Baby Annabell My Special Day - Toy Review

I remember when I was a little girl that I adored all sorts of baby dolls. I had a gorgeous red pram (it's 30 years old now!) and new babies were always on my list of wants when it came to Christmas and birthday time. Now unfortunately for me, I was never lucky enough to receive a Baby Annabell doll, I was little too old when she was first released so it's hard to believe that Baby Annabell is celebrating her 20th anniversary this year!

And of course she's celebrating in style, with the release of the 'My Special Day' doll and my youngest two girls were thrilled to receive one of their own. This is a limited edition doll and she is all ready to celebrate in her new party dress and added accessories.

What's in the box?

* Baby Annabell

* 4 x Cupcakes

* 4 x Plates

* Assortment of Decorative Pins

* Dummy

* Bottle

This doll is 43cm tall and just like a real baby she makes realistic baby sounds and adorable facial expressions. She features 8 lifelike functions including:  crying, being burped, sleeping and using the potty (potty is not included).

To activate Baby Annabell you simply move the switch on the battery compartment. The doll does require 3 x AA batteries which unfortunately do not come included so make sure you have some batteries to hand before unboxing!

You can feed Baby Annabell real water from her bottle which will prompt her to move her mouth as well as opening and closing her eyes and of course your baby may well need winding after so remember to pat her back and wait for the burp. This is a feature that my children found utterly hilarious.

If you don't burp her, she may well cry and because of the water consumed she actually cries real tears.

Pop her dummy in to stop those tears from falling and as she sucks on her dummy kids can rock her back and forth. You'll hear sucking noises and as she begins to close her eyes, Baby Annabell will eventually fall asleep.

Other features include:

* Babbling in a baby language

* Sighing or laughing when stroked on the cheek

* Yawning when rocked without dummy in the mouth

* Woken up by putting her in an upright position.

And then there's Baby Annabell's need to go potty. This doll could have been made better if the potty was included but we managed to improvise with a simple bowl. Once fed water from the bottle, sit her on the potty and press the heart symbol on her belly button.

Her clothes are also removable so you can always change her outfit as well. My youngest is already requesting that Santa buy her the Baby Annabell unicorn outfit.

From a parent point of view I'm glad for that off switch at times, but she does also have an energy saving mode. If nobody plays with her for some time she will eventually fall asleep, only being woken if you provide her with her bottle or dummy. This will in turn wake her and start her making baby sounds again.

With a RRP of £64.99, this latest version of Baby Annabell is rather special. And now £2.50 from the sale of every Baby Annabell® My Special Day doll within the UK from October 2018 – April 2019 will go towards a donation to Barnardo’s so money well spent!

Her outfit is oh so cute and the cakes and plates already start the ideas of game play with tea parties and celebrations. With a lovely soft body, my youngest has taken to putting her into bed with her. And that red pram I talked about at the beginning, well that's back in play. 

A lovely addition to an already fantastic range of dolls.