Blankie, Baa & Macca Pacca

Leo knows when he is ready for bed, and these days he is so good about actually going to bed. I can get him changed and into his pyjamas and explain that it is now time for sleep without any drama at all.

He holds his blankie close in one hand and his bedtime bottle of milk in the other. Then every night without fail, Leo will exclaim ‘Macca Pacca’ ‘Baa’ until we retrieve his soft plush toys and take them up to bed with him.

As Leo has got older, the things that Leo needs to go to bed with him has grown too. Sometimes it feels like I am carrying the world and his friend up those stairs and tucking them in bed with my little man. Macca Pacca sits on one side of Leo’s pillow and Baa sits on the other, blankie gets snuggled up down one side of him so that he can rub it soothingly against his face. Each item acts as a comfort in some shape or form to my little toddler, and it certainly aids bed time.

God forbid that one of these items isn’t in bed with Leo at bedtime… He repeats their names over and over again until you think you may explode if you hear ‘Baa’ or ‘Macca Pacca’ mentioned once more. But the main issue is blankie, if blankie wasn’t there Leo would not settle at all.

Blankie is the main source of comfort, and no other blanket cuts the final bill for Leo. He knows exactly which one blankie is and will not settle for anything but his blankie. Luckily he is not opposed to it being washed, it is just the general getting it off him to wash it in the first place that was a problem…

Now we have two blankies, both exactly the same and he will accept either (thankfully) so it has made it a lot easier to get one washed while he is still happy with the other.

In the last few months Leo and blankie if become more inseparable than ever before, blankie literally comes everywhere with us. Whether it be in the car or around the shopping centre in his pushchair…Leo takes his big cot duvet with him, as that is what blankie is. A cot duvet.

When we put the cot duvet in his cot we had no idea that he was going to form such an attachment with it, but he did. Leo finding comfort in his blankie is actually something I am glad happened, it made tough nights easier and it is something that can be with him even when I am not there.

One thing I have noticed of late is that blankie and milk seem to go hand in hand. If he has one he needs the other…drinking milk without blankie does not happen anymore and he gets really irate if you try to give him it without! He persistently shouts ‘blankie’ until you provide it.

So here we are in a catch 22 situation.

With Leo turning two in the next month I really do feel that we have to curve the amount of milk that he is drinking. I am not too opposed to milk at bedtime but the amount he guzzles throughout the day is more out of comfort than a real need.

This of course is getting added to the to do list that is almost as long as my arm… and I really don’t know how we are going to cut the milk down when he associates it so much with his blankie…

Any ideas would be very much welcomed as I know I have a battle on my hands.

Sometimes bedtime does feel like he is more than enough in his cot with him, but as long as he is safely tucked up in bed and dreaming, I am more than happy for him to have whatever provides him the comfort that he needs.

So for now that means blankie, Baa and Macca Pacca will be staying put right where they are, but in the not so distant future I think the bottle of milk is going to have to disappear.