to swap the bear?

[maddening]

My ds has never been good at self settling and is still bf at bedtime and we cosleep. He is easily distracted when going to sleep so any attempts to introduce a cuddly toy to see if he can settle without me have failed.

Recently he asked for one of the teddies off the top shelf of his dresser - it just happened to be MY bear - one my GD bought me when I was born and has been with me forever - at uni, on travels etc and ds (20mths) adores and takes him to bed and taps his tummy and says "na na" so seems to be gaining a sleep association (possibly yey :) )

But teddy is 34 years old and threadbare (needs a wash but worries for him survival) I don't think he''ll survive toddler.

Wibu to see if I can find a similar bear and do dc notice these things? Am desperate for ds to find other comforts for getting to sleep and possibly sttn but nice Srebrenica I can sacrifice teddy for ths end

But not sure

I would look for another. How old is DS?

Oh you said - 20 months.
Sometimes they notice. You might be lucky!

DD1 was attached to a bear, I bought 2 spares on ebay just in case it got lost. As soon as I was on maternity leave with DD2 and DD1 stopped going to nursery, the bear was cast aside. Now I have 3 of them...

Talk him toy shopping and get him to chose one ?

Bless him, buy a bear, breast feed him, put him down with the new bear and leave to settle.. If you don't want to co sleep and want him to self settle then he will, if you don't want him to( and that's up to you and fine) then he won't.

Point is you are in charge as you are the parent, depends on your own boundaries/needs, iucwim and not being judgmental as we have all been there.

Take him to the bear factory and get him to chose and make a new bear?

Oh my god!!! Swap the bear swap the bear!!!!!! My darling toy who only has one eye since the dog improved her is mine allll mine.

I suggest buy a new, similar bear, and the 3 of you co-sleep for a few nights. Then the bear will smell like you (not suggesting you smell or anything) and it might be easier to make the transition.

Sorry if I sound slightly crazy...

I was going to say similar to caboodles - it's probably that the bear smells of you. Buy a teddy of similar size/shape/fluffiness and start cuddling it yourself as much as possible, co-sleep with it etc, and hopefully you can swap them without too many problems.

My DS sucked the paws of his teddies, when he was teething. They got rank, as you would expect. You could actually smell them when you went in the room.

So I lashed them into the washing machine, and hoped for the best. He actually only had one but we bought an identical one so we could give him the clean one and wash/dry the other.

Just saying, because of you saying yours was very elderly and probably couldn't stand the washing.... fortunately your DS is older than mine was when he started with the paw-chomping

Thanks everyone :) am going to find a similar bear - poor teddy needs to go back to resting on the shelf - some of his old repairs look like the're coming loose so it's probably best and he hasn't been washed for 15 yrs so on a hygiene level it is not good.

I was considering steaming him and might do that before putting him away

You might want to hide him so that DS doesn't choose him over the new bear?

Good plan - operation old bear will get underway:-)