The real life plastic baby (Zapf Baby Born Doll)

Member Name: chrisandmark

Product:	Zapf Baby Born Doll
Date:	27/06/04 (8787 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good for those wannabe mums, Pretty lifelike

Disadvantages: Expensive isn't the word....

Most of us have been there. When we're little girls all we want to do is have a baby of our own to look after, when we've actually got a baby all we want to do is send it back but there you go. Zapf Creations have come up with the answer to little girls dreams. Baby Born is a plastic baby doll which not only drinks from a bottle, cries 'real' tears and eats but will also poo on her potty.

It's pretty lifelike. From a distance it actually looks like a real baby, albeit a very still and quiet one, and is the right sort of size for a newish baby. Baby Born has moveable arms and legs and her head will turn from side to side, although not all the way round in an Exorcist parody! Her face is particularly lifelike with the dreamy not quite fully open eyes that newborn babies have and a puckered little mouth that looks like it's just crying out for a bottle.

When you buy a Baby Born you don't just buy a doll, you buy a set up any new mum would be happy to receive - a bottle, dummy, feeding bowl and spoon, potty, nappies, an outfit and special Baby Born food. You also get a birth certificate for you to fill in with the babies name, I think this is a nice touch although most baby dolls you buy these days have a ready printed certificate. There's also a leaflet in the box advising you not to use any other types of food, dummy etc. with your doll as these items have been specially designed with the Baby Born functions in mind and any other brand may damage the doll. Probably not a brilliant idea to make a doll which could be broken if you don't use the special stuff that comes with it as children will use whatever's to hand if they think their 'baby' needs feeding or changing, if you do buy one of these make sure you explain to them that dolly could get wrecked if they're not careful!

The first thing your child will probably want to do is feed Baby Born with the special cereal provided. It's a pi
ece of cake to make the food up, simply mix the powder with cold water in the bowl (there are lines to let you know how much water to use) and stir until all the lumps have gone. It's important you don't let your child use any other type of food because the Baby Born doll has an internal mechanism that could get bunged up, also don't use the food in the bottle as it'll go down a different hole and block the weeing function. You also have to make sure the baby is lying horizontal when you feed her, which is a bit difficult when you consider the size of the doll compared to the size of an average seven year olds arms. Charlotte has to feed her Baby Born lying on the settee as she physically can't hold the baby in her arms in the correct position for feeding. When using the bottle it's important that you only use plain water as anything with added sugar will clog the insides of the doll up, Charlotte fed her baby with milk when she first had her and this led to Mark spending hours 'flushing' the doll out with hot soapy water to get rid of the awful smell! Similar to a real baby apart from the soapy water!

By the time you're a real mum you will be rueing the day that God decided to give babies the ability to scream and cry, but for a little girl the crying is one of the most important things about being a 'mummy'. Fortunately Baby Born doesn't make much of a noise even when she's in the most awful temper, by manipulating her arms you can make her squeak (a similar sound to a squeaky dog toy) or if she's drunk enough water you can make her spout real tears - silently... It's quite spooky actually watching her cry with no sound coming out but as I've said, this has to be a bonus!

After giving Baby Born a drink you have to lie her down as if she's going to sleep and then she'll automatically wet her nappy, another amazing likeness to a real baby. Come on mums, how many times have you
put your baby to sleep and she instantly decides that's the best time to have a wee and change? My two always did anyway. Making Baby Born poo is as tricky as it's disgusting. You have to squeeze her legs together and push her down on the potty which operates a valve enabling the food she's recently digested to be forced through a little hole in her bottom. Charlotte struggles with this aspect of her baby as she hasn't got big enough hands to push Baby Born down firmly enough for her to poo, in my opinion this is a wasted function really and I'm sure Zapf could have come up with an easier way - in any case, how many newborn babies have you come across that will poo on a potty? In your dreams perhaps...

Keeping Baby Born clean is important so that the internal mechanism doesn't get clogged up or even go mouldy, simply use lukewarm soapy water and 'feed' baby with this instead of the plain water while rocking her from side to side. This will dissolve any remaining food inside the baby and cause any dirt to be released through the wee wee hole, sounds nice eh? You can't bathe Baby Born as she isn't water tight but you can clean her with a damp cloth to keep her looking as good as new. You don't need to clean the inside of the doll too often, which is a good thing as Charlotte can't do it herself so I get the priviledge of spending ages feeding and disposing of semi digested baby food!

Because of the food and the fact that Baby Born contains small parts the doll isn't suitable for children under 3 years and personally I think this should be raised to five years because a younger child simply isn't going to get the best from the toy. Some of the functions are complicated and because of the size of the doll a small child isn't going to be able to perform such things as making the doll sit on the potty, even using the feeding bottle would be awkward as the 'teat' on the bottle is very lon
g and has to be inserted far into the dolls mouth while holding her flat. Charlotte has problems with these aspects of Baby Born and she's quite a forward seven year old so how on earth Zapf expect a three year old to manage is beyond me.

I wouldn't say Baby Born provides hours of fun, Charlotte will get her baby out every so often and play with her for a couple of hours but she soon goes back into the pushchair to make way for a more exciting toy. She is a bit of a tomboy though so if you've got a girly girl the doll will probably be used more. To be honest, once your child has exhausted all the functions of this doll she'll probably get bored because there's only so many times they're going to want to use the fiddly bottle and unsuccessfully make Baby Born poo! Even if you buy some of the many Baby Born accessories this doll is quickly grown out of, and the accessories (like the doll) don't come cheap.

To buy a Baby Born doll expect to pay around £32 from places such as Argos, although at the moment Toys 'R' Us are selling them for £19.45. Now, for a baby doll that does so many different things this isn't too bad. Until you realise that you're going to have to replace the food and nappies at regular intervals, if your child is one of those who loves to play Mummy then this is quickly going to get very expensive. Personally I haven't replaced the food since Charlotte has had the doll because she isn't really interested in making her baby poo, the nappies I've replaced a few times but she's now using terry towelling ones cut up to fit the doll. The cost of the nappies is around a fiver for five nappies and I think this is way too much when you consider nappies for a real baby only costs £6 for more than 20! The accessories are equally disgustingly priced with a new outfit costing anything between £11.99 and £17, a cot for Baby Born to sleep in will set you back a whopping £39.99 and a car
seat will cost somewhere around the twenty quid mark. To be fair both the doll and the accessories are of the highest quality, Charlotte has had her doll for about 18 months now and there isn't a thing wrong with it. Also there's the advantage of not having to buy any batteries because Baby Born performs all it's functions using a complicated internal mechanism. That's not much consolation though when you consider the fact that what is essentially a doll could end up costing you over £200 to keep your child happy.

Baby Born is available as the standard doll you can see above or there's an ethnic version available for the same price, basically the ethnic doll has the exact same features with dark skin. Doesn't look particularly ethnic but I think it's a top idea to give a choice of skin colours.

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