Baby Annabell

I loved the way it spoke, cried and slept. I wish I was 5 again so I could play with it!!

My daughter opened this on Christmas Day. She is 10, and adores Baby Annabell, she treats her like her baby sister!

this toy lets teenagers who had one when they were young, if they have a baby when there 14 (by accident) and it wont be hard to look after and even the sensible children will think they can have children on purpose when they are young thinking it will be no doodle so i think they would have to make this product more realistic so children would then discover what is necessary skills you would need to become a parent and doing so could probably reduce the number of pregnancies under the age of 18.

I hate the version 6 Baby Annabell doll! After exchanging 3 faulty dolls (all same fault!) we've finally decided to go for the version 5 which is half the price and twice as good!

When I decided to buy a Baby Annabell doll for my daughter because she's really into playing mummy, I had a good look around. Everyone is currently (summer 2011) trying to sell off the Version 5 half price and Argos had the new version 6 in, so i thought i'd get that.

Pro's

My daughter (nearly 2) LOVED "baby!" and wouldn't put her down. yep thats the only pro i can think of and even that turned into a con when i had to return the darn doll 3 times and i was let with a distraught child each time.

Con's

1) Poorly made- Terrible stitching that was coming apart almost straight away.

2) Faulty sleep mode- Doesn't work after it goes into sleep mood unless you switch it on and off again.

3) Hard to hold- Head barely moves, just sort of sways, most of the movement is the arms which looks nice from a distance but means my daughter can't hold the doll properly and when she does get a grip, the arms start to make an awful clicking sound because they can't move correctly.

4) Body not soft- there seem to be a lot of mechanics to this doll so the soft body isn't really soft at all.

5) Bad accessories- the doll comes with a tiny silly sheep that does nothing and a pointless bottle as the doll doesn't drink.

6) Not a lot of functions- the doll burps, cries, sort of laughs and moves its arms, Thats it! unlike version 5 that cries real tears, drinks, has a lullaby toy, dummy.

7) Doesn't fit in the baby Annabell pushchair- moving arms mean it doesn't fit in the pushchair.

We had a truly awful experience and to be honest Zapf don't seem to care that their new doll is rubbish, thank goodness Argos were so understanding (lost original receipt) and returned my money. I wouldn't have bought anything from zapf again but my daughter misses "baby!" and has a tonne of accessories for the Baby Annabell, i only pray that version 5 is better.

We bought this product (the version 5) for our daughter for Christmas 2010. Overall, its a success and she really loves the doll.

She looks after it - pushes it around in a little pushchair, feeds it, cuddles it and wants to 'mother' it.

It's supposed to do things like cry and burp - but it doesn't, which is quite disappointing.

Other than that though its a good doll so I would probably recommend it. Its just a shame that not all the features work.

That main thing though is that my 2.5 year old loves it, so on that basis its a good doll.

I also bought a V4 Baby Annabell doll for my 3yr old for Xmas 08 and have had the same problems as many of you have stated here - after waking and turning her head to one side she switches off and can only be reactivated by taking out and replacing the same batteries.

Unfortunately, I bought mine from Woolworths so couldn't return it so I sent mine back to Zapf. They returned the same doll with a note stating "Please only use Phillips Powerlife Betteries" which they also enclosed (but did not return my brand new duracells!) - I will point out that this was an illegal comment by them - but if it made the doll work and kept my daughter happy then, hey, that is what I would do. However, this did not completely solve the problem but did seem to make it more frequent.

I now find that these batteries have run out and I cannot buy any Powerlife locally and have tried other brands of batteries but Baby Annabell will not work at all now. I shall have to contact Zapf again and see if they can help - I really would like the doll replaced with a newer version though as these comments with the V4 doll are very consistant.

I bought this doll (baby annabell v4)b for my little sister and it was good to start with. I should have read the reviews before buying it, as i see alot of people have the problem of having to take the batteries out and putting them back in.

i bought my daughter the breath n gurrgle annabell for christmas n 3 months later it dosent work iv change the battries n still not working my daughter is gutted as she loves this doll

Baby Annabell could be a nice doll if it worked propperly. Baby Annabel turns out after some time. Turn off/on button does not work if that happens. You have to open and get the batteries out and in. After that it works again for some time. This is our third Baby Annabell in 1 month with this problem.The forums in the Netherlands write about this same problem with Baby Annabell version 4.

Dont waste your money as your children will be very disapointed and you'll end up taking shares out with duracell.