What’s Your Toddler’s “Lovey’s” Name?
April 25, 2010 by Dr. Heather
Filed under Annoying Toddler Behaviors
I need your help! I’m writing my book chapter on toddlers’ gotta-have, must-have, go-ballistic-without-them comfort items. You know: The Binky. The Baba. The Blankie. Your toddler’s “Comfort Thingie” — whatever it might be.
But I know your kids have come up with some fantastic, silly, unforgettable names, and I want to include those names in my book. Here are some cute, silly and endearing entries to get you started, from various readers, family and friends of mine:
My Mockedy (a ratty old blanket)
Daka (a stuffed Humpty Dumpty toy)
The Little Silkie (blanket)
My Habit (another blanket)
Milky Baba
So please add your comment here, with the “Thingie’s” name and a short description. With any luck, it’ll be immortalized in my first BabyShrink book!
Aloha,
Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink
It’s not that creative: Lambie. It’s a lamb.
“Bunny.” See above.
However, I still have my own “lovey,” and his name is Odow (“Oh-dow”). Short for “Old Doll.” It’s a green humpty dumpty. There was also a Newdow and Bluedow, but now there’s only Odow.
Yes, I still sleep with him.
Your father called his blanket his “Ahngie.” (When he was a child.)
My blanket, a scratchy wool green Army blanket that my mother cleverly recovered with a fabric she found at the fabric store, was named Ducky. Because the fabric has small ducks wearing sailor caps on it. And Ducky is currently still on my bed, despite my 30 year old status!
I’m loving these entries, people! Keep it up!
My 3-year-old recently stopped sleeping with her lovey: a ponytail of MY HAIR that was called, of course, “Hairy.” She acquired it when she was about 14 months old and I couldn’t put her into her crib without her screaming because she would twine her hands in my hair. So I did what any insane, sleep-deprived, pregnant-with-the-third-baby mother would do: Cut off a chunk of my hair so she could take it to bed with her!
It worked very well for over a year. Hairy developed his own personality, and yes, we referred to it as “he,” as in the nightly frantic cry, “I can’t find Hairy! Where is he?” I still have Hairy in my nightstand drawer, but my daughter rarely asks for him anymore. Come to think of it, her sleep has gotten pretty bad lately, maybe I should start offering her Hairy again…
MorahLaura, that is one unique “Comfort Thingie”. Love it! I especially appreciate your ingenuity (and desperation) in cutting off a chunk of hair for her — last night I wished I could have cut off my arm to keep comforting my fussy, non-sleeping 6-month old!
Well, her teddy bear is named “Teddy”, which is not all that original. Except for the fact that we own four of the exact same bear so that we can run them through the wash and she doesn’t even notice.
She also calls her pacifier “Mah”. No idea how that started. She is only allowed to have her pacifier at night now, so during the day she leaves her Mah in her crib with “Baby”, a doll.
Rosie/All: Love the idea of getting in the habit of buying several “Comfort Thingies”, whatever they may be, and keeping them CLEAN from an early age, so your baby gets used to it that way. I did the same with ours and it prevents some pretty nasty “Thingies”!
Mimi. My son was given a little soft security blanket. Its square and about 12 inches by 12 inches with one corner that has a soft stuffed monkey head on it. We never thought much about it until he discovered it at 7 months old and latched onto it. We always just called it “Monkey” and when he started to talk he began referring to it as Mimi. I have 8 them since he sucks the corners and they need to be washed a lot. And if he is having a particularly rough day he has a “nest of Mimis” which 2 or more at the same time. He did get the nest of Mimi’s from us and I have no idea why we started calling it a nest. Now that he is approaching 3 years old he does imagination play with Mimi. Mimi gets fed, pushed around in the stroller, he’ll show Mimi things out the car window and hold up the head for her to see. He makes a special monkey noise for Mimi to speak and has conversations with Mimi. But Mimi is primarily a comfort/security item for him. He cannot sleep with out her and sucks the corners all night long. Both my husband and I had always referred to Mimi as a “he” until my son told us it was a “she.” Also, from the very beginning when he started calling her Mimi he has always been able to say monkey, so Mimi was a very separate thing.
My son called his pacifier his “mah”. Not sure how that started. His favorite stuffed animal, which replaced his “mah”, is a cheetah is called “guy”. Where’s guy? is a frequent question before bed.
My daughter had a doll she called “pink baby”….because she was pink. Now all her stuffed animals have names….Fluffy (a stuffed dog), Bun Buns (a stuffed bunny), Pancake (a stuffed pig) and now Marla (a stuffed tiger).
My daughter named her little doll Beebo. She loved Elmo, and at the time had just discovered the baby Elmo on the Pampers box, and “Beebo” was how she said “Baby Elmo”.
She also has a stuffed duck with a very odd name that I can’t really spell! You know the clicking noise you make with your tongue if you were saying “giddy up, horsey”, or the noise you might make if you were shaking your head no to say, tsk, tsk, tsk?? That’s the duck’s name! When she was really small she couldn’t say quack, so she did that instead, and it became the duck’s name.
I know this is really old, but my first daughter is now 9 years old and you can catch her carrying her “baby” around the house, into the car, wherever on some days. He’s a gray (used to be a light purple) stuffed teddy bear, who has had one major take apart and restuff surgery, who she has had since she was 6 weeks old. We only had one bad scare once at Disneyland and as I was walking back to the stroller in the midst of the craziness of closing time, with no luck finding it in the last shop we had been in, it was ME who actually had eyes watering up with the thought of what was she going to to that night without “Baby”? Luckily he was crammed a lot further into the back of the stroller than we first thought. She went to camp last week for the first time ever (never even stayed at someone’s house before) and I was shocked that she didn’t want to hide him in her sleeping bag and left him home. So I guess I shouldn’t worry.
What brought me to this site was searching for “how to replace a lovey for mommy’s hair”, as my now 14 month old daughter is suddenly obsessed with my hair at sleep time and I’m getting a little desparate at finding how to remedy this. This girl is definitly her own person, already.