Starting somewhat earlier, she also mimicked adults pretending, we'd pretend to talk into her toy phone for example, and then she'd do the same. I think in tho

Starting somewhat earlier, she also mimicked adults pretending, we'd pretend to talk into her toy phone for example, and then she'd do the same. I think in those cases, it was pretty clear she was just mimicking, not pretending. The play with dolls seems more explicitly pretend though. I dont think she saw adults to it first (though once she started, they definately joined in and reinforced the behavior though). She's still mimicking our behaviors, trying to feed the doll like we feed her, etc. But she uses toy bottles to do so, not the real ones, and she doesn't try to feed other real babies when she encounters them. I suspect explicit mimicking and pretend play are something of a spectrum. We start trying to exactly copy the adult behavior around us, and then start abstracting bits.