[Wasp]

If it must be a "real" camera, this might fit the bill. My hunch is that they are (or should be) cheap and nasty but I have no idea. For all I know it could be a collectible classic...

[35mmfilmfan]

Once you have equipped the toddler with whatever photographic equipment you decide on - don't forget to lock the bedroom door, to prevent unwanted candid shots nudge nudge

[pimpim]

Any Canon or Nikon is a good choice. Save the good Pentax! One fewer Canikon is a good thing. ;-)

Haaaa, good thinking

If it must be a "real" camera, this might fit the bill. My hunch is that they are (or should be) cheap and nasty but I have no idea. For all I know it could be a collectible classic...

Yeah I was wondering, some of the entry-level Canon DSLRs should be pretty light, right? Made for a low price point, all plastic, no weather sealing...

Once you have equipped the toddler with whatever photographic equipment you decide on - don't forget to lock the bedroom door, to prevent unwanted candid shots nudge nudge

Hah, the toddler is already finding out how locks work, there is also a baby in the house so anyway no time for anything candid to happen
Yesterday the toddler made a video on an old Samsung smartphone (with keypad!) by pressing random buttons

[ZombieArmy]

An older point and shoot like the Sony DSC-H20. Decently rugged, easy to use and cost a song while actually taking nice photos.

[pimpim]

update:

Found some analog agfamatic with a nice viewfinder, give it empty (maybe it even used some proprietary cartridge anyway) it's a big success! Toddler is holding it with the lens in the wrong direction though

I got a metallic blue K-X with kit lens to use as a camera in the living room. The K-R would have been a little bit lighter and better for general use due to OVF leds, but also about 30% more expensive.
K-X is minimum due to ISO going to 6400 with good enough results for small prints, so a lightweight kit lens can be used.

The K-X came with two original Pentax-branded "to be used with Pentax K series" AA rechargeable batteries! Never seen these before, must be 13-14 years old by now... They're still charging!
What's good about AA is that if it goes into the red, the next day they're good for another 10 shots, can easily use them a week near depletion

I'm also trying an optio WP-i, which including shipping ends up at at least about 25 euro for usually, but it came with empty battery despite being advertised as working, which is not the best sign of things to come, will see were this brings me. It has a very sturdy battery compartment, feels light in the hand, I hope it works!

But overall the compact digital cameras are no party so far. Sometimes sold as batches, but can be pretty sure they're defective. Working ones are never really cheap, often sold by people thinking a camera is always worth a hundred bucks, or a model is somehow popular in the retro digicam crowd, and indeed a hundred bucks

---------- Post added 13-02-23 at 04:26 ----------

If it must be a "real" camera, this might fit the bill. My hunch is that they are (or should be) cheap and nasty but I have no idea. For all I know it could be a collectible classic...

The lightest, most affordable, still usable, DSLR combo seems to be: the 1000D (at about 70 bucks), or the even lighter 100D (but more expensive), combined with the EF-S 24mm 2.8 pancake (about 120 bucks).

The issue with Pentax pancakes is that they are all so damn expensive, I therefore can get such a Canon body+pancake for half of the price of a Pentax body+pancake.
Don't know the optical quality of that 24mm but just going for cost and weight, the quality can take a drop I think
I might try it out once, hope the shutter times allowed by the f2.8 can alleviate lack of sensor stabilization. For winter jacket coats it might be pocketable, an alternative to a GR

[pimpim]

ok, I cannot recommend the WP-i. despite coming from the era where the sensor already had 6 megapixels, it uses some memory media card. Mine came with a whopping 16 megabytes of storage, which at 3 star image quality and 6 megapixels, allows about 6 images to be stored

It must have been a fancy thing in the day, internal zoom and everything. There seems to be some fancy mechanism in the lens which actively rattles when on (but not when reviewing photos), can't imagine it's OIS or ibis though. It also has the cat sound shutter option, which I decided to turn off after making a few photos you can even use your own sound file for some of the camera sounds.