Toddlers love lots of things. But most of all, toddlers love Ms. Rachel.
If you don't know who Ms. Rachel is, you probably don't know a kid in the 2-and-under demo and can skip the rest of this story entirely. But if you do know one of the more than 12 million subscribers to her YouTube channel, you already know she's basically the Beatles for kids who don't know how to read yet. So it makes sense that, when a new slate of Ms. Rachel toys debuted earlier this year, they were impossible to find — until now.
At least for now, a bunch of Ms. Rachel toys are back in stock at Amazon, including the extremely popular, 16-inch Speak & Sing doll, which won a 2024 Good Housekeeping Best Toy Award. (When I say extremely popular, I mean it: Amazon estimates that it sold 30,000 Speak & Sing Dolls in the past month.) Designed for kids ages 1 and up, the doll is soft and squishy, like their regular plush, but it also has buttons on its hands that activate either 16 phrases or four different songs from the videos. The large size is great for toddlers to snuggle, and there's a toggle on the back that makes it quieter for kids with sensory sensitivities.
"My child was excited and recognized that it was Ms Rachel right away," one tester, a parent of a 2-year-old, said. "She enjoys the songs and that the doll is soft, and she likes to carry it around."
More Ms. Rachel
Caregivers love Ms. Rachel because she has a background in music education and creates her videos with an eye toward speech therapy. Similarly, the doll was created in collaboration with early learning specialists, who say it's designed to get kids to sing, repeat and respond to the sound of its voice. (Does it work? Either way, it sure kept our testers entertained.)
That's not the only toy available right now either, and the line currently includes puzzles, soft toys, lovey blanket dolls, tummy time toys, and stroller attachments, among others. There are even dolls and loveys for fans of Ms. Rachel's orange puppet friend Herbie. And right now, they're all available online — but who knows how long that will last?
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
