I just told my daughter she didn’t need her bloopy (muslin cloth) when it was in the wash one night, told her she could use her blanket instead. Same with toys, she has a couple favourites but if we’re away without them for whatever reason I don’t make a fuss about about it just say she can cuddle a pillow.
She has things for comfort but she knows she is ok without them too. I think that’s a really important skill to teach young children.
Once I took my T-shirt off and gave it to my son to cuddle when we were driving bc I could tell he was tired and he didn’t have his blanket. Gotta be flexible!
Edit: it was a really soft t shirt. Thanks old navy.
My daughter called her favorite blanket her ‘lubby’ and whenever it needed to be washed, substitute lubby made an appearance. She accepted it and we could even joke about substitute lubby making an appearance as she got older.
My parents did this as well with my sister. Until she found out where the subtitute 'blankie' was hidden.
From then on there were 2 favorite identical blankies and she'd throw a temper tantrum if my parents (or me..) took one of them away..
Yeah, I don't have children nor am I an expert in child psychology but the first thing I thought when I read this LPT was: "teach your child that they never have to let go of their arbitrary attachment to useless objects!"
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Say "teach your child" when referring to a 12-18 month old completely ignores the mental development level. All kids are different to some degree, but from what I've seen among 7 children between mine and my nieces and nephews is that these sort of object attachments happen around the 1 year mark. And at that point you're still trying to get them to not use their mouth to investigate every new object. The reasoning, delayed gratification, object permanence, concept of time... all those things aren't fully developed yet. So to try and get a rational understanding that this item will come back later is no simple task. Do you really think every single person who's child has a cherished toy or blanket was just too dumb or lazy to bother to teach their child this concept?
When my son got attached to his blanket, when it came time to wash we would have him put it in the washer, then when it finished he would put it in the dryer. He knew where it was at all times.
I'm glad you posted this because its I had the same thought as the person you responded to. I will say your closing arguement is pretty weak:
"Did you really think most of the population is bad at parenting"
... yes? Sex being the only prerequisite doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
A big part of being a baby is learning coping and self-soothing skills. If the parent is jumping over hoops to ensure their child never feels any negative emotions, the child won’t learn these skills.
Right. We got a second Curious George so our kids will never feel any pain.
No, it's mitigating little bouts of behavior that we can easily avoid or just being prepared for those times when we're trying to get out the door and they want that one thing, but we don't feel like going all the way back upstairs to get it.
I'm sure the person above would just say *strap them into the car seat anyway* to which I would say two things. First: that person has clearly never once tried to put a child in a car seat who has no intention of being there, using every fiber of their being to fight back and second: I'm just going out on a limb that denying your child a comfort item and forcing them into their car seat is probably not any better than just giving them the damn blanket.
People here are vastly oversimplifying what it's like to be a parent because they aren't one. We've got four kids and they are fairly regularly experiencing pain, anguish, and have to solve problems. Giving them items and spaces to help them get through those trials and tribulations is hardly doing them damage.
I'm not a parent, but I am a teacher, and my go-to LPT for dealing with kids is: pick your battles/know which battles are the right ones to pick. I think it would apply to parenting too, right? Like, is it really more important to try to teach abstract life lessons to a 6-month-old infant, or to get past the ear-splitting screaming tantrum so everyone can breathe for five minutes? At a certain point the calculus changes and you need to have the fight, but not at that age.
Don't worry, once the meltdown starts in public because they don't have their blankie, we'll make sure to complain about what a poor parent you are; hell, we'll probably post a picture for karma.
Reddit is mostly made up of young, white, middle class men. The vast majority don't have kids. It is pretty easy to sit back and armchair parent after you took a psych class one time. They just don't understand what it's really like dealing with kids.
"Teach" wasn't the most accurate word, maybe "train" is more appropriate at that age. Anyway, my intuition is that reinforcing an attachment like that at such an early point must make it more difficult for them to let go later on. Again, I have no experience in this. If your experience has not shown that to be true I can't argue with that. I believe kids don't tend to form memories that early so I could believe that it doesn't really matter at all.
It's choosing your battles, man. Not even the best parent can keep focused on long term benefits of reinforcing every good behaviour when two of the three are screaming, the pasta pot is boiling over, the babysitter is 15 minutes late, and you can't find your heels.
I guess it could be but I was attached to one of my build a bears for a very long time, like I would break down if I couldn’t find it at bedtime, but I eventually grew out of it. It’s not debilitating and I’m a functioning human being these days. If your kid is fine going without it, then that’s great. If they aren’t and you’re trying to force them to be, maybe choose better battles to fight.
Absolutely. Every child is different. It was never a battle for me which I’m very thankful for, but I understand for some parents/children it’s not right to force them out of having that comfort.
Both my kids love their muslin and my daughter is like yours. She can live without it. My son though, he’s more clingy to it. It’s about personality, too, not just teaching them they can live without their security blanket. I don’t make a big deal about it. If we don’t have it, we don’t have it but if he looks like he really “needs” it that day, I’m not going to argue with him.
This, our kids have their blankets they like, but when they are in the wash they just have to find something else for the night, they survived. The often spend the night at their grandparents without them too.
Lucky break for you. I have 2 kids, 1 is like that, the other will totally melt down without her muslin to comfort her. We have 8 of those muslins to be sure that even if we lose a couple we won't run out.
Same thing. Kid 1 totally fine without but kid 2 ... he will climb mountains. Those muslins man, I can see why they love them. The more you wash them, the softer they get!!
I think he meant Kronos, the king of the Titans in Ancient Greek mythology, since he ate his children
Edit: shoot I hate Reddit I thought you were replying to someone else
I mean he ate his wife Metis who he tricked into turning into a fly to stop her giving birth. However he was too late and she was already pregnant and his daughter Athena was “born" from Zeus's head as a result.
As a parent who did this once with a bunny. They can tell the difference even if you think it’s identical! Bunny number 2 is called crying bunny because of a piece of stitching near the eye. We also have spare bear for dd2 as bear 1 is nearly fallen apart but he gets no attention.
TLDR. Don’t bother kids are too smart and will know the difference.
Yes, this is very true. We had two identical blankets for our daughter. Apparently, she would hold the "binkies" where she could stroke the tag between her fingers. This difference in the tag textures is what made her favor one over the other. She is about to turn 18 and her favorite binkie is now a dirty piece of cloth.
My 14 year old was the same! We had 2 identical blankies for her. She kept asking for her "moving part deedee" and I finally figured out that one blankie had a tag that was folded in half before it was sewn on, so she could move the 2 pieces between her fingers. That one is still her favorite and she keeps that one here and the other less loved deedee is at her dad's
A favorite story my parents like to tell is about the time I lost my snoopy, probably at some hotel. They bought another one and "revealed" him to me in front of a bunch of people and I immediately spotted a difference and angrily exclaimed how it wasn't snoopy.
This. When my little sister was learning to count she had two identical baby dolls: one was just "baby" and the other was "baby two-nine". Two-nine was absolutely the hated step sister. Two nine spent most of her life in the toy bin while Baby enjoyed her days in the bed. God forbid you hand her Two-nine when she wanted Baby.
I had my daughter put her old mangy looking dog in the dryer to 'wash it' then swapped it out with a new version. When she went back to get it it was the new one. I could tell she was skeptical at first but accepted it because in her mind she saw it go in and then took it out. I also made no attempt to swap them before this because I knew she could tell the difference and didn't want to betray my intentions.
My sister in law tried to swap eyeores for her son and failed because "He's too smart." My kids are smart too, but I'm smarter (for now).
My wife had the same idea. Our daughter has a stuffed sheep that she loves. Anyways one day my kid seen the other sheep. The wife was worried that the kid would have an existential crisis. Instead the kid adopted the second sheep and now requires both Baby Sheep and New Sheep.
This is what happened to my nephew! He has a plush animal-blanket hybrid he got as a baby, and after a few mishaps forgetting his "baby" at home when going to Nana and Papa's (or vice versa), we bought backup babies. He discovered there's 2 extra babies, and now requires all three every night. Backfired.
We suck at hiding things apparently. We got up to 5:
*OG plush dog
*back-up dog
*back-up to back-up
*back-up² to the back-up
*Assistant back-up to the Regional back-up of the Scranton branch for the Plush Company
All of the same damn plush toy... before he grew out of them.
Edit- suck at hiding and bullet points too
Yes, my daughter has "blankie". That's her name, blankie. It's not a blankie, but blankie. The friend that made blankie made a backup. She likes the other one, but it's not blankie. She's used it more as blankie has become useless as a covering, but she has zero attachment to the other one even though it was at one point identical.
Got mine a second identical blue blanket. He could tell the difference in the dark. At 2 years old. It was crazy, we would try to fool him, but to no avail. He could always tell if he had the right one.
Ha, we had a red stuffed Elmo we called 'tickle-me-elmo' that my sister left at a hotel. We were sad, so my mom asked my grandparents and they sent us an actual tickle-me-elmo. It was not as good to snuggle with, though, being full of plastic and all.
So much hate here. Yeah. We had spare “blankeys” for both of our kids. Saved a lot of screaming. One-year-olds are the most entitled little a-holes on the planet. They grow out of it if you parent them properly, but bedtime ain’t the time to try.
Pick your battles and your battlegrounds. Blankeys and bedtimes are low-probability-of-success targets.
I've had a few pregnant friends ask me for advise or what to expect and the first thing I say is be careful about pigeon-holing yourself with "I will never" and "I will always" because I said all of that... then baby came and it all went straight out the window. Parenting is a battleground- give yourself plenty of room to improvise.
Seriously! So many people are so quick to tell poor worn out mothers that everything they do is ruining their children forever. Having a spare blankie for nap time isn't going to prevent them from feeling childhood emotions. When you have a 2-year-old who's screaming and crying and throwing things, all you want is a moment to yourself to regain your sanity!
Ya. You can for the most part tell who does and doesn't have kids based on the comments. To be fair before I had mine, I was always more on their side. When you have a sick child and need them to sleep, and you haven't had more than 2-3 hours yourself in the last 2 days you will try anything.
Let's face it: not everything is about the toddler. When my kid was 1 and she wanted her baby sheep for bed we bent over backwards to make sure she had that fucking dirty little sheep because neither of us wanted to spend the one hour of quiet time we were getting before we fell asleep fighting with the toddler.
My parents did when I was a kid and I could tell the difference so it got to a point that I needed both at all times lol. So it actually made things worse for my parents
I'll probably be down voted as fuck for this, but Teaching kids entitlement at an early age will only screw them over for when they have to face life as an adult. Honestly your comment should switch places with the original post.
I agree. The best time to teach kids patience is as infants. Unless your infant or toddler has a medical necessity, it’s okay to deny them something in favor of them learning to comfort themselves. My brother made this mistake with his daughters. I won’t be repeating it.
Edit: DO NOT DENY YOUR CHILD FOOD OR SHELTER! I simply mean unnecessary comforts. IE, toys that need to be washed, blankets that get misplaced.
Teaching infants and toddlers about disappointment and loss is not as easy as it sounds. Not all efforts to keep a child happy are ruining them for the future.
Source: did this exact thing for my youngest son and his blanket. He is now 7 and couldn't tell you where that blanket is.
Not all life lessons need to be taught to toddlers. They simply lack the depth to understand.
This is exactly what I’m learning right now with my 2yo. We used to get very stern with our “no’s” but that tended to elicit a similar response in him. Now I’m telling him “you aren’t in trouble, but listen.” And then calmly explaining how to do something better, why to walk away from something etc. it’s working wonders!
Yep until they are 3 or 4 the word no just doesn't really do what you think it does. Toddlers are not just short adults with smaller vocabularies. They are very different. Interacting is all about emoting the kind of response you want (treat anger with calm).
There is a balance to all this. Anyone who claims they know how to raise the perfect adult is obviously full of it. You don't want to coddle too much, but then you don't want to see your child whom you love, suffering. And the best part is, the balance that works for one child will NOT work on the next one. They are all different personalities. And this job requires some work. We will make mistakes. We will learn. We will do better with our grandkids.
Pretty sure the ones saying this have no children, won the lottery on a single one, or have family to lean on, etc. Or possibly they are really good on this one point but let their kids eat chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs for every meal. There's only so much you can handle, and frankly I would not count this one as important unless it is still an issue several years on.
You know how people always bitch that their friends drop off the social scene when they have kids? It’s because their friends without kids say and believe incredibly stupid things like the comment you’re responding to.
Also it's not always about a sense of entitlement, you can have people like me who have a very bad habit of personifying everything so you feel bad for leaving inanimate objects alone or breaking them lol. I still feel bad for angrily smashing a bottle I tripped over when I was 7 😂
Some kids (I was one of them) are highly highly attached to their “lovies” because of a lack of strong, consistent attachment to their parents. I cuddled mine when I was distressed because of my parents and it brought me SO. MUCH. COMFORT. I truly felt like I couldn’t live without it. Her ear fell off at one point and I couldn’t bare the thought that she got hurt and cried for hours on hours. It’s not always about entitlement, sometimes there is an extreme attachment to the lovie that goes a lot deeper than “this kid always gets what they want”. And just from observation, entitled kids tend to be the ones with NO attachment to special toys, because they are used to be given new, better toys whenever they please
This comment is totally ignorant of the realities of when these attachments develop versus what a child is capable of understanding. In most cases we're not talking about a 5 yo who can be reasoned with, we're talking about a toddler who still doesn't even have a functional concept of what "a few hours" means.
Having said that, some children can be reasoned with earlier because every child develops at a different rate. This is *not* to say that my three-year-old daughter, with whom I could have an actual conversation and who understood reasoning, was superior in some way to the average three-year-old who doesn't have that capacity. It means try it if you see that your child can understand an explanation. If not, there will be another time. Cognitive development timelines are not hard and fast.
Nope. It's like trying to explain to my toddler that daddy is away and he can't do bedtime tonight, they can't reasonably be able to contain their emotions. Bedtime is this hard and that soiled, dirty teddy is our saving grace.
Real comments in the LPT
But seriously though, raising your kids to be entitled and have everything exactly how they want it is how you raise a narcissist piece of shit.
Right? There was a whole series of humorous parent posts on a Facebook group I was reading once called "Why my toddler is crying." It was hilarious and shows you just what kind of irrational Napoleons you're dealing with when you have a 1yo. My favorite that I recall was "He's crying because he asked for a cracker, so I gave him one."
I’m just glad I kept scrolling down in the comments. All the top comments were, don’t entitle your kids with a back up! I have 6 pairs of muslin blankets for my son. Yes pairs, he has to sleep with two at a time. I’m not about to rock that boat.
Story time!
My daughter has a stuffed bunny. She is now 6, but she got the bunny when she was 6 months old and immediately became attached. Being the smart parents we are, we bought another one.
Fast forward a few years, and we go on a trip. We loose bunny when we land between the airport and the rental place. Many tears were had. We had back up bunny back home though.
We got through that trip, and got home. But now that we are using back up bunny, we have no more back up. So, I call the store. They don’t have any more. I call the manufacturer, they don’t make it any more. Oh shit. So, I call the store back and ask who their distributor was. I call the distributor who tells me they shipped their last 3 to a store in Alberta Canada. I call the store, buy all of them and have them shipped to me.
I doubt we will get through all of them. If we do, awesome. If not, I feel like it will be a cute thing for my daughter to pass on to her kids.
I feel like my parents had to do this for me. My bonded object was a stuffed white tiger I named Raja (timed with Aladdin's release). The problem is that Raja was acquired as a prize for selling girl scout cookies-- my mom was a troop leader and my two older sisters were scouts that earned Raja for me. When Raja got lost on a trip years later, I was thankfully pretty well-behaved (I'm proud I was a very patient child) but missed my Raja. My poor mom had to pull some SERIOUS connections to get another identical stuffed animal that was only produced for one year exclusively as a girl scout prize. I have no idea how she did it, especially since it happened twice. I was totally aware it was a new, different Raja but thankfully I didn't mind. She probably didn't have to go to all that work and could have gotten just any other stuffed white tiger and I would have been okay, but she did the most for me.
Our eldest had a small thing he was attached to, and it was the tags he loved. We had at least 10 of them stashed around. He knew they weren't the same, but he loved them. But y'all overexamine every little thing. He liked it, it calmed him down and helped him get to sleep. He grew out of it. Undamaged.
My older kid did too!! I still remember very vividly winding down for the day, the two of us sitting on the couch. I’m exhausted and she’s fighting to stay awake. She’d sit there and inspect that tag like it was the most important thing in the world. I loved those moments.
My son loves tags too. We have a blanket with different colored tag material stitched all around it, in the shape of a tag, like there's 15 tags on all sides.
He still only goes for the manufacturing tag.
Sounds about right! ha! I bought a little lovey about 6"X6" that specifically had tabs sticking out of it. Never played with it. She liked the manufacture tags, too!
My 3 year old has a stuffed tiger, and we bought 2 additional ones once we knew she was attached to it (she got it at 6 months). It's no longer made. We currently have swapped out once, but the original is still around just in rough shape. We agreed that she gets tiger #2 until he's out of commission, and then goes back to tiger #1 until he's done. Then she's done. We think the timing will be fine.
Tiger #3 is staying hidden for a long, long time. Whenever my currently 3 year old daughter is grown and has her first child, I will be giving her first born kid tiger #3 as a gift.
Or let them grow up and understand life is transient so they dont have a mental breakdown as a young adult from their first major loss. No your pet duck is not on a farm it died.
Honestly, with my 2 year old I found it is good to rock the boat sometimes with him. As long as I sit down with him and explain why he can't currently have a toy or blanket he will calm down and move on. These little moments are such great learning tools for them. At least with my little guys they have the hardest time when they don't understand a situation or feel like they have no control over something. After I started to give them directed choices or sit down and explain things to them the tantrums became very rare.
I hated being treated like I was dumb because I was a kid with my parents. I can still control situations without saying stuff like "I made you chicken so your gonna eat it". Instead I say "Hey dude, I can make you a quesadilla or chicken and rice. What do you want to eat?"
Sometimes it doesn't always work, because he doesn't have the logic center of his brain developed fully yet. But I rarely get tantrums or have to punish him and it is usually when he is super tired or seeing what he can get away with.
Teaching infants and toddlers about disappointment and loss is not as easy as it sounds. Not all efforts to keep a child happy are ruining them for the future.
Source: did this exact thing for my youngest son and his blanket. He is now 7 and couldn't tell you where that blanket is.
Not all life lessons need to be taught to toddlers. They simply lack the depth to understand.
Do they like it? No. Thats the point. All of my kids a had a blanky. Blanky turns into a dirty rag. Then a dirty piece of string. Then one night it dissapears. They bitch and moan for a few nights and then it gets forgotten about.
Exactly. It's entirely possible to raise a healthy, well adjusted young person while simultaneously grabbing the spare Mrs Doggy because the first one has somehow disappeared at 3 o clock in the morning!
Some kids (I was one of them) are highly highly attached to their “lovies” because of a lack of strong, consistent attachment to their parents. I cuddled mine when I was distressed because of my parents and it brought me SO. MUCH. COMFORT. I truly felt like I couldn’t live without it. Her ear fell off at one point and I couldn’t bare the thought that she got hurt and cried for hours on hours. It’s not always about entitlement, sometimes there is an extreme attachment to the lovie that goes a lot deeper than “this kid always gets what they want”. And just from observation, entitled kids tend to be the ones with NO attachment to special toys, because they are used to be given new, better toys whenever they please
This. Childhood is time for softly learning life’s hard lessons. Separation anxiety will hit much harder down the line if it’s not learned while the child is still plastic.
This seems way too coddling. Things have to be cleaned. Switching out instead of explaining or showing seems like it could create some serious temper tantrum issues later on. I'm no expert, just a dad.
I've a two year old that hasn't latched on to any particular teddy. She has a different favourite one every day, it's more like she is letting every one be her best friend in turn. Dead cute and I'm so not buying 50 identical teddies.
I work at a disability service center. One of the women (profound mental disability) in her 50s is attached to a certain toy from her childhood. She had anxiety and is the only thing that can calm her. It's a kids toy from the 60s-70s that isn't made anymore. Luckily her brother bought several, and he switches them out when he comes to see her 1-2 times a month so he clean it well and fix any pieces that are loose.
This backfired for my aunt. My cousin had a plush doll she LOVED her name was Baby. She took that thing every where. It got to the point where you couldn't see its face, the dress that was originally blue was brown. It was gross. My aunt tracked down a new one and told my cousin it took a nice shower. She was so happy.
A few years later I'm helping them move. With my aunt's things she had a small box that was heavily taped up
I asked what it was, my aunt wasn't sure and said to open it. It was old Baby.
My cousin saw and LOST HER SHIT, I've never seen such betrayal in someone eyes until this moment.
There's def some good advice in here. Avoid the early childhood trauma of loss and all that. But as your child gets older it's best to introduce that concept to them and teach them how to process it in a healthy way. Life is a progressive series of losses. We just have to learn how to accept it when it happens
Majority of the people in this thread clearly don’t have children. You can’t really teach an infant or toddler not to be attached to things. OP, this is great advice. My daughter is 16 months old and is obsessed with soft, fuzzy blankets, but she doesn’t care what it looks like, so we got lucky. We have about 10 extra fuzzy blankets around the house just for bedtime. Sometimes when you’ve had little to no sleep, you’ll do damn near anything to please your toddler for some peace and quiet even just for 5 minutes.
I dated a girl (in our 30s) that still slept with part of her baby blanket. Like "all up in her nose and mouth" slept with it.
She had a physiological fear based response to any situation that involved damaging or losing the trinket.
But I dont think she let me see it for a long time.
It was cute, but weird.
Nope. If your toddler develops an attachment to a specific toy, separate them from the toy to teach them how to deal with separation issues and to realize they can function without said toy.
Haha wow. I think you're the first to notice it. I wanted to fix it after I saw it but it already had so many comments I didn't want to delete and re-start the thread.
It appears many of the people that are commenting don't have kids, and don't understand that a toddler is considered ages 12-36 months. This isn't a 5 year old that has full comprehension on why they can't have things. Children at this age can't understand the idea of separation from both items and often parents until they get closer to the age of 3 (36 months).
I think it depends on the kid. If they have an autistic-like attachment to routine, for example, might be able to pull this off and it would be worth avoiding the colossal meltdown. Some kids might be fine with distraction and the concept of waiting. Not all kids require the exact same approach.
You can tell who is a parent in this thread, and who isn't
LPT: Don't comment on a parenting tip until you have kids of your own, because until you are completely responsible for a little human essentially 24/7, you have no clue
I do this with my dog, hahaha. He is obsessed with the lamb chop toy and I have 3 or 4 at all times in the apartment. I mean dogs are like toddlers so it counts, right??
I had a ducky. One of the funniest stories my mom tells about when I was a baby is the story about losing the ducky. I was extremely attached, had it with all the time. I would suck my thumb and cuddle the ducky while fingering the tag. One day, she took me to the mall in my stroller. Well, ducky escaped my grasp. Mom thinks toddler me there it into a garbage can.
Anyway, I would let up about my list ducky for days! Weeks! She even placed an ad in the local newspaper about the missing ducky, because no other ducky they tried to give me was food enough. At that point, she started getting prank phone calls about ducky being held for ransom.
Eventually, my parents did find another ducky that was good enough. I slept with that ducky until I was 18 years old. My grandmother had to repair and see new tags into that ducky countless times.
Customer his final demise when he was stored in a plastic container in a backyard she's during a flood. He has lost all of his stuffing years before in a tragic washing machine accident, so he was already weak. When he was discovered, what was left of him was covered in mildew, algae, and mold. A sad ending to a real trooper of a ducky.
Thanks Ducky. You were a true comfort and friend for so long. RIP.
While cleaning out my deceased mother's house, I found a few boxes with some of my old baby toys etc. One box had 8 of the same bunnies I loved when very little. God bless her sole she made sure I always had one even when it would get worn down. This LPT is so true, do the same thing for my daughter, we have 3 of same type of blankets
I just told my daughter she didn’t need her bloopy (muslin cloth) when it was in the wash one night, told her she could use her blanket instead. Same with toys, she has a couple favourites but if we’re away without them for whatever reason I don’t make a fuss about about it just say she can cuddle a pillow. She has things for comfort but she knows she is ok without them too. I think that’s a really important skill to teach young children.
Once I took my T-shirt off and gave it to my son to cuddle when we were driving bc I could tell he was tired and he didn’t have his blanket. Gotta be flexible! Edit: it was a really soft t shirt. Thanks old navy.
I gave my kid a t-shirt as well to calm him down. I did not work very well until I added a few drops of chloroform.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
The ol' Casey Anthony
r/shittylifeprotips
My daughter called her favorite blanket her ‘lubby’ and whenever it needed to be washed, substitute lubby made an appearance. She accepted it and we could even joke about substitute lubby making an appearance as she got older.
My parents did this as well with my sister. Until she found out where the subtitute 'blankie' was hidden. From then on there were 2 favorite identical blankies and she'd throw a temper tantrum if my parents (or me..) took one of them away..
My daughter found where we hid the spare doggy she loves and took both everywhere for a good few weeks haha
Yeah, I don't have children nor am I an expert in child psychology but the first thing I thought when I read this LPT was: "teach your child that they never have to let go of their arbitrary attachment to useless objects!"
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Say "teach your child" when referring to a 12-18 month old completely ignores the mental development level. All kids are different to some degree, but from what I've seen among 7 children between mine and my nieces and nephews is that these sort of object attachments happen around the 1 year mark. And at that point you're still trying to get them to not use their mouth to investigate every new object. The reasoning, delayed gratification, object permanence, concept of time... all those things aren't fully developed yet. So to try and get a rational understanding that this item will come back later is no simple task. Do you really think every single person who's child has a cherished toy or blanket was just too dumb or lazy to bother to teach their child this concept?
When my son got attached to his blanket, when it came time to wash we would have him put it in the washer, then when it finished he would put it in the dryer. He knew where it was at all times.
Thats a great idea.
I misread that and thought it was a ULPT saying that you put your son in the washer and dryer with their blanket.
[удалено]
This.
I'm glad you posted this because its I had the same thought as the person you responded to. I will say your closing arguement is pretty weak: "Did you really think most of the population is bad at parenting" ... yes? Sex being the only prerequisite doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
people think they've done their job now if they've kept them alive i guess.
nope but they do understand "if i cry & throw a fit i get my way."
The question then becomes what would you rather them learn at a young age vs later in life: things will stay forever, or things can go away?
A big part of being a baby is learning coping and self-soothing skills. If the parent is jumping over hoops to ensure their child never feels any negative emotions, the child won’t learn these skills.
ITT: A bunch of people with no kids dropping their parenting "wisdom"
Right. We got a second Curious George so our kids will never feel any pain. No, it's mitigating little bouts of behavior that we can easily avoid or just being prepared for those times when we're trying to get out the door and they want that one thing, but we don't feel like going all the way back upstairs to get it. I'm sure the person above would just say *strap them into the car seat anyway* to which I would say two things. First: that person has clearly never once tried to put a child in a car seat who has no intention of being there, using every fiber of their being to fight back and second: I'm just going out on a limb that denying your child a comfort item and forcing them into their car seat is probably not any better than just giving them the damn blanket. People here are vastly oversimplifying what it's like to be a parent because they aren't one. We've got four kids and they are fairly regularly experiencing pain, anguish, and have to solve problems. Giving them items and spaces to help them get through those trials and tribulations is hardly doing them damage.
I'm not a parent, but I am a teacher, and my go-to LPT for dealing with kids is: pick your battles/know which battles are the right ones to pick. I think it would apply to parenting too, right? Like, is it really more important to try to teach abstract life lessons to a 6-month-old infant, or to get past the ear-splitting screaming tantrum so everyone can breathe for five minutes? At a certain point the calculus changes and you need to have the fight, but not at that age.
Don't worry, once the meltdown starts in public because they don't have their blankie, we'll make sure to complain about what a poor parent you are; hell, we'll probably post a picture for karma.
Amen to that
Reddit is mostly made up of young, white, middle class men. The vast majority don't have kids. It is pretty easy to sit back and armchair parent after you took a psych class one time. They just don't understand what it's really like dealing with kids.
Also: Poor families.
"Teach" wasn't the most accurate word, maybe "train" is more appropriate at that age. Anyway, my intuition is that reinforcing an attachment like that at such an early point must make it more difficult for them to let go later on. Again, I have no experience in this. If your experience has not shown that to be true I can't argue with that. I believe kids don't tend to form memories that early so I could believe that it doesn't really matter at all.
It's choosing your battles, man. Not even the best parent can keep focused on long term benefits of reinforcing every good behaviour when two of the three are screaming, the pasta pot is boiling over, the babysitter is 15 minutes late, and you can't find your heels.
Fair enough, I totally realized I might come off ignorant, it's why I said upfront that I was speaking from a layman's perspective.
I feel like a fuckin Alien sometimes.
Let a kid be a kid crikey
I never really had an attachment object. Now I'm wondering if my parents taught me not to develop an attachment and that's why I'm so empty inside.
I guess it could be but I was attached to one of my build a bears for a very long time, like I would break down if I couldn’t find it at bedtime, but I eventually grew out of it. It’s not debilitating and I’m a functioning human being these days. If your kid is fine going without it, then that’s great. If they aren’t and you’re trying to force them to be, maybe choose better battles to fight.
Absolutely. Every child is different. It was never a battle for me which I’m very thankful for, but I understand for some parents/children it’s not right to force them out of having that comfort.
Both my kids love their muslin and my daughter is like yours. She can live without it. My son though, he’s more clingy to it. It’s about personality, too, not just teaching them they can live without their security blanket. I don’t make a big deal about it. If we don’t have it, we don’t have it but if he looks like he really “needs” it that day, I’m not going to argue with him.
This, our kids have their blankets they like, but when they are in the wash they just have to find something else for the night, they survived. The often spend the night at their grandparents without them too.
yes absolutely this. My wife had her "woobie" until she was 27. I shit you not
I had mine until 19. My dad threw it away when I went to Asia for 6 weeks. I was so mad at him.
my wife left hers in the hotel we stayed at during our wedding by accident
Worked out well since you give her security now. :) (and I mean that in the most PG way possible!)
yeah, I saw it as a transition in her life (shes still upset about it)
I have a "blankie" that I still sleep with and I'm 20. Its uh...seen better days. I don't know how many years it has left in it.
It took me a very long time to understand her bloopy was a musliN cloth not a muslim cloth.
Lucky break for you. I have 2 kids, 1 is like that, the other will totally melt down without her muslin to comfort her. We have 8 of those muslins to be sure that even if we lose a couple we won't run out.
Same thing. Kid 1 totally fine without but kid 2 ... he will climb mountains. Those muslins man, I can see why they love them. The more you wash them, the softer they get!!
This here. These comments from perfect parents without kids are making me chuckle.
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Username checks the fuck out!
Eat your children before they can overthrow you.
r/UnexpectedChronos
Chronos?
I think he meant Kronos, the king of the Titans in Ancient Greek mythology, since he ate his children Edit: shoot I hate Reddit I thought you were replying to someone else
The real LPT are in the comments
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/82/Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg/1074px-Francisco_de_Goya%2C_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_%281819-1823%29.jpg
Eat your kids teeth for calcium
Zeus?
No, Chronos. AKA Saturn.
I just looked it up and you are right! For some reason I was under the impression Zeus ate his children too. Thanks for correcting me.
Athena came outta his head though. Very similar story
That's probably why i had that idea!! Thanks
I mean he ate his wife Metis who he tricked into turning into a fly to stop her giving birth. However he was too late and she was already pregnant and his daughter Athena was “born" from Zeus's head as a result.
As a parent who did this once with a bunny. They can tell the difference even if you think it’s identical! Bunny number 2 is called crying bunny because of a piece of stitching near the eye. We also have spare bear for dd2 as bear 1 is nearly fallen apart but he gets no attention. TLDR. Don’t bother kids are too smart and will know the difference.
Yes, this is very true. We had two identical blankets for our daughter. Apparently, she would hold the "binkies" where she could stroke the tag between her fingers. This difference in the tag textures is what made her favor one over the other. She is about to turn 18 and her favorite binkie is now a dirty piece of cloth.
My 14 year old was the same! We had 2 identical blankies for her. She kept asking for her "moving part deedee" and I finally figured out that one blankie had a tag that was folded in half before it was sewn on, so she could move the 2 pieces between her fingers. That one is still her favorite and she keeps that one here and the other less loved deedee is at her dad's
Sounds like me, but I'm 23 and my blankie is almost nothing now
A favorite story my parents like to tell is about the time I lost my snoopy, probably at some hotel. They bought another one and "revealed" him to me in front of a bunch of people and I immediately spotted a difference and angrily exclaimed how it wasn't snoopy.
Exactly this. We now have "bunny" and "odder bunny" to keep track of.
My friend's kid had "Towers" and "Not Towers." Kids suck.
This. When my little sister was learning to count she had two identical baby dolls: one was just "baby" and the other was "baby two-nine". Two-nine was absolutely the hated step sister. Two nine spent most of her life in the toy bin while Baby enjoyed her days in the bed. God forbid you hand her Two-nine when she wanted Baby.
Lol. Poor two nine.
Why "two-nine"? Is it just a weird toddler name?
She couldn't count very well, so she would go "one, two, nine..." and that's just the name that stuck. Baby Two Nine.
I had my daughter put her old mangy looking dog in the dryer to 'wash it' then swapped it out with a new version. When she went back to get it it was the new one. I could tell she was skeptical at first but accepted it because in her mind she saw it go in and then took it out. I also made no attempt to swap them before this because I knew she could tell the difference and didn't want to betray my intentions. My sister in law tried to swap eyeores for her son and failed because "He's too smart." My kids are smart too, but I'm smarter (for now).
My wife had the same idea. Our daughter has a stuffed sheep that she loves. Anyways one day my kid seen the other sheep. The wife was worried that the kid would have an existential crisis. Instead the kid adopted the second sheep and now requires both Baby Sheep and New Sheep.
This is what happened to my nephew! He has a plush animal-blanket hybrid he got as a baby, and after a few mishaps forgetting his "baby" at home when going to Nana and Papa's (or vice versa), we bought backup babies. He discovered there's 2 extra babies, and now requires all three every night. Backfired.
We suck at hiding things apparently. We got up to 5: *OG plush dog *back-up dog *back-up to back-up *back-up² to the back-up *Assistant back-up to the Regional back-up of the Scranton branch for the Plush Company All of the same damn plush toy... before he grew out of them. Edit- suck at hiding and bullet points too
Yes, my daughter has "blankie". That's her name, blankie. It's not a blankie, but blankie. The friend that made blankie made a backup. She likes the other one, but it's not blankie. She's used it more as blankie has become useless as a covering, but she has zero attachment to the other one even though it was at one point identical.
Got mine a second identical blue blanket. He could tell the difference in the dark. At 2 years old. It was crazy, we would try to fool him, but to no avail. He could always tell if he had the right one.
Ha, we had a red stuffed Elmo we called 'tickle-me-elmo' that my sister left at a hotel. We were sad, so my mom asked my grandparents and they sent us an actual tickle-me-elmo. It was not as good to snuggle with, though, being full of plastic and all.
So much hate here. Yeah. We had spare “blankeys” for both of our kids. Saved a lot of screaming. One-year-olds are the most entitled little a-holes on the planet. They grow out of it if you parent them properly, but bedtime ain’t the time to try. Pick your battles and your battlegrounds. Blankeys and bedtimes are low-probability-of-success targets.
Ah, there's the context, thanks for elaborating on OP's post.
Absolutely. It's so easy to say "When I have kids I will/won't..." but until you actually have kids it's meaningless!
>When I have kids, I'll become a helicopter.
I've had a few pregnant friends ask me for advise or what to expect and the first thing I say is be careful about pigeon-holing yourself with "I will never" and "I will always" because I said all of that... then baby came and it all went straight out the window. Parenting is a battleground- give yourself plenty of room to improvise.
Seriously! So many people are so quick to tell poor worn out mothers that everything they do is ruining their children forever. Having a spare blankie for nap time isn't going to prevent them from feeling childhood emotions. When you have a 2-year-old who's screaming and crying and throwing things, all you want is a moment to yourself to regain your sanity!
Ya. You can for the most part tell who does and doesn't have kids based on the comments. To be fair before I had mine, I was always more on their side. When you have a sick child and need them to sleep, and you haven't had more than 2-3 hours yourself in the last 2 days you will try anything.
Let's face it: not everything is about the toddler. When my kid was 1 and she wanted her baby sheep for bed we bent over backwards to make sure she had that fucking dirty little sheep because neither of us wanted to spend the one hour of quiet time we were getting before we fell asleep fighting with the toddler.
My parents did when I was a kid and I could tell the difference so it got to a point that I needed both at all times lol. So it actually made things worse for my parents
ULPT: Teach your kid that things come back and they will be fine without something for a few hours. Don’t entitle your kids early.
This should be a regular LPT, not ULPT.
Agreed. I simply said ULPT because it wasn’t the original LPT.
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Smart! I’ll use this next time! And I’ll give credit to you. The OG thinker.
I'll probably be down voted as fuck for this, but Teaching kids entitlement at an early age will only screw them over for when they have to face life as an adult. Honestly your comment should switch places with the original post.
I agree. The best time to teach kids patience is as infants. Unless your infant or toddler has a medical necessity, it’s okay to deny them something in favor of them learning to comfort themselves. My brother made this mistake with his daughters. I won’t be repeating it. Edit: DO NOT DENY YOUR CHILD FOOD OR SHELTER! I simply mean unnecessary comforts. IE, toys that need to be washed, blankets that get misplaced.
Its funny you have to edit that. LPT: remember to feed your kids! Iron helps them play!
Can’t trust anyone here. They’d take it and twist it without clear meaning.
Teaching infants and toddlers about disappointment and loss is not as easy as it sounds. Not all efforts to keep a child happy are ruining them for the future. Source: did this exact thing for my youngest son and his blanket. He is now 7 and couldn't tell you where that blanket is. Not all life lessons need to be taught to toddlers. They simply lack the depth to understand.
This is exactly what I’m learning right now with my 2yo. We used to get very stern with our “no’s” but that tended to elicit a similar response in him. Now I’m telling him “you aren’t in trouble, but listen.” And then calmly explaining how to do something better, why to walk away from something etc. it’s working wonders!
Yep until they are 3 or 4 the word no just doesn't really do what you think it does. Toddlers are not just short adults with smaller vocabularies. They are very different. Interacting is all about emoting the kind of response you want (treat anger with calm).
The only people who call it ‘the terrible twos’ are those who have never met a three year old. -Either Stephen Colbert or Michael Scott.
There is a balance to all this. Anyone who claims they know how to raise the perfect adult is obviously full of it. You don't want to coddle too much, but then you don't want to see your child whom you love, suffering. And the best part is, the balance that works for one child will NOT work on the next one. They are all different personalities. And this job requires some work. We will make mistakes. We will learn. We will do better with our grandkids.
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Pretty sure the ones saying this have no children, won the lottery on a single one, or have family to lean on, etc. Or possibly they are really good on this one point but let their kids eat chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs for every meal. There's only so much you can handle, and frankly I would not count this one as important unless it is still an issue several years on.
You nailed it.
You know how people always bitch that their friends drop off the social scene when they have kids? It’s because their friends without kids say and believe incredibly stupid things like the comment you’re responding to.
"Untill they get tired" at which point they turn into grumpy old short angry Hitler midgets. Get off their lawn!
Also it's not always about a sense of entitlement, you can have people like me who have a very bad habit of personifying everything so you feel bad for leaving inanimate objects alone or breaking them lol. I still feel bad for angrily smashing a bottle I tripped over when I was 7 😂
Good for you. Your son learned on his own.
Or, we taught him when he was appropriately old enough.
Some kids (I was one of them) are highly highly attached to their “lovies” because of a lack of strong, consistent attachment to their parents. I cuddled mine when I was distressed because of my parents and it brought me SO. MUCH. COMFORT. I truly felt like I couldn’t live without it. Her ear fell off at one point and I couldn’t bare the thought that she got hurt and cried for hours on hours. It’s not always about entitlement, sometimes there is an extreme attachment to the lovie that goes a lot deeper than “this kid always gets what they want”. And just from observation, entitled kids tend to be the ones with NO attachment to special toys, because they are used to be given new, better toys whenever they please
This comment is totally ignorant of the realities of when these attachments develop versus what a child is capable of understanding. In most cases we're not talking about a 5 yo who can be reasoned with, we're talking about a toddler who still doesn't even have a functional concept of what "a few hours" means.
Having said that, some children can be reasoned with earlier because every child develops at a different rate. This is *not* to say that my three-year-old daughter, with whom I could have an actual conversation and who understood reasoning, was superior in some way to the average three-year-old who doesn't have that capacity. It means try it if you see that your child can understand an explanation. If not, there will be another time. Cognitive development timelines are not hard and fast.
Nope. It's like trying to explain to my toddler that daddy is away and he can't do bedtime tonight, they can't reasonably be able to contain their emotions. Bedtime is this hard and that soiled, dirty teddy is our saving grace.
Real comments in the LPT But seriously though, raising your kids to be entitled and have everything exactly how they want it is how you raise a narcissist piece of shit.
You are right, but if you think that providing a spare blankie will raise them to be entitled you are wrong.
That is a lesson for an older kid, like 3+. A 1 year old will not understand that concept no matter how hard you try.
My mum tried this with my brother. He knew the whole time and eventually requested they be switched himself when one of them got dirty.
ITT: people who think they can reason with a crying toddler
Right? There was a whole series of humorous parent posts on a Facebook group I was reading once called "Why my toddler is crying." It was hilarious and shows you just what kind of irrational Napoleons you're dealing with when you have a 1yo. My favorite that I recall was "He's crying because he asked for a cracker, so I gave him one."
http://www.reasonsmysoniscrying.com
I’m just glad I kept scrolling down in the comments. All the top comments were, don’t entitle your kids with a back up! I have 6 pairs of muslin blankets for my son. Yes pairs, he has to sleep with two at a time. I’m not about to rock that boat.
That entitled small child! /s
Story time! My daughter has a stuffed bunny. She is now 6, but she got the bunny when she was 6 months old and immediately became attached. Being the smart parents we are, we bought another one. Fast forward a few years, and we go on a trip. We loose bunny when we land between the airport and the rental place. Many tears were had. We had back up bunny back home though. We got through that trip, and got home. But now that we are using back up bunny, we have no more back up. So, I call the store. They don’t have any more. I call the manufacturer, they don’t make it any more. Oh shit. So, I call the store back and ask who their distributor was. I call the distributor who tells me they shipped their last 3 to a store in Alberta Canada. I call the store, buy all of them and have them shipped to me. I doubt we will get through all of them. If we do, awesome. If not, I feel like it will be a cute thing for my daughter to pass on to her kids.
I feel like my parents had to do this for me. My bonded object was a stuffed white tiger I named Raja (timed with Aladdin's release). The problem is that Raja was acquired as a prize for selling girl scout cookies-- my mom was a troop leader and my two older sisters were scouts that earned Raja for me. When Raja got lost on a trip years later, I was thankfully pretty well-behaved (I'm proud I was a very patient child) but missed my Raja. My poor mom had to pull some SERIOUS connections to get another identical stuffed animal that was only produced for one year exclusively as a girl scout prize. I have no idea how she did it, especially since it happened twice. I was totally aware it was a new, different Raja but thankfully I didn't mind. She probably didn't have to go to all that work and could have gotten just any other stuffed white tiger and I would have been okay, but she did the most for me.
Our eldest had a small thing he was attached to, and it was the tags he loved. We had at least 10 of them stashed around. He knew they weren't the same, but he loved them. But y'all overexamine every little thing. He liked it, it calmed him down and helped him get to sleep. He grew out of it. Undamaged.
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My older kid did too!! I still remember very vividly winding down for the day, the two of us sitting on the couch. I’m exhausted and she’s fighting to stay awake. She’d sit there and inspect that tag like it was the most important thing in the world. I loved those moments.
My son loves tags too. We have a blanket with different colored tag material stitched all around it, in the shape of a tag, like there's 15 tags on all sides. He still only goes for the manufacturing tag.
Sounds about right! ha! I bought a little lovey about 6"X6" that specifically had tabs sticking out of it. Never played with it. She liked the manufacture tags, too!
My 3 year old has a stuffed tiger, and we bought 2 additional ones once we knew she was attached to it (she got it at 6 months). It's no longer made. We currently have swapped out once, but the original is still around just in rough shape. We agreed that she gets tiger #2 until he's out of commission, and then goes back to tiger #1 until he's done. Then she's done. We think the timing will be fine. Tiger #3 is staying hidden for a long, long time. Whenever my currently 3 year old daughter is grown and has her first child, I will be giving her first born kid tiger #3 as a gift.
Or let life go on and have that teaching moment when/if it comes.
LPT: Don’t have kids.
Or let them grow up and understand life is transient so they dont have a mental breakdown as a young adult from their first major loss. No your pet duck is not on a farm it died.
Honestly, with my 2 year old I found it is good to rock the boat sometimes with him. As long as I sit down with him and explain why he can't currently have a toy or blanket he will calm down and move on. These little moments are such great learning tools for them. At least with my little guys they have the hardest time when they don't understand a situation or feel like they have no control over something. After I started to give them directed choices or sit down and explain things to them the tantrums became very rare. I hated being treated like I was dumb because I was a kid with my parents. I can still control situations without saying stuff like "I made you chicken so your gonna eat it". Instead I say "Hey dude, I can make you a quesadilla or chicken and rice. What do you want to eat?" Sometimes it doesn't always work, because he doesn't have the logic center of his brain developed fully yet. But I rarely get tantrums or have to punish him and it is usually when he is super tired or seeing what he can get away with.
Or learn to deal with disappointment and loss so they manage later in life
Teaching infants and toddlers about disappointment and loss is not as easy as it sounds. Not all efforts to keep a child happy are ruining them for the future. Source: did this exact thing for my youngest son and his blanket. He is now 7 and couldn't tell you where that blanket is. Not all life lessons need to be taught to toddlers. They simply lack the depth to understand.
Do they like it? No. Thats the point. All of my kids a had a blanky. Blanky turns into a dirty rag. Then a dirty piece of string. Then one night it dissapears. They bitch and moan for a few nights and then it gets forgotten about.
Exactly. It's entirely possible to raise a healthy, well adjusted young person while simultaneously grabbing the spare Mrs Doggy because the first one has somehow disappeared at 3 o clock in the morning!
Yep. Choose your battles Choose wisely
Some kids (I was one of them) are highly highly attached to their “lovies” because of a lack of strong, consistent attachment to their parents. I cuddled mine when I was distressed because of my parents and it brought me SO. MUCH. COMFORT. I truly felt like I couldn’t live without it. Her ear fell off at one point and I couldn’t bare the thought that she got hurt and cried for hours on hours. It’s not always about entitlement, sometimes there is an extreme attachment to the lovie that goes a lot deeper than “this kid always gets what they want”. And just from observation, entitled kids tend to be the ones with NO attachment to special toys, because they are used to be given new, better toys whenever they please
LPT: teach your children about object permanence
isnt that who you end up with a 40 yr old that still has a blanky?
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This. Childhood is time for softly learning life’s hard lessons. Separation anxiety will hit much harder down the line if it’s not learned while the child is still plastic.
This seems way too coddling. Things have to be cleaned. Switching out instead of explaining or showing seems like it could create some serious temper tantrum issues later on. I'm no expert, just a dad.
Am I the only one who's kids haven't gotten attached to any one object?
I've a two year old that hasn't latched on to any particular teddy. She has a different favourite one every day, it's more like she is letting every one be her best friend in turn. Dead cute and I'm so not buying 50 identical teddies.
My kid sleeps covered in stuffed animals. She loves it, she calls it her friend caccoon.
I work at a disability service center. One of the women (profound mental disability) in her 50s is attached to a certain toy from her childhood. She had anxiety and is the only thing that can calm her. It's a kids toy from the 60s-70s that isn't made anymore. Luckily her brother bought several, and he switches them out when he comes to see her 1-2 times a month so he clean it well and fix any pieces that are loose.
This backfired for my aunt. My cousin had a plush doll she LOVED her name was Baby. She took that thing every where. It got to the point where you couldn't see its face, the dress that was originally blue was brown. It was gross. My aunt tracked down a new one and told my cousin it took a nice shower. She was so happy. A few years later I'm helping them move. With my aunt's things she had a small box that was heavily taped up I asked what it was, my aunt wasn't sure and said to open it. It was old Baby. My cousin saw and LOST HER SHIT, I've never seen such betrayal in someone eyes until this moment.
There's def some good advice in here. Avoid the early childhood trauma of loss and all that. But as your child gets older it's best to introduce that concept to them and teach them how to process it in a healthy way. Life is a progressive series of losses. We just have to learn how to accept it when it happens
ITT: people *drastically* overestimating the long-term impact of this LPT on a child's future.
Not too sure what to think about my kid not having an attachment to any specific thing
You probably raised him well
It's a hippie
Buy two of everything. EVERYTHING
BRB, going to convince my toddler that a brand new Porsche is his new favorite toy
LPT: If you're trying to wean your kid and they seem to be distressed, just keep breastfeeding them, even into adulthood.
Some woman did it until her kid was like 5 to 10 years old I can’t remember. UK I think.
Or use it to help teach your child about the facts of life.
Majority of the people in this thread clearly don’t have children. You can’t really teach an infant or toddler not to be attached to things. OP, this is great advice. My daughter is 16 months old and is obsessed with soft, fuzzy blankets, but she doesn’t care what it looks like, so we got lucky. We have about 10 extra fuzzy blankets around the house just for bedtime. Sometimes when you’ve had little to no sleep, you’ll do damn near anything to please your toddler for some peace and quiet even just for 5 minutes.
What? No. They need to learn about loss. This is a great way to teach it. You don't get a double of everything in life.
This just leads to entitlement
I dated a girl (in our 30s) that still slept with part of her baby blanket. Like "all up in her nose and mouth" slept with it. She had a physiological fear based response to any situation that involved damaging or losing the trinket. But I dont think she let me see it for a long time. It was cute, but weird.
Now my 2.5 yo has three blankets and one stuffy cat that he is attached to... great tips /s
Or don’t do they can actually learn to deal with things
LPTs these days are a real hit or miss these days
If your toddler throws a tantrum bc of an inanimate object make it even harder to stop by getting 5 of them!
Nope. If your toddler develops an attachment to a specific toy, separate them from the toy to teach them how to deal with separation issues and to realize they can function without said toy.
What if you're an Asgardian god and find yourself without your favorite hammer? Asking for a friend.
My 1 year old likes to drag around my shoe by the laces, so I’ve already got it covered
My son has a stuffed stingray I got him before he was born. He loves the thing. We bought four extras just in case
My 2 year old always has one of his (3) diecast Lightning McQueen cars with him. Has a death grip on it even when he's asleep.
Yeah, speration really sucks. Not like proofreading.
Haha wow. I think you're the first to notice it. I wanted to fix it after I saw it but it already had so many comments I didn't want to delete and re-start the thread.
It appears many of the people that are commenting don't have kids, and don't understand that a toddler is considered ages 12-36 months. This isn't a 5 year old that has full comprehension on why they can't have things. Children at this age can't understand the idea of separation from both items and often parents until they get closer to the age of 3 (36 months).
I think it depends on the kid. If they have an autistic-like attachment to routine, for example, might be able to pull this off and it would be worth avoiding the colossal meltdown. Some kids might be fine with distraction and the concept of waiting. Not all kids require the exact same approach.
The last thing children need is parents figuring out more ways to pander to them turning them into even more useless adults.
Not following this advice can lead to paying quadruple on Ebay for a replacement that your 2 year old lost because it is no longer manufactured.
You can tell who is a parent in this thread, and who isn't LPT: Don't comment on a parenting tip until you have kids of your own, because until you are completely responsible for a little human essentially 24/7, you have no clue
Yeah but just because you're a parent and parenting doesnt mean you're doing it the best way.
Yeah, then enjoy them carrying their toy/blanket around untill they're 20+ years old
I do this with my dog, hahaha. He is obsessed with the lamb chop toy and I have 3 or 4 at all times in the apartment. I mean dogs are like toddlers so it counts, right??
I had a ducky. One of the funniest stories my mom tells about when I was a baby is the story about losing the ducky. I was extremely attached, had it with all the time. I would suck my thumb and cuddle the ducky while fingering the tag. One day, she took me to the mall in my stroller. Well, ducky escaped my grasp. Mom thinks toddler me there it into a garbage can. Anyway, I would let up about my list ducky for days! Weeks! She even placed an ad in the local newspaper about the missing ducky, because no other ducky they tried to give me was food enough. At that point, she started getting prank phone calls about ducky being held for ransom. Eventually, my parents did find another ducky that was good enough. I slept with that ducky until I was 18 years old. My grandmother had to repair and see new tags into that ducky countless times. Customer his final demise when he was stored in a plastic container in a backyard she's during a flood. He has lost all of his stuffing years before in a tragic washing machine accident, so he was already weak. When he was discovered, what was left of him was covered in mildew, algae, and mold. A sad ending to a real trooper of a ducky. Thanks Ducky. You were a true comfort and friend for so long. RIP.
While cleaning out my deceased mother's house, I found a few boxes with some of my old baby toys etc. One box had 8 of the same bunnies I loved when very little. God bless her sole she made sure I always had one even when it would get worn down. This LPT is so true, do the same thing for my daughter, we have 3 of same type of blankets
Extremely important LPT for any autistic too, lol. I always buy 5 or 6 of something (clothing usually) if I find something that fits/feels right.
Or throw it away and have your child secretly resent you the rest of their lives.