Meet the couple who are 'mum' and 'dad' to 13 fake babies - and change their nappies, take them out in a pram and say it is preparing them for parenthood.
Jess Ellis, 27, started collecting reborn dolls - realistic dolls modelled on infants - in May 2020 after feeling "lonely" during the pandemic and coming across them online.
She bought her first doll, Rebecca, a one-month-old baby girl, for £250 to keep her company and became obsessed growing her brood.
Next came Sam, a newborn, for £560 in November 2020 - followed by June, a one-month-old, Sam, a newborn, Brooklyn, an eight-month-old, Manuela, a newborn, Zain, a three-month-old, Lilly, a newborn, Annalese, a newborn, Aria, a newborn, Cookie, who is premature, Charlie, a one-year-old, Pippa, also one, and June, four.
In total, Jess has spent £6k buying her 13-strong collection - with her most expensive addition, Cookie, a premature baby-size girl, costing £1.7k.
Jess says her fiancé, Avery Raassen, 33, a pastry chef, is "incredibly supportive" of her passion and even helps to get the 'babies' dressed and change their nappies.
The pair would love a real child of their own one day but for now the reborn dolls are preparing them for parenthood.
Jess, a HR business partner, from Plaistow, East London, said: "I have always loved babies - there is something very calming about holding a baby.
"We have had a few babies in my family - I have a goddaughter and that was always my favourite stage when someone had a baby - being able to hold a reborn is really special.
"I love looking at them and yes, sometimes you can look very quickly and fool yourself into thinking they are real.
"It is very therapeutic holding them, if I have got stressed or anxious it is very calming.
"In some ways, they help prepare you for being a parent.
"My fiancé had never changed a diaper or held a baby until I introduced him to reborns, and so I made him change one of them which definitely increased his confidence for changing and holding a real baby.
"I also recognise that these are not real babies and I often leave them in places you definitely should not leave a real baby - like a table or sofa."
During the pandemic, Jess was anxious to leave the house in case she contracted covid and taking her dolls for a walk around the local park helped get her outside.
Jess said: "I do take them out in the pram - just for walks around the local park.
"During the pandemic I became very, very anxious about leaving the house and so my fiancé actually bought the pram for me to encourage me to go outside.
"It worked really well and after a few months, I was able to go outside on my own without the pram as well.
"I still take them out occasionally in it because it's really fun to push a pram around."
Jess says the pair would "love a baby in the future" but both recognise it is a huge responsibility and one they are not ready for just yet.
She said: "In a way, they are a placebo to help with baby fever. I do change them quit
Jess Ellis, 27, started collecting reborn dolls - realistic dolls modelled on infants - in May 2020 after feeling "lonely" during the pandemic and coming across them online.
She bought her first doll, Rebecca, a one-month-old baby girl, for £250 to keep her company and became obsessed growing her brood.
Next came Sam, a newborn, for £560 in November 2020 - followed by June, a one-month-old, Sam, a newborn, Brooklyn, an eight-month-old, Manuela, a newborn, Zain, a three-month-old, Lilly, a newborn, Annalese, a newborn, Aria, a newborn, Cookie, who is premature, Charlie, a one-year-old, Pippa, also one, and June, four.
In total, Jess has spent £6k buying her 13-strong collection - with her most expensive addition, Cookie, a premature baby-size girl, costing £1.7k.
Jess says her fiancé, Avery Raassen, 33, a pastry chef, is "incredibly supportive" of her passion and even helps to get the 'babies' dressed and change their nappies.
The pair would love a real child of their own one day but for now the reborn dolls are preparing them for parenthood.
Jess, a HR business partner, from Plaistow, East London, said: "I have always loved babies - there is something very calming about holding a baby.
"We have had a few babies in my family - I have a goddaughter and that was always my favourite stage when someone had a baby - being able to hold a reborn is really special.
"I love looking at them and yes, sometimes you can look very quickly and fool yourself into thinking they are real.
"It is very therapeutic holding them, if I have got stressed or anxious it is very calming.
"In some ways, they help prepare you for being a parent.
"My fiancé had never changed a diaper or held a baby until I introduced him to reborns, and so I made him change one of them which definitely increased his confidence for changing and holding a real baby.
"I also recognise that these are not real babies and I often leave them in places you definitely should not leave a real baby - like a table or sofa."
During the pandemic, Jess was anxious to leave the house in case she contracted covid and taking her dolls for a walk around the local park helped get her outside.
Jess said: "I do take them out in the pram - just for walks around the local park.
"During the pandemic I became very, very anxious about leaving the house and so my fiancé actually bought the pram for me to encourage me to go outside.
"It worked really well and after a few months, I was able to go outside on my own without the pram as well.
"I still take them out occasionally in it because it's really fun to push a pram around."
Jess says the pair would "love a baby in the future" but both recognise it is a huge responsibility and one they are not ready for just yet.
She said: "In a way, they are a placebo to help with baby fever. I do change them quit
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FunTranscript
00:00 Hi, I am Jess and I collect reborn babies and at the moment I have around 13 in my collection.
00:11 So I got into reborns because I've always loved dolls my whole life and everyone else
00:16 kind of seemed to grow out of them and I never did. And then during the pandemic I got really,
00:22 really lonely. I was spending maybe 10 hours of the day on my own, which I have never done
00:28 in my entire life, spent that long on my own. I got into social media and this was mainly
00:33 because I really loved taking photos of them and I wanted to share them with more people.
00:38 So I made myself an Instagram account dedicated just to the dolls, really liked it and then
00:44 thought I'll try TikTok as well because that's all the rage. And within a month I had a viral
00:50 video which had 26 million views, which was very overwhelming and I very quickly got a
00:57 couple of hundred thousand followers on there. And people seem to really enjoy seeing the
01:03 dolls and I really, really enjoy sharing them and just educating people about them really.
01:10 I do have a couple here that I have made and these are ones that I bought the kits for
01:17 and then painted them and weighted them and stuffed them and made them look realistic.
01:23 So what I do try and do is sell mine fairly cheaply if I can, because this is just a hobby
01:29 for me. I'm not looking to make huge amounts of money from it. I only make a couple of
01:34 them per month, maybe one or two. And this is just because obviously I have a full time
01:40 job so I can't make them full time. It is really, really fun and I really enjoy being
01:44 creative with them and it's just a way to express an art form really.
01:50 I've given myself a bit of a limit, although having said that, every time I make a limit
01:57 I then seem to go past the limit. I thought my limit would be five and then ten and now
02:04 I'm obviously on more than that. At the moment, because I don't have a huge amount more space,
02:10 if I buy one I'm trying to sell one on so that I keep a general level of the same. But
02:16 sometimes you just come across a doll and fall in love with it and that's happened several
02:21 times this year already and I couldn't say no and so they did have to join my collection.
02:27 Everything I do with my dolls I usually film because I really enjoy creating content. So
02:34 a lot of the time I will change their clothes. So I do change them, not hugely often. Some
02:40 of these haven't been changed in about six months. It tends to be my newer ones that
02:45 get changed more often and I find that quite a bonding experience with them, which sounds
02:51 very weird to say because when I heard other people say that they bond with their dolls
02:57 I was like, how do you bond with a doll? That seems weird and ridiculous to me. But then
03:03 when I started buying them and started interacting with them I could definitely see how you can
03:09 become very attached to them. So as I said, yes I change them. I like taking them out
03:16 in the pram for a walk, which is a good way for me to get out of the house because I predominantly
03:21 work from home. And they're very comforting to hold so any time we watch a scary movie
03:27 I will be holding a doll. We don't watch scary movies about dolls but we will watch scary
03:33 movies in general where I'll just hold one, we watched one a couple of nights ago and
03:38 I spent the entire time just staring at the doll's face because I couldn't look at the
03:42 screen. Other than that I will sometimes take them out into the garden with me if I'm reading
03:50 just because it's nice to hold. They are weighted to feel like a real baby.