Pretend Play: Why Toddlers Love Dollhouses and Daily Routines

Watch a two-year-old with a toy bear for a few minutes and you will probably see a meal, a bath and a bedtime. Teddy gets a spoon of pretend soup, a wash, a blanket and a pat on the head. Children replay their own day long before they make up stories of their own. A dollhouse is a small version of that day, with everything in reach.

How pretend play grows

• Copying real actions (around 18 months to 2). A child pretends to drink from an empty cup, or holds a toy phone to their ear. The pretend is about themselves.
• Playing with someone else (around 2 to 3). The doll or the bear starts to get the care: fed, bathed, tucked in. The CDC lists "uses things to pretend, like feeding a block to a doll as if it were food" among the milestones around 30 months.
• Little scenes (around 3 to 4). Actions join up into a sequence: dinner, then a bath, then bed. Toys start to talk, and the child does the voices.
• Stories and roles (around 4 to 5). Children plan a scene before they play it ("Let's say Bunny is sick"), take turns in roles with friends, and invent things that never happened.

Pediatricians count pretend play as part of healthy development, a way to practice language, try out feelings and make sense of the day. Researchers who have looked closely at the evidence are more careful: pretend play goes along with good language and social skills, but it is hard to show that it causes them. Either way, children choose it on their own, and it is a natural time to talk with them.

Why routines are the favorite story

Meals, baths and bedtime happen every day, so a toddler knows how they go. That makes them the easiest stories to act out, and playing them gives a child the rare chance to be the one in charge. A child who puts Bear to bed is practicing the steps of their own bedtime from the other side. Many parents find that a routine played through with a toy goes more smoothly when it is real.

Keeping it calm and open-ended

The best pretend toys do very little on their own. They wait to be used. A screen version should do the same:

1. No goal and no score. Nothing to win means nothing to rush, and nothing to get wrong.
2. Real places, real routines. A bed, a bath, a table and a garden. Things a child recognizes from home.
3. Gentle reactions. A yawn, a splash, a munch. Small effects keep the child in charge of the story.
4. Quiet sounds. Soft music and no cheering, so it suits a calm moment.

How Little House handles it

Little House is a dollhouse with the front wall off and a garden on each side. Five small animal friends live there: a bunny, a bear, a cat, a puppy and a panda.

• Carry a friend anywhere. In a bed or a bunk they snuggle down and snooze. In the bath bubbles float up to pop. At a table they eat what is on their plate. In the garden there are swings, a slide, a sandpit and a paddling pool.
• Everything does something. Lamps, curtains, the radio (everyone dances), the fridge and the oven (food for the table), the washing machine, the cuckoo clock, the apple tree, the watering can.
• Day and night. The sun in the corner turns day into night. The lamps come on, and when everyone is tucked up in bed a lullaby plays.
• Shown, not told. There are no words to read. A little hand shows how to carry a friend, and now and then a friend thinks of something it would like (food, a bath, a song, a game or bed) and the hand shows how to help.

Tips for grown-ups

• Narrate the story. "Panda is in the bath. Is the water warm? Now she needs a towel." You are modeling the language of storytelling.
• Ask what happens next. "Bunny ate an apple. What should she do now?" Let your child decide; there is no wrong answer.
• Mirror their own day. Act out breakfast, nursery, bath and bed in the order your child does them. It is a nice way to talk about a change, like a new bedtime or a new baby.
• Play the goodnight scene early. Putting everyone to bed is a lovely way to talk about bedtime, but the CDC suggests no screens for an hour or two before sleep. Play it in the afternoon, then do the real thing with a real teddy.
• Join in with real toys. A shoebox with rooms drawn inside and a few soft toys makes a dollhouse that can go anywhere. The game is a starting point, not a replacement.

From here

Children who love caring for the friends often enjoy dressing them up in Dress-Up Party. For a calm puzzle with the same picture-book look, try Jigsaw Puzzles.