Many months ago, I posted about how I was trying to get Ryder to take a “lovey” and we introduced the Cozy doll. He seemed to like it ok for awhile, but he never “attached” to it. I had decided to move on from the idea, thinking that it’s probably best to not get attached to an item that can easily be lost, when it occurred to me that Ryder was using my bangs (and ponytail and hair in general) as his lovey to go to sleep at night.
When I’m nursing him or rocking him, he always reaches up to my hair and twirls and pulls it. Sometimes, on really tough evenings, I would find myself leaning into his crib so he could stroke my hair and drift off to sleep.
My hair is probably not a good solution for a lovey.
So, for his first birthday – I gave him a stuffed Lion from Playful World that has stringy hair on it. Slowly, but surely, he has started to stroke the Lion mane as he drifts off to sleep. He’ll still take my bangs over the toy any night – but I think he is finding comfort in his new friend during the night.
