At the baby club one week I discovered a toy that had a large "crinkly" bit , which was making my little girl giggle like mad. All of the toys I had up to then only had very small rustley crinkly bits so I went around trying to find something similar to the toy at baby club. I finally came across this toy and fell in love with it.

~ Cost and Availability ~

This is by the Lamaze brand and sells in most toy shops. I got mine from John Lewis for around £8. They also sell it online at Amazon. The cheapest I have seen is £4 from KidsKind but I have never ordered anything from this site before. They even sell it at Halfords (though more expensive than anywhere else).

~ Features ~

The doll is an engaging bright rather noisy toy, which should stimulate many of your baby's senses.

The doll comes with a ring on the top to attach to pushchairs, carriers, playmates etc. This ensures that your little one does not throw the doll on the floor while walking around the shops (which my little girl has just discovered she can do!). However, this does mean it is has a quite heavy hard plastic ring on the top if you don't want to attach it to anything. This will be ok when my little girl is a bit older, but at the moment I worry that it will hit her on the head when she is chucking the doll around. It's not really a doll you can use as a cuddly sleeping toy.

I can't recall what age this toy stated it was recommended from, however, I would say around 3 months if you are going to attach it to something, and probably 6-8 months to hold themselves.

The doll itself is quite large, I would guess about 10 inches long, and quite chunky. My 5 month old cannot get her arm around her yet, and is to heavy for her currently to pick up herself.

Emily has a very cheery cartoonish smiley face, with a bright coloured hat and dress, with stripy knitted legs.

This doll comes from the "play and grow" range, so is meant to help developmentally of babies senses.

The doll comes with a large rattle necklace (which is attached and not removable) which had a rather loud rattle of little coloured plastic balls inside a plastic casing in the shape of a flower which is see through so you can seed the coloured balls moving when you rattle it. My little girl loves to flick it with her hand. She is currently discovered the "cause and effect" and I think the doll is helping her understand that the noise is coming from the rattle. Also, to get my little girls attention if she is crying, I can shake the doll and the rattle is loud enough to get my girls attention.

In addition, inside the dolls head, there is a jingling ball rattle, which gives off a quite pretty noise. I'm not sure whether this gets my girls attention yet as it is a bit overpowered by the plastic necklace rattle, however, it does give a softer prettier sound, sort of mellows out the noise produced when shaking the doll.

In the dolls chest there is a squeaker. I am not sure when my daughter will be able to make this noise herself, as it is quite deep in the chest and difficult for little hands to get to. However, this is good for me to squeak to get her attention.

The doll also comes with two teething rings, attached to one of the dolls hand. My little girl has not really worked out that she can chew on these, and seems to prefer to chew on the dolls knitted legs. They may be a little too big for her at the moment.

The main reason I purchased this doll, was the crinkly dress. It has a very large surface area of the dress which all makes the crinkly noise which my little girl loves so much. It is good as it sticks out from the body (you can put your hand up her skirt), which means my daughter can get a good grip on the dress and play about with it to make the noise herself.

The main part of the dress in made of a smooth polyester material which is bright orange circle design, at the bottom there are panels of different types of material to give my little girl different colours and textures to feel, i.e. smooth fleecy, silky, ribbed, raised squares. She has started to look like she moves her hand across the bottom of the dress, however, she is still a little young to probably understand. But you can see my baby concentrating (the cogs ticking over) when she is playing with this doll.

As I said above, when I dangle this off her play mat jungle she likes to cuddle the knitted legs and check on them. At the bottom of the feet/shoes, there is another crinkley part, the shoes are quite chunky, but my girl has started to be able to grab hold of the feet and squeeze them. Feeling the soft foam as well as the crinkly material.

I know they say that babies are more inclined to be attracted to black and white, however, my daughter seems to be most attracted to bright orange toys (her two favourite toys are bright orange).

~ Care ~

The instructions say to hand wash this only, as I would hate to damage the crinkly dress my daughter loves so much, I've never even attempted to put it in the washing machine. As the doll is quite bit it does absorb quite a lot of water if you submerge completely, so I normally surface wipe and wash the legs (which my girl chews on) regularly and wash properly less often as it does take a long while for the head and body to dry.

~ Conclusion ~

I really think this doll has helped my little girl discover sound and touch, she loves to play with this. It is one of her favourite toys and will reach for it when you shake it in front of her. I can see that she will not grow out of this too soon, as once she has outgrown the "discovery" features it will be a lovely dolly to play with.