Waldorf Dolls: What They Are, Why the Face Is Simple, and Which Doll for Which Age

A Waldorf doll is a soft cloth doll, usually stuffed with sheep's wool and covered in cotton knit. It has yarn hair and a plain face: two small eyes and a hint of a mouth, or sometimes no features at all. The face is kept plain on purpose. With so little drawn in, your child can imagine the doll laughing at breakfast and crying at bedtime. Babies usually start with a small knot or blanket doll. Older children move on to larger dolls with hair and clothes they can dress and undress.

Below: where the simple face comes from, which doll suits which age, how to wash one, and why they cost what they do.

What is a Waldorf doll?

Picture a doll the size of a small baby, a little floppy, warm in your hands because of the wool inside. Its skin is cotton knit in a natural color. Its hair might be mohair or looped wool yarn, sewn on or crocheted as a cap. Its clothes are simple and come off. That's a Waldorf doll.

Bella Luna Toys, a Waldorf toy shop, describes the usual materials as wool stuffing, cotton knit skin and mohair hair. Some dolls are also partly filled with millet, which gives them weight when a child holds them.

There's no official standard. A doll a grandmother sews from an old T-shirt and fleece is as much a Waldorf doll as one from a well-known maker. What makes it Waldorf is the plainness, the natural materials, and the room it leaves for play.

Why is the face so simple?

The idea goes back to Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education. In an early essay on education, he described a doll made from an old napkin. Two corners became legs and two became arms. A knot made the head, with blots of ink for eyes, nose and mouth. He suggested that a child playing with it has to fill in, from imagination, everything that makes it human, and that this inner work is good for the growing child. A "pretty" doll with real hair and painted cheeks, he wrote, left the child's imagination nothing to do.

Waldorf teachers still work from that picture. Summerfield Waldorf School describes the first doll in its early childhood classes as little more than a head and two hands. The child imagines the eyes, the mouth and the fingers. Bella Luna Toys puts it plainly: two embroidered eyes and a hint of a mouth make it easy for a child to see the doll in many moods.

You can watch this at home. One morning the doll is a baby with a cold who needs to be put to bed. By the afternoon she's a queen, or a cross little sister who won't eat her soup. A painted smile would argue with most of those games. A quiet face goes along with all of them.

How children play with dolls

In her article on dolls in Waldorf early childhood settings, the Waldorf educator Kate Hammond describes how doll play changes. The youngest children mostly carry their dolls about and move them from place to place. Later comes caring: feeding, dressing, rocking and putting to bed. She suggests that through this play children explore what it means to love and be loved and to care for someone.

Children in these years learn by copying the grown-ups around them. So the doll often gets whatever the child sees at home. If you hang out washing, the doll's clothes need washing too. If a baby has arrived, the doll gets fed and burped.

You don't need to teach this play. Give the doll a place to sleep and something to wear, and your child will do the rest.

Which Waldorf doll for which age?

Schools and makers vary, but the pattern is much the same. The doll starts small and plain and gets more detailed as the child grows.

Babies: the knot doll or blanket doll

A baby's first doll is usually a soft square of cotton or flannel with a small stuffed head tied into the middle. The corners might be knotted into hands, or left loose like a little blanket. Bella Luna describes blanket dolls with soft cotton bodies and formed heads. It's small, light, and easy for a baby to hold, drop and pick up again.

A few plain cautions apply to any soft toy for a baby. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests choosing stuffed toys that are well made, with parts on tight and seams secure, and taking off loose ribbons or strings. It also advises keeping soft objects out of the cot at sleep time. For children under 3, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission bans any toy or piece that fits fully inside its small parts tester. Some parents use a toilet paper roll as a rough home check, though it's a little bigger than the official tester. For a baby, that points to a doll with no buttons, no loose hair and no clothes that come off.

Toddlers: a small doll to carry

Once a child is walking, the doll goes everywhere. A small, simple doll with a head, a body and perhaps arms and legs suits this stage. Bella Luna lists pocket-sized dolls for toddlers, sized for small hands.

Some Waldorf parent and child groups also use a "heavy baby". Summerfield describes one of about 5 pounds, filled with millet, used in its parent and child classes. It gives a small child something with real weight to carry.

Children aged 3 to 6: a larger doll with hair and clothes

In the kindergarten years, many children play long, detailed pretend games, and a larger doll with longer hair and clothes to change fits those games well. Add a basket or a cradle, a small blanket and a play cloth or two, and your child has a house.

In some Waldorf kindergartens, older children are each given a small handmade doll of their own. Summerfield calls these "Little Ones", each with a name, and the doll goes with the child into grade 1.

How to wash and care for a Waldorf doll

Because the inside is wool, a Waldorf doll doesn't want the washing machine. A Child's Dream, a Waldorf doll-making supplier, gives these steps:

1. Spot clean first. Rub the mark with a cloth dipped in lukewarm water and a little mild soap.
2. Rinse with a clean wet cloth, then blot out the moisture.
3. Dry in the air, or with a hair dryer on a cool setting, so no water mark is left.
4. For a full wash, treat the doll like a wool jumper. Soak it in cool water with mild soap and rub gently. Rinse well, squeeze, and reshape by hand.

Keep hot water away from it. Wool that's rubbed hard in hot water can felt, and the doll may come out lumpy.

A hand-sewn doll is also easy to mend. A loose seam is a short job with a needle and thread.

Why are Waldorf dolls so expensive?

Most are made by hand, one at a time, from wool and cotton knit. A doll maker writing for Waldorf Publications put the work on one doll at 15 to 24 hours. For a doll made that way, the price mostly pays for time.

You don't need an expensive doll for a Waldorf home. A knotted handkerchief is the doll Steiner described. A simple doll from an old T-shirt and some wool is an easy first sewing project. Our guide to how to make a Waldorf doll walks through a first knot doll step by step.

Secondhand dolls turn up too, often at Waldorf school fairs and in parent groups. The Waldorf Map lists Waldorf schools and kindergartens, so you can find a school fair or parent community near you.

Where the doll fits in a Waldorf home

The doll is one thing among a few: some blocks, a few play cloths, a basket of pinecones and shells. Our guide to Waldorf toys and play at home covers the whole play corner. Waldorf play silks and play stands covers the cloths and frames that turn a corner into a house.

If you're setting up the early years at home, Waldorf kindergarten at home shows how play, story and chores fit into a morning. For the doll's own little stage, see Waldorf table puppets, which use the same simple faces.

Much later, the doll comes back. In many Waldorf schools, children sew a doll of their own in grade 7, as our Waldorf handwork by grade guide describes.

What to do this week

1. Look at the dolls you already have. Keep one or two plain ones out and put the rest away for a while.
2. Give the doll a bed. A basket, a shoebox or a drawer with a folded cloth will do.
3. Tie a knot doll from a handkerchief or a square of old cotton. It takes a few minutes.
4. Watch the play. Notice what the doll becomes over a week.

When your child reaches grade 1, Starpath has Waldorf-inspired lessons for grades 1 to 3, with grade 4 being added. Sophie, a Waldorf class teacher with over ten years in the classroom, writes them. The Waldorf grade 1 curriculum guide shows what that first school year holds.