Speaking to "CBS Mornings" host Gayle King about the mall and her love of collecting earlier this month, Streisand said she didn't have a doll growing up.
"I didn't have a doll, so I put hot water into a hot water bottle which felt like a real person," she said.
Streisand previously recalled the hot water bottle story while speaking to Oprah Winfrey in 2009.
"When you don't have things, you have to use your imagination," she said at the time.
The star also remembered growing up in a one-room apartment with her mother and brother.
"I grew up in Williamsburg until I was 7, and that was a $40-a-month apartment," Streisand told Oprah. "I lived in one room with my mother, in the same bed, and my brother had a foldaway cot in the same room."