We really, really, really don’t need any more stuffies in our house. I don’t know about you, but when my daughter was born I swore that I was not, most certainly not going to be one of those parents with a kid who had a room full of stuffed animals. Oh no, not me. My child was going to have just a few stuffed animals of the highest quality, hand sewn and hand picked. Oh yes, I was a stuffie snob.
Now I stagger into her room where she has two cribs full of the things. They’re doll cribs, granted, but they’re taking up a ridiculous amount of floor space. In the closet? More stuffies.
The irony is of course that I have purchased almost none of these myself. Yes, I remained true to my anti-stuffie feelings and did not buy them. But she started receiving them at birth, and she’s continued to ask for them and acquire them through garage sales and hand me downs. And of course they breed, don’t they? Secretly, at night, I am sure that one or two more stuffies get added to the pile. It was my ignorance that did me in. I didn’t realize that stuffies had a propensity to breed more stuffies.
What can you do if your child has a room that looks like ours? Today I saw the most brilliant idea: a strip of velcro attached to the wall. Stick the stuffies onto the velcro, and if they are small they will stick. Fabulous!
Of course, there is also the stuffed animal hammock and the stuffed animal tube. These are good for stuffing large quantities of animals at a time.
There are also products like The Zoo, a cage that sits on the wall. It has flexible bars so children can remove and insert stuffed animals when they are playing with them.
Or how about a storage bin? Get a bin that is also designed to be a seat or a child’s table, and fill it up with stuffed animals. We do this with dress ups. One of our coffee tables in the living room is actually the dress up trunk!
There are also soft chairs that are designed to hold stuffed animals. You place the animals into the chair and it becomes a chair similar to a beanbag chair.
If you’re mean like I am, you might also request that the stuffie consumption get reduced. We only get ours secondhand now, as my daughter likes to “rescue” baby dolls from garage sales and bring them home. The rule? Another rescued baby doll must be rehomed once the new one comes in. I consider this to be recycling.
What are your solutions to the stuffed animal invasion?
Image Credit: Linder6580