Most toddlers have a lovey they are attached to, maybe a blanket, or a stuffed animal. My daughter is still enamored of a brown stuffed bear she sleeps with every night, named, uncreatively enough, Bear (although sometimes he's a girl named Lily. And he takes karate class). Cute, huh? Well, her little brother, on the other hand, has formed an attachment to a car.
Not just any car, an easy-to-lose Matchbox-sized replica of Lightning McQueen (see it, ever so teensy, in the photo?). There's already been one panicked trip to Target to replace a lost one and several frantic bedtime searches. And as it turns out, we're not alone in scratching our heads at our child's attachment to a less-than-snuggly thing. After seeing the response to a posting on my Facebook feed asking for weird lovey stories, I found myself reassured my kid isn't all that goofy after all.
My friend Theresa's daughter has Favorite Bag, which is one of those French string shopping bags. She likes to stick her fingers and toes through the netting, and it even went to China with them when they traveled there to adopt their son.
One of my daughter's kindergarten classmates slept with a can opener for a few weeks (a fact I've been requested to keep quiet from my daughter). Cars and trucks, especially hard metal full-size ones, seem to be pretty popular with boys. More than one friend had a kid who slept with their big Tonkas for awhile (interestingly, these never seemed to be the long-term lovey choice; guess they wised up that these were not so cuddly). My cousin's son wins the weird award, Boy Division, though. He sleeps with a ukulele.
It's normal for kids to have a comfort object in toddlerhood as their growing independence contrasts with their need for security. Apparently, as it turns out, it's just as normal for their lovey to be something off the beaten track. In my case, I just wish it could be something less likely to get kicked under the couch or dropped in a parking lot.
Does your child have a strange lovey?
Image via Amy Kuras
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Comments 14
My daughter is weirder still -- she has no lovey. She's never formed that sort of connection to one toy!
So far my daughter really hasn't attached to anything really. She has a teddybear she likes but it's no big deal. The closest she come though is a little blue plastic circle from a set of shapes. That she will hold on to and throw the other colors away.
My friend's kid always has to have a spoon. A particular spoon. he brings it to daycare, the doctor, wherever. My kid has a couple favorites -- an Eric Carle "brown bear" stuffie, which we bought a couple of to avoid last-minute panics. But lately she's been extremely attached to "beebee," the Corolle baby I got her when I got pregnant. Beebee has to be pillowed under her head when she goes to sleep, BeeBee has to have naked time even when P has to put on clothes. So I guess it's working...
a stuffed Rudolf( the red nosed reindeer) it has to go every wheres with her!
Monkey puppet. DD is obsessed with a dollar aisle at Target hand puppet, that I do the voice for. He kind of sounds like a cross between the old trainer guy in "Rocky" and Grover, but with a slightly foreign accent. He has to go with us everywhere and she needs to "Talk with Monkey Puppet" on a pretty regular basis.....god the weird looks we get at restaurants and the market....
My husband is reported to have taken a perioditc table of elements with him to bed each evening when he was a child.
my dd is attached to her sippy its never out of her hand and she will freak when its out of sight O.O
My granddaughter's can't live without is her blanket BUT more importantly, the tag on the blanket.She likes to hold it to her face and just fiddles with it. It's so worn you can darn near see through it.
We've been lucky as my son 'needs' an afghan for bedtime...but it doesn't matter which one. My aunt crochets...so we have TONS of them. And he's happy with any kind, as long as "it's one with the holes in it" as he says, cause he likes to put his fingers through the holes!
Some coworkers and I went in together to make a diaper cake for a girl we worked with (approx 6 years ago). I bought the supplies and assembled the cake. Last minute I decided to grab a stuffed dog to top the cake with. Her son hasn't been without it since. I'm not sure if he's like this any more, but in his toddler years, he would often carry it around damp, because if it needed washed he would sit beside the washer and cry until it was clean and instead of listening to him cry while it was drying, she'd just hand it to him!
Like I said...I feel lucky that our 'lovies' aren't very strict!
A can opener...?