Why Emotionally Stable Adults Are Still Sleeping With Their Baby Blankets
It came out of the blue.
He had introduced you to his entire, extended family at a recent family reunion of his, and everyone liked you.
The two of you had talked about getting married — even going so far as to discuss the children you would one day have.
And the last conversation you had with him about your solid future together was two days ago.
He was pumped, eager and ready to turn the page and start fresh. He told you this vehemently. He loved you, he said.
Now, suddenly, you find yourself on the other end of a phone call in which he’s telling you it’s over, and he can’t give you a good reason why. What’s worse is that he’s just started his semester abroad in Argentina, and you’ve recently moved to South Carolina to begin a six month internship, so you can’t even go to him in person.
And, you have no friends here yet. No support network to buoy you up at what’s got to be the most devastating time in your life. The most you can do is call your parents and cry “oh no, oh no,” over and over again into the phone.
Thank God you had your baby blanket to wrap yourself up in and cry the night away. As always, “BB” gave you comfort without judgement. Its pillowy, much worn softness gave you a shoulder to cry on as it had so many times since you were born. You never went anywhere without it.
Yes, baby blanket. Yes, adult woman. Yes, it’s okay.
How Little Things Help Big Transitions To Adulthood
In the beginning, the bondage between a mother figure and child is complete.
Baby wants, baby gets. The mother figure is doing all the getting while baby is royally receiving, but baby doesn’t know that. Baby is the only one in baby’s world. So, baby/mother figure are in complete bondage to each other.
Transitional objects play an important role during the early separation of that bond. As the baby grows older, baby relies less on the mother figure and begins to realize there are other people and things in the world. Enter the transitional object.
A “transitional object,” Also known as a “comfort,” “emotional,” “support” and “attachment” object is usually a soft toy or blanket meant to help a child transition from one stage of life to another by providing comfort, security and familiarity.
These transitional objects mark an important stage in baby’s life, that of early separation from its mother — to another, separate, source of comfort that, to the young child, represents mothering, usually a blanket or soft toy.
This transitional object released the mother figure from the complete bondage baby had initially claimed, and allowed her to spend more time away from baby.
Lo and behold, as the mother figure started spending more and more time away from baby and as baby grew into a young child, baby began to realize it wasn’t the center of the universe after all.
Other people existed. Who knew?
In the child’s eyes, there was the child, or “me,” and the “not me,” or other people.
When mother figure isn’t around, at least her representative, a soft toy or blanket of the child’s choosing or all bets are off, is always there.
In this way, the transitional object helps free both mother figure and child from eternal bondage to one another.
Why Mommy Wants To Take Teddy Away
Dr. David Woods Winnicott (1896–1971) extensively studied the mother figure/child bond. It was he whom coined the term “transitional objects,”
Since Dr. Winnicott primarily worked with and studied babies and young children, transitional objects, became associated with early youth. Winnicott himself never put an age limit on them. He figured the child would lose interest in their chosen attachment object when they were ready.
Many parents, however, worry that an older child with an attachment object will be ridiculed, and that their own parenting skills will be brought into question. That’s why Mommy wants to take teddy away.
Quick statistic: An estimated 60–70% of children from the U.S. and the U.K. have attachment objects.
Why, then, if the numbers are so high, are so many primary mother figures in such a hurry to rip these objects of emotional comfort and support from their children’s sticky little fingers as soon as possible?
“Parents get upset because they think they’re going to lose the transitional object, they think it collects germs, they think it looks babyish, which is a problem in American culture,” said Dr. Barbara Howard, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Johns Hopkins.
“The biggest problem is stigmatization. There is no ultimate age where it’s bad, but you can get teased for it.”
But consider this excerpt from “The Psychology of Stuff and Things”:
“In an intriguing study by Bruce Hood and Paul Bloom, the majority of three- to six-year-old children preferred to take home their original attachment object, as opposed to a duplicate made by a ‘copying machine’. To the prospect of taking a copy, ‘the most common response was horror,’ says Nathalia Gjersoe, who helped run the studies. ‘A few very sweet and obedient children said okay but then burst into tears.’ Four of the children even refused for their attachment toy or object to be copied in the first place. That’s despite the fact they were happy enough to take a copy of an experimenter’s toy. It’s as if the children believed their special object had a unique essence, a form of magical thinking that re-appears in adulthood in our treatment of heirlooms, celebrity memorabilia and artwork.”
Obviously, a child’s attachment object is very important to the child. So, why take it away before the child is ready to give it up?
How Do You Justify Breaking Your Child’s Heart?
There are a myriad of reasons parents have for wanting to rip Blankie from Junior’s grip and throw it in the fireplace.
Parents worry that the object has become too important, and feel that caring for it and always worrying about where it is to avoid a major child-sized meltdown if it gets lost has become a major hassle.
After a few frantic parental search-and-rescue missions which include, but are certainly not limited to:
- dumpster diving (yes, actually looking in the garbage),
- paying over $91 (the blanket plus the cost of overnight shipping) on eBay for an exact replica,
- very carefully and strategically placing the item, so that the child “finds” it,
- because, remember, a copy won’t do. The child has to believe it’s the original item —
— the parent is so over it.
Or, maybe Blankie is being held on to past some age of expected maturity and independence in the parent’s mind. Who even knows where that number comes from?
Adult peer pressure is brutal. And, keeping up with The Joneses is exhausting.
But, you just can’t take Lovie away…yet. Maybe after the next lost Lovie ... or maybe this one is here to stay. Eyes peeled, fingers crossed. Maybe…
Warning: Don’t Make Your Child Go “Cold Turkey”
New research has shown that taking a child’s lovie away forcibly before the child is ready, probably does more psychological harm than good.
Would parents be so quick to worry about what the neighbors thought if they thought about the potential psychic damage they would be inflicting on their children if Blankie or Teddy disappeared right before such a tension filled, stress-inducing time as the first day of pre-school — with no explanation?
Beep Beep! Favorite Toys In Tow!
A child with an attachment object in tow feels safer and more secure. The child is less dependent, feels more powerful, and, when being put in a potentially scary spot, like just starting out in preschool for instance, feels safer and more comfortable in what could have been a shaky situation.
And, studies show that kids with blankets, lovies, or other attachment objects are actually less shy and more focused.
So, give your child a break and do yourself a favor. Lay off taking Blankie away until…whenever. The right time is when the time is right. One day you’ll notice that Blankie is no longer attached to your child, and your heart will break a little bit.
Or not.
What if we lived in a world where the child could have the final say so?
What’s that you say? We do?
You mean there are no laws prohibiting the use of Mr. Teddy for sleeping purposes after, say, the age of 8-ish?
Read on.
Allow Yourself To Be Comfortable In Your Own Skin
Relax and stop worrying about “growing up.”
So really, how old is too old, seriously? Click this link, and scroll down this thread. You’ll be shocked at the many different age groups.
Ask Greyson Poutas, 23, Lilah Taber, 22, or Kaitlin Lipe, 24 what they think.
First know that the idea that objects are more than just their physical properties is called “essentialism.”
Essentialism is one of the reasons some of us hang on to those childhood toys or objects — they hold an emotional value to us that is hard to put into words and go way beyond the physical nature of the object itself. A kind of magic, if you will, that sets your blankie above the rest.
- Greyson Poutas, is many things, but childish isn’t one of them. Why, then, does this bright, beautiful 23-year-old still sleep with her baby blanket? The one she’s had since birth? “It’s a comfort thing, definitely,” she says. “Like, it’s familiar and comforting.” “BB”, aka “Baby Blanket,” doesn’t get washed much, true. But, this homemade square of now faded pink and white has been there for her, dirty or not.And now, BB is helping to nurse her through her broken heart by providing her with a soft, pink and white, blankety shoulder to cry on whenever she needs one. Poutas doesn’t travel anywhere without BB. She’s not ashamed of her soft, pink friend, either, and says nobody has ever given her a reason to be.
- Lipe’s love is named Puff, a pink Puffalump doll she got when she was six months old. The New York social media manager can’t part with Puff. Instead, she just wraps her arms around the cow’s soft, pink body and squeezes hard until comfort envelopes Lipe’s every pore. “She is a reminder of my childhood, has always been a comfort to me, and is in every way a symbol for the happier times in life,” Lipe, 24, says.
- Some adults say their attachment objects provide security, comfort, and nostalgic memories of childhood. “I still hold on to my baby blanket. I’ve had it since I was born,” Taber, 22, said. “I was never really embarrassed to bring it around because I never really brought it around publicly. It’s always just traveled with me as I’ve gotten older.” She keeps her blanket by her bed for its comforting presence. She says, “it’s a little piece of home when I’m feeling lonely.”
University of Bristol psychologist Bruce Hood, who took part in the “copy machine toy” experiment noted earlier in this story, studies people’s sentimental attachments to objects.
Hood says the phenomenon of adults with security objects is “a lot more common than people realize,” Adding that his studies never lack for adult participants with attachment objects.
One third of adults of all ages will tell you there’s no harm in wanting to keep your old baby blanket on your bed to snuggle with at night.
Needing to have it in order to sleep is a different story. In that case, you may want to pay a visit to your friendly, neighborhood therapist. Just in case.
The point is it’s just not that big of a deal if you still sleep with your baby blanket. It is within the range of normal behavior, and more common than you’d think.
On a recent “Trending” segment for the “Today” show, they reached out to Twitter with the question, “Is it OK for adults to still use their childhood comfort objects?”
Out of 2,802 votes, 59% of the respondents said “yes.”
Studies have shown that between 30%-40% of adults have a security blanket.
And, as long as the adult is still bonding and forming human relationships, there’s asolutely nothing wrong with that.
Live In A Judgement-Free Zone
Let your hair down. Cuddle with your comfort object, and relax.
It may seem like sleeping with a stuffed animal or baby blanket is embarrassing after childhood, but it’s not:
“It’s completely normal,” says Alisa Ruby Bash, Psy.D., L.M.F.T.
If you’re still judging, consider this: All the experts agree it’s a lot healthier to seek comfort in a stuffed animal than in something like alcohol, drugs, or sex.
And because adequate sleep is so important, board-certified psychologist Helena Rempala, Ph.D., from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. says that if a blanket or stuffed animal is part of how you create ideal conditions for falling asleep and staying asleep, that’s a-okay. “If your childhood blanket or teddy bear is one of the ways you signal to your body that you’re safe enough for sleep, why not keep it?”
Why not, indeed?
Stop Feeling Like A Freak
There are a wealth of normal, high-functioning adults who would be lost without their baby blankets. Click this link to read some of their stories which are located in the “comments” section below the intriguing main blanket story.
There comes a time when every adult must embrace a human partner between the sheets rather than a blankie, but that doesn’t mean that there is no room in your big-girl or big-boy life for that old item that symbolises comfort, security, and familiarity.
The act of sleeping with a teddy bear or a childhood blanket is generally considered to be perfectly acceptable. But, says behavioral health specialist Tracey Jones, MD, you should be emotionally whole, function well on the daily, and have solid interpersonal relationships
If you are one of those people who have continued to cling to the same blanket or stuffed animal from early childhood, chances are your “lovey” is showing some real wear and tear. If you don’t want to risk putting it through the washing machine, it probably doesn’t smell the greatest, either. But it could very well make you feel secure and comfortable as you cuddle between the sheets each night. Remember, though, that your bed partner may notice the smell and tattered fabric more than you do. Don’t hate. Your partner will come around.
Of course, it’s important to release your grip on the blankie a little as you settle into a long-term human relationship. Just saying.
No Shame Allowed
Attachment objects can help people fight mental and other chronic illnesses.
Remember, attachment objects aren’t childish in and of themselves.
The childish part comes when some uptight moron sticks his two cents in and starts to tease you about your blankie, lovey, wubbie, or teddy being a “baby toy” and nags at you to “grow up,” and “stop playing with dolls.”
Even therapeutic dolls? Tsk. Moron. These dolls are designed to comfort you.
Politely tell such a stick-in-the-mud about the Travelodge study that found 35% of 6,000 British adults surveyed admitted they still sleep with their teddy. It seems a good bear hug calmed them, thus melting away the day’s stress.
What’s more, over half (51%) of these adults still have a teddy bear from childhood with an average age of 27.
The bear was 27 — not the adults.
Don’t let anyone make you feel ashamed about sleeping with your blanket. You’re a stable adult, and you make good decisions daily.
Who wouldn’t want the comfort, sense of security, and familiarity only sleeping with your soft, old childhood Blankie can provide you with now that you’re an emotionally stable adult?
Accept your Blankie wholly, without embarrassment.
Snuggle up tight with your attachment object tonight, and know that you have no cause to feel embarrassed, anxious, guilty or shameful.
Above all else, remember this: you are not alone.
Shhh, no more shame. It’s Blankie time. G’night, sleep now.
