Barbie, Princess, and American Girl Doll

Why not buy princess outfits for Barbie and the American girl dolls she already has?

I would say that those three would all be ok. To limit your expenses i would tell people that those are her interests around Christmas time :)

My daughter just got rid of her Barbies (I call them all Barbies because they all look the same but I'm sure they are not all the Barbie brand), Bratz dolls (who in their right mind names a doll 'Bratz'? - she paid for these, I refused to buy them for her) and Polly Pockets. She is keeping her American Girl knock-off dolls (from Target - costs much less and is pretty much the same thing!). She also had a couple of doll babies that were given to her that were given away some time ago. She also has a wood doll house with small wooden dolls, but we hope to sell that. So, I suppose my daughter had quite a variety of dolls. I bought some of it for her, but much of it she purchased with birthday/Christmas money.

I think it's good to say no and have her make choices. This is a good foundation to keep our kids from turning into spolied brats. Whether that means you say no to buying more than 1 kind of doll, or you say no to buying accessories for all of them. Maybe she can get those dolls for Christmas, but in the meantime, it's good to teach kids limits and to delay gratification. Not to deprive our kids, just to limit the entitlement that comes from being spoiled.

My daughter has Barbie, Princess, and smaller. We don't do American Girls because of the price.

As for clothes and furniture, we have one Barbie size doll house that all the dolls share. So any furniture goes to the one house.

my daughter isn't really a doll type girl, but I don't limit her. I remember having dolls of all kinds as a kid and playing with all of them. I will only allow one American Girl doll because it is outrageously expensive. But the other types she can have several types. You don't say how old your daughter is, but at age 5 or 6 I started making her save her money for purchases like dolls, build a bears and accessories and she would have to buy them out of her money. She can earn money by doing certain chores or save her tooth fairy and gift money she gets from relatives.

I wish I had done this. You will find out like I did that LESS toys actually help the imagination. One site says 5 toys total(BARBIEs would be one, legos two, kitchen/house play three, etc...).

I stupidly chose My Twinn, then found out everyone else is into American Doll or the generic ones. My Twinn is 23" which is too big for all the furniture except My Twinn. She wants to have the same as others so her doll mainly sits there unplayed with.

I think it is a great idea. If I could go back, I would say choose Barbie or Polly Pocket, though I bribed her into donating Polly because I couldn't stand them constantly tearing up. And I would veto Zhu Zhu, Zoobles, Squinkies, and Littlest Pony. I might let her do Littlest Pet shop since they are at garage sales pretty cheap and readily available.

We have American Girl dolls. But they were the Big Gift from Santa, My mom and MIL have made all sorts of outfits.
At one time we had over 30 Barbies. I bought none of them. All were gifts from friends and their aunts. I have also bought no clothes, but we can fill a whole sterilite tub with Barbies and accessories.
We have babysized baby dolls, these too were the big gift, the girls were maybe 1 and 3.
The girls have Polly Pockets. These were my now 13 yo's favorites and she still plays with them.
We have a life sized toddler doll that I got from CVS years ago. This was a Christmas gift. She wears size 4T.
I do not allow Bratz dolls nor did I encourage those high end collector Barbies.

I also never buy my kids toys when we are at the store. Unless there is a birthday or holiday, Christmas not Easter, they do not get toys from me.
I say NO and walk away, or I laugh at them and say Ha M. doesnt buy toys, you'll have to ask Santa.

You're wise to limit the dolls. She might do well to have one AG and then get one or two Barbies for a gift from someone. That's not many compared to the dozens of Barbies I know some girls have.

One way to look at this -- If someone wants to give her something big for the holidays, you can suggest that they give some American Girl clothes etc. (I would not be bold enough to ask for an AG doll as they are very pricey!). Same for Barbie: Others can give clothes etc. as gifts. But it's important --I think -- to guide your daugher to MAKING her own doll accessories, houses, cars, whatever. That reinforces creativity and saves money as well. My daughter has never been into dolls and never had a Barbie but for her two AG dolls, she has made a bathtub (box with cotton ball "bubbles" in it), a lemonade stand (cardboard decorated with lots of stickers and paper etc.), tables, lots of food (easy to make from craft foam and glue) and more. Same for Barbie-sized dolls if your daughter has both. If you have a booksore near you that carries AG books, seek out the AG book I believe is called "Doll Crafts" and it has a ton of ideas of things to make for your AG doll, which you could scale to make for any doll. If you don't want to buy the book, look through it in the store. Hey, you're in Ashburn...there's a new AG Place store in Tysons Corner Mall, so they will have this book. AG Magazine also has doll accessory craft ideas. Making stuff is much more creative than buying it all!