The strangest thing your child has fallen asleep clutching

[FrannyandZooey]

I have just found ds cuddled up with a sink plunger

He has always been fond of it, but to have smuggled it into his bed at night shows true devotion I feel

An aubergine....

Having begged me to buy it for him,
DS (3.5) cuddled it for most of the afternoon and named it Toby. By evening he was marching round his train track shouting "Mister Auber Genie! Mister Auber Genie! Mister Auber Genie!" He took the aubergine to bed with him. When he came in to our bed to wake us the next morning still holding it I began to to seriously rethink the Mousakka we'd planned. In fact DS was very keen to cook his little friend and watched gleeefully as Toby was sliced up. I'm not sure what disturbed me more.

An action man. He calls it daddy! I'd just like to say I am not a single parent, he has not created himself a surrogate father figure. He does have a very present father who luckily has taken it as a compliment that our son has replaced him with a lump of plastic. Not sure if he'd feel the same if I did that though!

Treacletart

A large plastic horse under one arm and a dolly under the other

LOL, a longstanding favourite with ds is the kitchen timer, which he calls his 'ling'.

ds regularly takes cars to bed, less so now but lots when he was 2

toilet roll middles are another favourite

and a small spiderman figure

and photographs of people

on holiday in France we bought him the cheapest bucket and spade set there was in the supermarket (and didn't plan on taking it home at the end of the holiday) and ds took that to bed most nights and lunchtime nap!

I began to to seriously rethink the Mousakka we'd planned

DD is very fickle and goes through phases of taking things to bed with her, but she definitely needs whatever it is. At least if your child has a favourite teddy bear or blankie or whatever, although you live in fear of it going missing, most nights you are prepared with said bear available. DD's phases have involved the following:

my first baby annabel
plastic jar of peanut butter
plastic strawberry
pink princess figure
pink lego brick
plastic tea pot
plastic choc ice-cream (I was in such trouble when I sneakily substituted mint choc chip in the middle of the night when chocolate had gone down the back of the bed and DD realised in the morning)
little mermaid doll
noddy and tessie bear figures

This is all in addition to various soft toys. Tonight she is cuddles up with two strawberry ice-creams (no cones) from the ELC set.

My sister went through a phase of sleeping with a large stone in her bed. We called it the Bedrock...

A black plastic comb!? He even got up in the middle of the night for a wee and was still holding it!

a potato

I must be a horrible mummy because my dd doesn't have the chance to go to sleep clutching anything (other than designated soft toys) - they get taken off her when she gets her nappy changed before her stories and milk!

Mind you, my brother did used to sleep with a large plastic garden gnome.

Lol

DS has a strange affinity with our sink plunger too, he calls it a plunker, but has never actually been to bed with it

DS1 (aged 7) regularly falls asleep with piles of coins in his bed, and piles of small plastic animals.

I try to ban these practices as they fall out of bed in the night and wake me up plinking onto the floorboards .

FrayedKnot just you wait...