Do you have a child who forms attachments to odd objects? DS ignores teddy bears and the like but loves to go to bed with...

[CaptainKarvol]

A square glass cufflink ('the bumpy wheel, mummy!')

A bicycle pump

A car scraper (you know, for getting ice off windows)

A small plastic bat from a cheepo bat and ball set

and various other uncuddly objects. Just one at a time, but they are just so uncuddly.

Is he very odd, or is this a pretty normal preference in small boys (he's 2.8 btw).

dd at about 18-20 months used to like to nap with a hoop from her hoopla game!..big green plastic ring...sometimes one in each hand!

My dd has just turned 3 and often goes to bed with a bicycle pump. A shoe tree is another favourite and a dolls potty. She sometimes has a cuddly toy but not always. Once I went in to check on her and she was fast asleep covered in plastic sushi like a geisha.

not sure about the random bits of plastic but DS (simialr age) has no attachment to anything cuddly at all. Gets quite grumpy if you try to put teddies in bed with him! Likes playing with them but generally revolves around them being on trains etc.

DS was adotped and I spent ages carefully thinking about a "transtional object" somethign they can attach to from old surroundings and bring to new one with them to help the transition, was expecting him to have some kind of security attachment. All pointless he really couldn;t have been less interested - still I like to think its because he's quite attached to me

Yep. My 3 yr old has had various odd attachments, including:

...a spring (worried sick he would choke on it or something..)
...a garlic press (a what?)
...a wooden spoon

weird little boy

I wouldn't call it an attachment, but DS often goes to bed on his demand with weird things - wooden recorder, flag, dryer ball, and last night a pumpkin bib

my mil used to let bil age 18mnths take a screwdriver to bed with him

bloody miracle he's still alive tbh

absolutely normal! I have pictures of DS1 in bed with a lot of wooden railway, bits of his tool set, a big plastic dog, lots of toy cars.
ermm, there are more things but that's all I can think of atm

ds1 in bed! beat that

Last nighty DS (3) slept with a muslin cloth, a cuddly monkey, a furry snake and a plastic stretchy frog... he goes through phases of favourites - at one point it was a wooden spoon, then for a few weeks it was a pencil with a father christmas rubber on the end [cmile]

Aww, thank you everyone, he's not wierd after all!

Kewcumber - I tried 'transitional objects' too when DS was tiny. I lovingly crafted a dolly out of an old (mummy -smelling) t-shirt of mine. It got picked up, slammed about and ejected swiftly from the cot every time he saw it...

lol thisisyesterday - what a lovely photo, he looks so happy. DS would relate to that - all the Thomas stuff!

And I do apologise for my sexist assumption that girls wouldn't do this too - how wrong am I?

lol! It's normal. Haven't experienced it yet with my ds, he just wants one of my old t- shirts to go to bed with but he is maybee too young yet. My brother used to have a bed full of plastic aeroplanes and toy cars, never anything remotely cuddley. He's 28 now and as far as I know doesn't go to bed with anything odd and plastic but I will ask him!

my dd2 has often gone to bed wearing her bicycle helmet

kewcumber DS is like this and never formed an attachment to an object. He also never had a dummy, was off milk from a bottle by 12 months and has never sucked his thumb so no comfort from that either. Once he realised it was normal to have a comforter he took to taking a little blue NPower thing called Gas to bed with him. But that is just for effect. Nowadays though he is in a high sleeper and sleeps with several books, various lego models, go-gos, match attax cards etc in a kind of little nest that builds up until I change the sheets.

DD OTOH forms strong attachments and must have the comforter but they only last a couple of months. Usually it is a soft toy but it has also been a play jar of peanut butter, a plastic strawberry, a teapot etc. Currently it is a soft doll with a rattle in it from ELC.

S2 formed a deep attachment to a chicken leg he'd had at dinner once. He'd sit for ages nibbling & sucking at chicken bones.
Then about 10 days after we'd had roast chicken, I found one under his pillow, he was in tears when I tried to take it away, he'd called it "Boney" - what else?

I had a boss whos son took his toy dyson to bed with him religiously, dont get more un-cuddly than that!

fink!!! that is funny

finknottle, that is the best!!!!

fink
Love it!

We still talk about it, must be 5 yrs ago now. I only got it off him by promising him another chicken dinner so he could have a new "Boney". Iirc, it went on for weeks, good thing we like chicken, lol!

urrrgh fink, bless him!

at finknottle

DS (2.5) does this too. His current weird attachments are to: a blue plastic letter "W" fridge magnet, a lime green t-shirt, and his Hairy McClary books, most notably the blue one "Rumpus at the Vets". He did at one stage like my contact lense case, an empty plastic bottle and one particular blue piece of duplo.

He's just started pre-school and they told me I could bring in an object from home he would find comfort from... hmm, I thought they might think I was a tad odd if I sent him in with a blue "W" fridge magnet, so the poor boy's gone with nothing!

Ah yes we had a phase where DD took the one and only pink duplo brick to bed. Was a nightmare because it kept falling down the back of the bed in the middle of the night.

Yes, should have said that DS has, and has never had any 'comfort' objects - no dummy/muslin/thumb sucking/bottle attachment(although he demanded one the other day so that he could be a lamb). We have bought him cuddlies, and we'll think that he is forming an attachment, but then it will be rejected for a bicycle pump etc for another few days

Tonight DS NEARLY 4 insisted on going to be with a piece of dental floss which of course he keeps losing & gets out of bed to turn the lamp on to find it again. Last week it was whatever the "toy of the day" is which is usually a household object & not an actual toy. He's done this forever. He has taken everything i can think of to bed. He's never been into toys really, always some other inanimate object which he usually fiddles with til it breaks!!! It must be a boy thing!!! I'm hoping it is normal!!!

DD2 - aged 2 tonight took a plastic stick "stick mummy, stick, where stick" when it slipped down the bed. And her dressing gown, which was tucked in natch. .