Lost beloved cuddle toy

Yes it is truly a distressing time for all concerned when a little one loses their precious comforter.

When my DD was about 18 months old she lost her much loved Teddy,
It had a satin ribbon that she would twist between her fingers whilst nodding to sleep.
One day while out shopping I looked down to see a sleeping little girl but no teddy!
Franticly back tracked, no teddy to be found!

I bought some similar satin ribbon and tied it around another teddy.
Still had very upset little DD when she awoke.

A couple of days later whilst out with DD a neighbour approached and said that there was a found teddy in Wilkinson store. She thought it may be my little ones as she had seen her with a teddy.
We hot footed to town.
And there by one of the tills was her teddy!
One very relieved mum
One very happy little girl

gmelon Did your GDD recognise her lost cuddle toy?

Shirley Hughes? wrote a story about such a dilemma - it's called "Dogger" - a much loved story for me and my children and now enjoyed by my grandchildren.

My daughter used to trail a vest around with her. She used to like it to be smelly and awful, and would play up the minute I put it in water to wash it. When it was dry, she'd sniff it and say "yuk!".

My friend's little boy had a little pram quilt as his cuddle toy and would not sleep without it. His mum decided to pre-empt any problems re loss by buying a replacement and rotating them for washing. Problem was he twigged that there were two so demanded to have both before he would sleep so she bought another one. You can probably guess where this is going ! He got to five identical cuddlies before she gave up buying more.

My granddaughter has a 'security blanket'. At Christmas she was sick and it just had to go in the wash. Although she has a substitute, she sat in front of the washing machine and dryer watching them go round until it was done. The look of pure bliss on her little face when she finally got it back!

My daughter also loved her little pillow and as an adult never travelled without it. She had it with her when she went into labour and throughout the birth.
She still has it in bed with her but at least can sew the pillowslips herself. We cut up the really old pre-war cotton which Mil had.

cherrytree59

Although we were lucky enough to find the identical one online and replace it (plus 5 spares!) she fell on the original as if finding water in the desert.

As others have mentioned, she too, strokes the label as she goes to sleep.

Both mine had pieces of old flannelet sheeting and they had to have them with them in bed, to quite a late age to be honest.
We quite often had one or other other of them coming into our bedroom because they could not find their cloths. Find the cloth and tucked them back into bed and all was well. We were lucky never to loose one .
My children had a particular name for their blankets but I will not reveal that to save embarrassment.
When we went on a cross chanel ferry I realised they had both left their "cloths" in the car and in my best school french I asked one of the ferry men if I could go to the car deck to collect them. The man understood the situation and let me go down.

DS2 had a blue cellular blanket with a satin binding. When he was in hospital for a major operation, the ward sister asked me to wash the manky object while he was in theatre. Getting it dry on the radiator in my room in the parents' block was in itself a major operation. Managed it just before he was due back in the ward! When we were kids, my sister had a raggy object she couldn't be without. One summer we arrived at my granny's house in Fife without this 'thing' and sister was distraught which made our mum equally distraught. Phone call to other granny back in home town, object put in post and arrived next day but not before sister had run a temperature, because of this terrible deprivation.

My DGD aged 3 had a cuddly lion cub that she named Emma, which was given as a gift from Santa when we went on a special steam 'Santa Express' train.

She took Emma to the cinema and left her there. We realised within 10 minutes and alerted the cleaning staff but the toy had obviously been taken. DGD was broken hearted even though we said that maybe another child had fallen in love with her and was now looking after her. I bought her another lion cub but it was much bigger and even though I told her she was older she could not accept it.

DGD is now 6 and still mourns the loss of Emma. I have one photo of them together and am still searching for her duplicate!

grandma2213
How very sad. I hope you track one down one day.

It seems all children have some kind of comforter in various guises. My eldest son had a little white teddy which he used to call Tooey Nooey - one day after a trip to the cafe in a local department store I realised it was missing. Thankfully a friend worked in one of the other departments and located him for us. My small grandsons who have just been here for 6 weeks both have small blue Mothercare things - the older one is so battered you can't tell what it was - the other one is an elephant. Their mum has to sneak them away for washing on a regular basis but they have to be dried before bed. The whole time they were here we were all paranoid in case they lost one of them or even worse lost them on the flights! Thankfully they made it back home

Cuddle toys are the children's transitional object between their attachment to their primary care giver, usually mother and the wider world. One of my grandchildren has a cuddle toy that is so important that each of his three grannies has an emergency one. His parents have three, so one can always be in a hot wash.

I dropped my teddy as mum and I were climbing the stairs on the bus when I was about four. He fell out into the road and the conductor refused to stop the bus. I didn’t have another teddy. I’m still scarred.

My son loved his dummy but would enjoy posting it in all sorts of places one day we were driving down the motorway when he posted it out the window I ll never forget the screams as he watched it bumping along the road but of course we couldn’t stop

Even though he is now in his 40s DS cannot talk about when he lost his little yellow teddy, always known to his friends as LYT. DS was about 6. He had insisted on taking LYT in the car when we went to a Saturday event at school. LYT should have stayed in the car, but must have dropped out when DS got out. We went back and scoured the area, but never found him. I feel the pain, just writing this.