I
want my blankie!
All hell breaks lose when your
toddler loses his blankie / dummy / huggee-bunny. Parents often feel humiliated
when their child needs a comforter in public – especially when strangers give
you ‘the look’. They worry that it’s
a sign of bad parenting, insecurity or emotional baggage.
RELAX if your child sucks his
thumb, fingers or dummy or clings to a tattered blanket writes Dr Christopher
Green in his book Toddler Taming. It
doesn’t mean that s/he will be emotionally scarred for life or is struggling
with insecurity. “Little children do it for only one reason: they enjoy it!” he
writes. Sucking becomes more intense when the child is tired, bored, frustrated
or feeling insecure. Sucking helps them to fall asleep. Although most toddlers
have abandoned these habits by the time they’re three, according to Dr Christopher
“up to two percent still have this habit in their early teens.” (I was from that two percent)
We know from scans that babies
start sucking when they’re in the womb. After birth, sucking is their survival.
Babies also comfort-suck their fingers, fist or tongue. New parents have to
learn not to pick babies up for a feed, believing this to be a sign that they’re
hungry.
Of course, we introduce the
comforter in the first place. The dummy, the soft toy with a silk ribbon or the
baby blanket. Besides having a comforter, babies like to have a routine; where
and when they sleep, how they’re put down to sleep, the ebb and flow of
house-hold noise, the smell of their blankets. This helps them to feel secure.
Its also a way they learn trust. Children who feel secure, want to explore and
be independent when they’re toddlers. In their own time and pace, children are
able to ‘let go’ the need for the physical security from a favourite comforter.
Every child is an individual. As a
couple, you’re opposites. While one partner may be more adventurous and
outgoing, the other may be shy, reserved and hesitant when it comes to trying
something new. Today we know that by
ruthlessly taking away a ‘little people’s’ personal source of comfort, children
can regress or take longer to recover and progress. They are, after all, little
people for only a few short years.
Why do children cling to their ‘comforters’?
- It helps them to cope with the interruptions of daily life.
- It helps them cope with disappointments, or when they’re reprimanded, feeling hurt or rejected.
- Comforters are a big help when there are family upheavals: moving house, starting play-school, going on holiday, a new sibling or grandparent’s moving in with the family.
- When they’re ill.
- When they’re frightened e.g. thunder storm, a barking dog, or uncomfortable e.g. too hot or too cold.
Top tips:
- Don’t tease or make fun of your child or deliberately take the comforter away.
- Easy as it is to lose your cool when the comforter is lost – resist the urge to smack or shout.
- Keep him distracted when he has forgotten about his comforter (especially after a few days).
- Keep a spare ‘comforter’ for emergencies.
- Dummies are better than bottles (especially after a year). NEVER give your child juice in a bottle at night.
- Much to the embarrassment of parents, genital stimulation is also a comforter. This is NORMAL. Simply distract.
- Children soon ‘grow-up’ and adapt to the social rules of their peers. This exclude the need for comforters!
