The "Lovey" Conundrum

I'm a big believer in the "lovey"...  You know, the random object that your kid latches onto and then can't be without during sleeping hours, (and some awake hours!) for most of their early childhood years?  Yeah, that.

(Though when I put it that way...)

Anyway, I love that my kids love me, but I've always wanted them to have an object of comfort that they could cuddle also. Lex, now almost 5, has had the same little blanket since she was born... Remarkably, we've never lost it for more than a few hours, (which is good since they stopped making it by the time she latched onto it...   and have you SEEN the price for those out of circulation blanket things on Ebay?! Craziness!  But I'd have paid).  She's since added a second, similar blanket and sleeps with them both.  Normal, you know?

So, seeing the success of Lex and her "night-night," we decided to introduce one for Caly when she was a baby.  This time, knowing how random the attachments could be, we guided the process a bit.  We chose one of these cute blankets and added another just in case.  In the course of her life, we've purchased 4, lost 3, and found 2...  so the kid now has FIVE of these blankets.  And insists on using ALL of them every night.  (And they're all different animals).  Bedtime is easy, so long as Monkey, Giraffe, Bear, Duck and Bunny are in bed with her.  Slightly weird, but again, not bad.

Now, Sayer.  Oh man.  I TRIED to get that kid to take a lovey. I gave him his choice like we did with Lex...  I held soft blankets while nursing like I did with Caly... But apparently, *I* was his lovey.  And he was quite content with that.  Considering that I most often nursed him to sleep, that worked out fine for the most part.  But then when he weaned, things got a little strange.  He was old enough to ask for things or to run and get them, and would frequently climb into my lap to be rocked with weird objects.  Balls... plastic figurines... nasal aspirators, (yes, that happened...  for like a week, he wanted to fall asleep with one in each hand).

Weird.

As he got older, he got way more vocal about what he wanted.  For a time, he had this strange looking baby doll, ("BABY!") that he demanded.  Then he moved onto stuffed animals.  Occasionally, he'd want to snuggle with a book.  Or a sippy cup.  Sometimes it'd be an article of clothing, like a sock. It was generally whatever happened to be in his hands before bedtime.  But it was always something.

But yesterday, things got a little hairy.  He had somehow procured the sound pad from one of those Play-A-Sound books... an Elmo one.  And every single time Shaun tried to get it away from him, he screamed like someone was pinching him.  So Shaun shrugged his shoulders and picked Sayer up to rock him, the sound pad clutched in one chubby toddler fist and a sippy cup of water in the other.

Now, not a big deal, you'd think.  But it's amazing how utterly obnoxious Elmo can be when he's cackling in YOUR SLEEPING CHILD'S EAR and causing him to WAKE UP.  Yeah.  So we had a predicament.  Take it away, and pretty much guarantee a big wake up and a screaming fit or take the chance that he would sleep through any rogue Elmo mutterings and slip it out of his hands when he lay soundly asleep.

We opted for the latter, but not without penalty...  Elmo and his evil energetic chatter roused the toddler twice but he was quickly settled.  Before we went to bed, I snuck in and slipped the offending sound pad from under his arm.

Now... now I'm sure to steer him towards softer and quieter items before bedtime... and though I'm still hoping for a conventional lovey...  I'm not holding my breath.