Can anyone recommend (please no judgments, just suggestions if you have any) any baby dolls/loveys/stuffed animals that are safe and cuddly for a small baby and might have some features that would feel familiar to a child who is Asian and doesn’t have blond hair and blue eyes?
My kids are NOT blond with blue eyes. They didn’t have A specific lovey but liked flannel receiving blankets–any blanket would do. I tried to introduce many different loveys, but the flannel receiving blanket came closest to a “lovey” of anything I tried to offer them. They liked those flannel receiving blankets clear through grade school and just liked having one on their bed somewhere and liked bringing them on trips when we traveled!
Of course, when the child is under 12 months, there is a suffocation hazard if the lovey is a stuffed animal or something that is stuffed and could impair breathing.
There are lovely soft flat animals (think of beanies with no stuffing except in the head, and super soft fur). Here is one that I found online: https://www.yoyo.com/p/north-american-bear-sleepyhead-bunny-baby-cozy-pink-25056?utm_source=YoYo_SG&utm_medium=PDP_SG&utm_campaign=yo-sg-to-mobile&noappbanner=true&utm_term=flat%20stuffed%20animals%20for%20babies
I don’t know if it is the same manufacturer as sold in our local toy store, but it might be.
I’d go for a stuffed animal over a doll. My kids always preferred them. Newborns/little babies focus on high contrast so something black and white would be very good.
Here are some adorable Gund products. I’ve always found that brand to be especially soft and cuddly.
Absolutely fantastic! Thanks so much!!!
The American Girl Bitty Baby comes as an Asian baby…we have given that as a gift. Darling!
http://www.americangirl.com/shop/dolls/light-skin-black-hair-brown-eyes-dfn64ds
That doll is cute, @thumper1. It does say for ages 3+ though. Folks tend to give cuddly, soft toys to infants.
Check out this one.
http://www.jctoys.com/product-p/48002.htm
The Ty company does make good products (maker of beanie babies) and they have their Classic line. My childhood “lovey” who I still have 50+ years later and my daughter’s childhood “lovey” are both Ty products. They are very threadbare now and are our still loved Velveteen Rabbits. The penguin and the huskey dog here are both cute and would fit the high contrast black/white. Affordable, too.
Stuffed animal, definitely. They’re way cuddlier than a doll and not as weird looking.
Here is a plushie with a binky or a teether attached:
Disney Tsumtsums are adorable and soft, and Gund animals are super plushy and huggable.
i know stuffed animals are cuddly…and cute. My own kids got a TON of them. But the thing DD still has is her Bitty Baby…and all of its stuff. She played with it and played with it…and played with it. Not so much even the most cherished cuddly.
@zoosermom maybe the doll when the baby gets older?
Just remember. No stuffed animals, dolls in an infant’s crib. ABC. Alone. Back. Crib. No bumpers, blankets, etc.!
The Baby Stella dolls are great and come in various shades of skin/hair/eye color. Another I’d recommend, knowing how popular they are with my grandchildren, are the BlaBla knit dolls. Both appropriate for babies.
Ok true confession–both daughters still sometimes sleep with their Gund Bears. Officially named Snuffles, but re-named as Pinkus and Boo-Boo. Both had them since infancy. They are now a bit worn, but well loved.
My favorite thing to gift a newborn is a Mommy Bear – a stuffed animal that makes “womb sounds.” Babies find it very soothing and they’re cuddly.
jc penney blanket w that shiny satin binding piece has some sort of magic on babies, well mine at least.
I do have an Asian kid, and although she wasn’t doll crazy, if she picked a doll it was always the blond haired/blue eyes one. We had a house full of dolls, and all she cared about was the hair. When she was older and playing with American Girl dolls, she did go for Josefina (New Mexican), Kaya (American Indian), Marisol (Hispanic) but only because of the hair - she liked to ‘do’ the hair and those dolls had the best hair. I don’t think she cared that they also looked the most like her.
More important than ‘what’ is size. My kids always went for the stuffies or dolls they could hold. One daughter liked to crawl around with a small stuffed doll, bigger than a beanie baby, smaller than a Bitty Baby. Teddie bears were too big and too overstuffed to be dragged around.
I saw some very cute blankets with a stuffed doll/animal set at Marshall’s the other day. The blankets were sensory friendly - cuddle fabric with bumps and nap, satin binding, other textures. I thought they were very cute. One of my kids was a blanket kid and the two favorites are packed away in her baby box. Well, the rags that used to be the two favorites are packed away.
@LoveTheBard my parents gave my son something like that while we were still in the hospital-they kept moms and babies for 5 days after a C-section then-and whenever he cried the nurses would turn it on and ALL the babies in the nursery would quiet down. It was like a knock-out drug for S for the first 3 months or so of his life.
All of my nieces and both D’s still have their American Girls/Bitty Babies, and they do last well. D being biracial always looked for “dolls like her” and we found one with both the AG and BB. As much as she liked the hair, she liked having dolls that matched her skin. But she was afraid of stuffed animals for a long time and has never slept with them. She always thought their eyes were creepy and watching her. He favorite lovey for many months as a toddler was a flyer from a butcher shop we go to. Go figure.
One niece slept with her Gund “Snuffle” or as she called it, “Polar” up to and through college. They last forever. My older D still has her stuffed manatee from some Florida gift shop. S rotated his stuffed animals, often from someplace we’d traveled. I think besides his womb sound bear, his favorites where the dinosaur his grandmother made and his buffalo from Yellowstone.