The Blankie Issue

Lucy has been getting more... I guess you could say... rigid? Ridiculous? FANTASTICALLY INSANE? when it comes to her blankies. From the time this child was five months old, she has carried a burp cloth everywhere she goes. A burp cloth. Perhaps the only thing lower in fabric status than a burp cloth is a dishrag. Or old worn out men's briefs. We started out with six. Six basic, Gerber-brand burp cloths in pink and purple, which were given to me by a good friend as part of a shower gift before she was born. Lucy was always indiscriminate about which one she had at any given time, as long as she had one. I feel I should stop here and explain that she wasn't just carrying these things around in her hand or anything. She... uh, she stuffs them in her mouth, and she sucks on them.

More on that in a minute.

Anyway, at one point, we lost one, and subsequently realized the magnitude of horror that would befall us all should we happen to lose or misplace five more. So my mom bought more; they weren't EXACTLY IDENTICAL to the first set texture-wise, but they were similar colors and a similar size, and we were all very relieved when Lucy seemed to find them perfectly acceptable. Now we had something like TEN blankies that she would accept, and for a long long time, she accepted any of them, at any given time. Pink? Ok! Purple? FINE! And the thing is, we NEEDED to have upwards of ten blankies, because when Lucy puts them into her mouth, they get soaked and heavy with saliva. AND THEY STINK.

GOD FORBID my child get addicted to something that keeps saliva where it is supposed to be, which is IN THE MOUTH. You know, like a PACIFIER WOULD.

Instead she has these blankies that she keeps in her mouth throughout a nap or a long car ride or ALL NIGHT LONG. And that was never a problem before, because we could easily switch them out and I could wash a bunch of them every other day and call it good. But NOW? Now when I try to switch them out and hand her a fresh one she says, “Uh, where my OTHER blankie?” And we have to have a long discussion about how that blankie is wet and gross and needs to be washed and could she please pick another one for tonight? And eventually she complies but it is sometimes a LONG HARD road to get there, and there is often crying and fussing and big, fat crocodile tears. I have never seen a child who is able to manufacture such enormous tears.

A few nights ago she was complaining from her crib and Dave went up there and she said something about her blankie. He picked her up (IN COMPLETE DARKNESS) and took her to the drawer where we keep all these glorified burp cloths and he watched as she picked up blankie after blankie and TESTED WHICH ONES THEY WERE WITH HER MOUTH. She'd put one in, decide it wasn't the one she was looking for, and pick up another. She did this with five or six blankies until she settled on one, and then she was perfectly happy.

Another night she complained about the blankies and we couldn't figure out WHAT ON EARTH she was talking about so Dave just threw all of them in her bed with her and she shut up about it. I'm pretty sure she slept better than she ever had in her entire life that night, and the next morning we found her like this:

I guess I'm just wondering what other people's experiences have been with lovey objects. It seems like the attachment to these blankies is intensifying rather than petering out, which is what I'd always assumed would happen. And it's weird, because society has this Big Issue with pacifiers, and I know the magic age for giving up pacifiers/looking down on babies who still use them seems to be three (I SAID SOCIETY, NOT ME PERSONALLY), so do blankies fall into this same category? I've heard thumb-sucking is only something you're supposed to worry about when kids turn FIVE. And I'm not really READY for her to give them up yet (she's barely two!) but I am just curious whether her behavior seems to fall in line with other kids' behaviors when it comes to special objects. I guess what I'm asking is, it would take a miracle for her to give these up on her own, wouldn't it. 

Comments

[Nothing But Bonfires]

As I am not a parent, I have no advice to give on this, but I would just like to say -- for humiliation purposes, really -- that my brother drank out of a bottle UNTIL HE WAS IN DOUBLE DIGITS. Granted, it became rarer and rarer for him to have "magic cup of tea" (that's tea in a baby bottle, obviously) as he grew older -- it was reserved for really really special occasions when he needed comfort and/or cheering up, but still: DRINKING FROM A BABY BOTTLE. AS A GROWN CHILD. WHO CAN DO LONG DIVISION.

[Kate]

Oh wow I'm glad I can share! My daughter too was addicted to burp cloths, but we didn't use the pretty ones, we just used the Gerber white diapers. So she carried those around. THEN she decided that she didn't need to carry them around, but she needed them all folded in bed by her. Folded a certain way that only I could fold--not Daddy, even though I showed him. Eventually she kind of ditched them without a big to-do, but she had them folded in bed beside her for months! Kids are weird.

[Linda]

The idea that she tested them with her mouth made me LOL. My kids never had loveys (although I tried to encourage it because other people's stories are SO CUTE) but we did have pacifiers. We confined them to bed at age 1 and then switched them out for a Target toy of their choice at 3. If we hadn't, I think they would ALL still have pacifiers.

I think the intensity you're seeing is normal, though, because she's in that weird "independent but not" stage. She is going to cling desperately to her comfort items while she explores the world, you know?

[Beth Fish]

My sister in law still sleeps with her blankie every night and she's perfectly well-adjusted. I wouldn't worry about it.

[Amy]

I am 27 and I still sleep with my lovey object, Pink Bear. Except when traveling. Then he stays behind and I wake up a few times each night and frantically search for him before realizing I'm not home.

I turned out just fine. Right? :)

[obabe]

OMG. the blanky issue!!!!
background:

first kid, he got this cute comfort silkie blanket-flannel on one side, satin on the other. that was with him till he was like 5. one day we just took it away and that was it. he sucked his thumb, too(no paci)while holding the blanky. we had to buy replacement ones, at like $18 a pop. i think we only bought 1-2 replacements total.

second kid- didnt want a blankie as a baby, had a paci till i yanked it away at 18 months and now at 5 has a favorite blanket - a large flannel receiving blanket -but could really care less about it.

third kid- im SMART now. i give him burp cloths and he LOVES them as his blankies. and he has a paci. except? he only likes ONE particular blanky. this one came home with us from the hospital and was a a little bit thinner to start with. so i start trying to duplicate the blanky. no success, even with tens of hundreds of washings in the washing machine. when he was younger, a worn out undershirt could substitute in case of emergencies. but now, at 27 months, ive gotten rid of the paci and the blanky thing is INSANE. he SMELLS the substitutes i try to give him and will hurl them over the crib. his blanky is now GRAY. it has been on airport floors, airplane floors, dirty car floors and god knows what else. we try to wash it as often as possible, but im always forgetting.
however, since the paci removal was so not a deal (really, 15 minutes of crying and hes never looked back) im trying to overlook this blanky thing. but EW.

the blanky stays in the crib, but we take it when we travel (hence the mileage on airplane floors)
hes almost as happy to see that blanky at bedtime than he is to see me in the morning when he wakes up. jeez.

i think you should let her have the blanky as long as she wants. my old college roomie has this disgusting satin pillow that she slept with evrey night. i think as long as it stays in the bed, she doesnt bring it to school, youre fine.

i keep telling myself aaron is so healthy b/c he has so much germ exposure from that damn blanky. im shuddering thinking about it after our last week long trip to california and 3 different hotels. blurg.

[HereWeGoAJen]

My sister had a blankie for a really long time. I do not know how old she was when we lost it (left it under a pillow at a hotel), but I remember it very clearly and I am only two years older, so she had to be at least six? We replaced her blankie when she lost it, but that was the end of it because she never really attached to the new one.

And a girl in my high school sucked her thumb. In class. As a sophomore. And she was POPULAR. I can still not figure that out.

Elizabeth has Baby, her cheap-from-Target, really disgusting, tiny baby doll for her lovie. But when she wouldn't accept either of the new, identical babies I bought as back-ups, I made her leave Baby in her crib all the time so we wouldn't lose her. So she's not as attached as I think she would be if I let her carry Baby around like we used to. (And I didn't really have to fight to get her to leave Baby in the crib, so I don't think she was as attached as Lucy is.)

But blankies are pretty accepted up to a pretty old age, aren't they? I mean, I can think of kids that kept them in their cubbies at kindergarten and I don't think anyone really had a problem with it. (Honestly, I think pacifiers and thumb sucking gets a bad name because of Freudian reasons and adults can't handle it.)

And I still have my blankie in my closet here, my mom saved it for me. (And by "blankie", I mean random collection of threads that are still kind of attached to each other.)

[obabe]

that was horribly long. sorry!

[Dani]

Both my kids had blankie addictions that were quite strong (and also went along with thumb sucking). My daughter gave hers up at age 4 ALL ON HER OWN, I was never so happy. Basically the dentist convinced here it needed to be done. We told my son around age 5 that he couldn't use the blankie anymore (to try to get the thumb habit to go away, like it did with my daughter, also got some input from the dentist). He gave up the blankie, but basically just found a new security object. He's 6 and I see no signs of this going away. I really have no idea what to do, so I definitely feel your pain.

[Michelle]

I am in the same boat as you. My son is 23 monhts and he has three blue blankets that he LOVES. He doesn't put them in his mouth though. Instead he likes to rub the edge of them on his nose, particularly when he is drinking from his sippy cup. He demands to have a blankie with him constantly when we are at home, but fortunately we have managed to convince him that blankies are not allowed to go outside. I think that saves us a lot of grief over dragging it with us in the car and on errands.

[lianaj]

My daughter is five years old, almost six, and God forbid we lose her beloved blankie! Actually, we did - last year, left it at SEAWORLD, and I searched high and low for one similar to it, which we couldn't. And I found a blanket that she decided would work until SHAMU SENT HERS BACK (which, um...). Anyhoo - she now has her replacement (and I have a back up replacement) and while she doesn't need it to go to school with her anymore, if she doesn't have it at night time - WATCH OUT NOW. I am not sure when, or IF, it ends. I had a college roommate that still carried a blankie - no lie.

[Kate]

This seems fairly normal to me. We lucked out (for now) because my son's comfort object is a paci. He has to have one to suck on and one for each hands which is a little weird but at least they're easy to clean and easy to replace when we lose them. At about one we switched from anytime use to only in the crib or carseat and at about 18 months we removed them from the car. The one exception to this is when he's sick.

[EmJay]

My daughter just turned four. She has a blankie that she sleeps with. She used to ride in the care with it, but we convinced her that blankie needed to stay home now. She hates when we have to wash it, but we try to sneak that in. We have tried to use replacements, but she doesn't go for it. Although, she does have a backup blanket which is completely different in texture, etc. she will used when she is absolutely convinced the primary blanket is not going to happen. She also uses the blankie and sippy cup to calm herself down after she has gone off the deep end over something. I think you are fine, but what do I know. Decide what your boundaries are in terms of drama about it and stick to it. I don't think you will cause permanent damage either way. :)

[OHmommy]

We went with the all white gerber burp clothes because I heard somewhere that kids can use them as blankies.

Anyways. I think my first born child, now almost 9, slept with his until he was in 1st grade. Occasionally he will find a lonely one in the linen closet and use it to cover his stuffed animals over. He got over it on his own.

[A'Dell]

Claire is 2 years and change and has a MAJOR MAJOR paci addiction. It's not even about putting them in her mouth she just wants to collect them and hold them and know that they are NEAR.

I often wish she would get attached to a blanket or something, but after reading all of these comments I wonder if a paci is simpler since they're so easy to replace. Claire's attachment is getting stronger to these things and I figured that by now she'd be getting disinterested. But, the scarcer they get the more protective and panicky she is of the few that remain.

Kids are weird.

[Sarah]

(This comment has a touch of a sad twist to it, but I can't help it. It is what it is.)

I think people have opinions on passies and on thumb sucking because it can be bad for their teeth and what not. I don't really think a kid ever has a time line to out grow a blanket.

My cousin had a favorite blanket. We have pictures of him from when he was about six months on with it. Tragically he was killed in a car crash last january when he was 23. He had his own apartment on campus. His sister went over there a couple days after he died (because she is an awesome sister and even though she was overcome with grief she knew it would be important to him to have her rather than their parents be the first ones in to clean up. As she was organizing and looking around she found that old tattered blanked bunched up in his bed.

So... you never have to out grow it.

Sorry this got depressing, but when you mentioned a blanket the firs thing I thought about was him

[MLE]

I had a blankie. Both of my sisters had blankies. And we all did the exact same thing with them - we sucked on the satin binding. I still very clearly remember the feeling of the binding in my mouth, and having to go over and over it to find just the right crinkly spot where (I'm sure) dried spit had given it the best texture for my mouth and fingers.

I'm pretty sure my blankie stayed home by the time I was three or four, and I didn't need it anymore by kindergarten, but I saved it and put it in my high school time capsule. And ever once in a while, I take it out and look at it and pat it. I don't know if my sisters have theirs, but I hope they do.

[Dynelle]

LOVE the picture of her sleeping in the car, how precious is she! We are addicted to a red sippy cup at this house

[TracyA]

Hey there- I'm a longtime lurker but I just had to comment. My daughter has one of those half animal/half blanket things, in her case a bunny with loooong ears. She slept with those ears in her mouth for the first two years of her life and they got completely disgusting - no amount of detergent or bleach made it any better. I finally had to cut the ears off. Then she sucked on the head. So then I cut the head off and made it just a blankie. Once she could understand I told her the bunny loved her and loved sleeping with her but didn't like it when she put bunny in her mouth. I told her that bunny wants her to rub on her cheek, not suck on her ears. Amazingly this worked! She's 5 1/2 now and still sleeps with that scrap of a blanket every night. Good luck! It's a hard habit to break!

[Kate]

I am a child therapist and big believer in Winnicott's object-relations theory. I wouldn't worry about Lucy having a blanky for as long as she needs one. There's nothing abnormal about being attached to a transitional object. Infants see themselves and their mother as a whole. Whey they begin to distinguish that they are separate beings, often a transitional object eases that separation. She'll give it up when she's ready be that age three, four, five... or 25!

[Carmen]

My friend's kids are attached to blankets and her kids are such good sleepers and mine are such crap sleepers that I assumed in my sleep-deprived state that it MUST be due to the soothing presence of blankie that they slept through the night. So I tried with all my might to get Kieran & Lexi to attach themselves to a flat teddy (as my friend called their blankets). No dice. But watching my friend's kids with theirs, it seems like Lucy is behaving quite normally for this stage - both her kids sucked on flat teddy to go to sleep too. I wouldn't worry about it. She'll eventually give them up.

[Katy]

I say Let her have them, its not a big deal, when charlie was 2 he gave up his pacifier, AKA "BOB" he literally was mad at me I gave it to him and he threw it back and said no "BOB" and has never had one since, he is 4 now, she will get over it eventually, when she is ready.

[Dorie]

Ditto what Linda said about her age & stage. I don't think you need to worry about it. I actually encouraged blankies for my children. My oldest is 6 and still sleeps with hers and occasionally uses it for comfort. My second is 4 and if we're home he's got it close by. He's also a thumbsucker and for some reason he can't suck his thumb without his blankie in his hands.

We start leaving blankies at home at age 4 (unless they'll be sleeping while were gone) and blankies stay in bed at age 5. Both were fine with us cutting back on blankie time as they got older.

[megan]

All three of my kids have had blankies.

For the oldest it was never that big of a deal and I don't even remember when exactly he gave it up. It is still in his room on a shelf.
The middle child still loves his (it has a name...Sweet Sweet Sweetie-Pie) and it is an old receiving blanket that I liked to use because it was big enough to do a really good swaddle. It is the actual blanket we brought him home from the hospital in! We made the rule at some point (I think when he started school) that it had to stay in his bed and keep it warm for him while he was out and about. It does come along for long car trips and when he sleeps at Grandma's house. Of course it is not something I can get another of, and it is so thin and worn I've had to sew it back together a few times. I thought about cutting it in half at one point when he was almost two, right before a vacation. I was worried it would get lost but in the end I just didn't have the heart to do it.
The third child just turned two and his blankie is still in that "go everywhere" with him stage. Of course it is a cream color (or was at one point) and it has to get washed every few days or so. To be honest there are times when life gets busy and the only way I realize that it is overdue for a wash is it starts to smell. We don't have the putting it in the mouth thing though...that sounds extra messy.

I say ust go with it. It is one of those toddler things, like three year olds that always need to dress like Batman...kind of a pain but cute, harmless and developmentally appropriate.

[Katie Mae]

First, the picture of your daughter with all of her blankets is almost identical to one of my daughter with all of her nuks. Nuks are only for bedtime and have been for almost a year (she is 26mo), but we are hoping to leave them behind soon and started talking about the Nuk Fairy and how she is going to come at night and take the nuks for new babies and leave a present instead. She seemed fine with this for a few days, but one night she woke up (I heard her via the monitor) and grabbed all of her nuks from the dresser drawer - in the morning she had one in her mouth and one in each hand. When I questioned her about it she said "I'm not ready for Nuk Fairy yet." Needless to say we're not pushing it.

I think it's normal, though. Also, I slept with my blanket until I moved in with my now husband - he barely allowed it in the house but exiled it to the spare room, where it continues to live in what is now my daughter's closet. :)