here are just a few of the many ways you can stimulate your child and introduce them to fun and explorative hair play with baby dolls.

Clips, Bands, Bows and more

The first thing you’ll have to do is pick your favorite baby doll with hair. Straight, wavy, or curly, LullaBaby has all hair types. Choose whichever style you want to practice on, then put together a collection of hair accessories. Either scavenge whatever you have around the house, including sprays and combs, or make a quick trip to the dollar store and grab some toddler-sized hair ties, headbands, cute clips, bows, bobby pins, and brushes.

Once you have all the supplies, set up a little hair salon for your baby doll. The LullaBaby high chair would keep baby doll nice and secure.

Priority number one is fun. Give your child complete free reign to play. See what types of hair play they gravitate to. If they want to brush doll’s hair, help them hold the brush and run it through the hair without hitting too many tangles. If they want to add all the clips and bows possible, show them how to pinch open the clasps and pin them into baby doll’s hair. All these fun movements utilize little fingers and muscles and improve fine motor skills. Once they master the use of hair clips or pins, they can start to use them in their own hair and get creative with their self-expression.

Ponytails and Braids

The LullaBaby hair dolls come with two ponytails, with the hair perfectly parted for two elastic bands. This makes it easier for toddlers to replicate the style. The real challenge is learning the twist and pull technique used to fasten the hair band in place. For younger children you can ask them to gather the hair together and take charge of the elastic band, but for older kids, including those ready to learn twists and braids, baby dolls are the perfect models for hair play practice.

Baby dolls may have infinite patience, because they’re plastic, but children don’t. Remember, it’s all for fun. If there’s pushback or frustration about uncooperative braids or loose hair, try to double down on the creative fun aspects and not on perfection.

For those able to keep up with the braiding technique, it could be a really magical memory between you, your child, and their favorite doll. Start with shoelaces or three strings tied together to make it easier on their little fingers and hands and work up to the baby doll’s hair which is shorter and less cooperative.

Benefits of Hair Play for Toddlers

From self-expression to fine motor skills, hair play helps strengthen both their coordination and sense of identity.

Practice makes perfect, so the more a child plays and practices various hairstyles, the easier they’ll be. That coordination will help with all kinds of day-to-day skills, from tying shoelaces to buttoning buttons. Before you know it, your child will be brushing and styling their own hair and getting themselves dressed and ready to go out the door all on their own. Before then, enjoy all these moments together as you help them practice these precious life skills.

For children with particular hair types that need more attention, either long hair that needs to be brushed regularly or curly hair that lends itself well to be braided, the earlier you practice and normalize these activities with your child, the easier it will be for them to internalize them and take pride in those steps to their getting ready routine.

That’s the beauty in LullaBaby’s collection of dolls with hair. Not only is there a doll that looks like your young child, but toddlers might prefer to practice hair play with a doll the same age as them instead of an older, less lifelike doll.

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