Product: Baby Stella Doll
Company: Manhattan Toy Company
Website: www.manhattantoy.com
Recommended Age Range: 1 to 3 years
Price Range: $25-$35
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Comments: Both my 3 year old son and 1 year old daughter love baby dolls. For a while, the doll of choice was a realistic looking, HARD, plastic doll which needed to sleep in bed with us every night. The doll might have been cute, but it was pretty painful to get whacked with (intentionally or by accident) and not very comfortable to have poking you in the middle of the night. I asked my dad to find a nice, soft, cuddly doll for my daughter and he came up with Baby Stella, which I love. She’s soft, a good size, and comes in a variety of shades and hair colors, if desired. I also like that she has a magnetic pacifier (which we haven’t detached from her clothes) and that her clothes and diaper can be changed. I’m embarrassed to say that after receiving her for Christmas, my 20 month old spent a couple days asking me to turn her on and looking for her switch, but now that she’s accepted that she isn’t going to wiggle and giggle on her own, they’ve become practically inseparable. We don’t have any of this, but it appears that you can also buy Stella lots of accessories such as separate outfits and her own feeding set.
Update: I’m removing the Baby Stella doll from my best gifts for kids list, because after being a preferred stuffed toy for several months she has fallen out of favor with both my kids. My daughter, now almost 3, has had several “lovies” since Stella including an action figure, a tiny little Kristoff doll from the movie Frozen, and most recently a talking Woody doll. She always has some toy that she takes with her where ever she goes, but I’ve learned there’s just no predicting the tastes of kids. For those of you that have or are going to purchase a Stella doll of your own, I will say that my daughter does still love giving her a bath in the baby bath tub. She gets dirty pretty easily, but she actual cleans up pretty nicely with a little baby shampoo. (I throw her in the dryer with a few towels when my daughter’s not looking.)
Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 
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