Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Rookie Mom

In many forms, security blankets deliver comfort

By KATHERINE SNOW SMITH
Published September 18, 2005

I know twin boys who kept their blankets, even when they were down to shreds, in the freezer during the day so they would be nice and cool come bedtime.

My next door neighbor, 3-year-old Oliver Petrillo, used to rub his mom's ears when he was sleepy or needed comforting. If she wasn't around he'd use his own.

And I heard of a little girl who always reached for her grandmother's slip when she was ready to curl up and relax. The grandmother eventually cut a square off her slip to give to her granddaughter for times when she needed that special security and Grandma wasn't around.

Most kids find comfort in soft blankets or a well-worn stuffed animal, but some get attached to some pretty out of the ordinary stuff. This just proves it doesn't really matter what a security object is, as long as it's something that makes kids feel safe, relaxed or in their normal routine.

My own son, age 2, sleeps with a piece of his multicolored, polka-dotted sheer curtains. When he was a baby we read to him every night in a rocking chair that sat in front of the window. Before he was 1, he started reaching behind him and pulling the tail of the curtain over his head so he could rub it on his cheek.

When we moved him into a bed, we took the rocking chair out of his small room and started reading bedtime books on the new bed. But he kept pointing to his curtains saying, "Need that, Mommy. Need that, Mommy." So I've started cutting squares off the bottom of the long curtains so he can still have pieces to hold and sleep with.

My friend's daughter became so attached to her cloth baby doll that by the time they decided it had to be washed, they feared it would fall apart in the water. So the baby, who rarely wore clothes, became known affectionately as "Dirty Baby." Even when she was walking down the aisle as the flower girl in a black-tie wedding, Dirty Baby, in all her naked glory, went along too.

"My daughter, Cady, age 21/2, has since I can remember, used her belly button for security. I couldn't even put her in onesies because she had to have access," said Clarissa Hughes, a Redington Beach mom. "She still says, "Mommy, I need my belly button,' if she can't get to it. Good thing for me it's something I will never leave at home."

Ah, yes, those items that aren't attached to the body do get lost, and parents go to extremes to retrieve them. I have friends who have been in the trash bins behind grocery stores and restaurants more than once.

Tammie Allender's son, who is now 8, once lost his beloved stuffed mouse named Cheeser. So the St. Petersburg mom put an "ad" on the Internet hoping someone might have found him.

"Okay, I admit it. I went on the Internet and bought him a new one. It was a Ty Beanie Baby mouse. I told him that a nice couple found Cheeser, fixed him up and sent him back," she told me.

Some friends of mine in Tampa decided to be prepared if they ever lost their son's beloved frog named Pongo.

"He's had this stuffed frog since he was about 2 weeks old when my Dad gave it to him," said Rich Whiteley, father of John Banks, age 2. "Knowing what good friends they had become, we were thinking it was probably a good idea to have a backup, so we bought a second one and we hid it in the closet." From time to time John's parents started switching in the sub frog when they had to wash the original.

"One morning he came in the kitchen and we forgot we had the (substitute) frog in the washing machine which has a glass front. He was all sleepy eyed, then he was just sitting there looking so upset watching Pongo No. 2 in the washing machine going around and around pressed up against the glass," Whiteley recounted. "So we quickly explained that was Pongo's brother Pingo who had come for a visit."

The Whiteleys tried to say Pingo had to leave at the end of summer, but John kept asking for him, too. So now every time he goes to bed he goes down his checklist, saying: "Pongo, Pingo, passie." (Most parents know, of course, passie translates to pacifier.)

I talked with Ruth Peters, a clinical psychologist in Clearwater who specializes in treating children, to find out if there is an age when we need to wean kids from their security items, be they frozen blankets or curtain fragments.

"Rarely do you see a kid walking around at 12 holding their blankets. Social pressure takes care of that," she said. "A lot of girls aren't embarrassed to bring teddy bears or other stuffed animals to slumber parties. They think it's cute. In this world things are tough and if you have an object that gives you comfort, if it's not a "binky' that's screwing up your mouth, then why not?"

One reason you might want your child to be less dependent on a blanket or bear is if he or she is getting teased for taking it on sleepovers or other outings. For whatever sexist reason, boys tend to get teased more about it than girls.

"If you think your son is going to be made fun of, you might have to say: "You're probably going to be teased if you pull this thing out at a slumber party,' " Peters said.

You can give him the choice of not going, coming home about 11 p.m. or going without it and staying up all night if he can't get to sleep, which isn't the worst thing in the world, she said.

But as long as children get to the point that they can sleep without their security friend and they keep it at home where they won't get teased about it and there's no risk of losing it, Peters sees no reason to make kids part with them.

She was actually in New Orleans visiting her newly married daughter the day before Hurricane Katrina hit. As they evacuated, her 26-year-old daughter looked back at her bedroom and saw her favorite bear from childhood.

"Should I take Freddy?," she asked her mom. Peters said yes. The next day at her mom's home in Clearwater when she was almost certain her own home was underwater and all its contents ruined, she told her mom: "I'm so glad you told me to take Freddy."

You can reach Katherine Snow Smith by e-mail at snowsmith@verizon.net or write Rookie Mom, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

[Last modified September 18, 2005, 02:15:36]