STMs: how are you preparing your toddlers?

crunchymnm

We got 2 year old DS a baby doll with the intention of us holding it like we would a baby to get him used to seeing us holding and paying attention to a baby. Well, I read somewhere that other use the baby as the toddler's baby. Like when I'm feeding new baby, DS would feed his baby doll. Etc. The problem I see with letting it be just his doll, is that he may treat it like his other toys. Like I had to take it away from his yesterday for throwing it. We were wanting to use the doll to teach him to be gentle with baby. So am I off a bit on this? Or what are you doing to prep your toddler?