Squishy elephants

Chelsea is a tummy sleeper. And she has been, probably since before she was born (if its even possible to 'sleep on your tummy' in utero!?). All medical advice is to ONLY sleep your baby on their back. On their side if you must, but tummy sleeping is a big bad no no. Puts your baby at risk of SIDS.

So after battling to get Chelsea to settle and sleep on her back for the first 8 weeks of her life, I relented, and let her tummy sleep. She was an amazing sleeper ever since, and still is.

The problem with this is that she tends to bunch her bedding up around her face while she sleeps. Two nights ago I went to check her and she had her comforter blanket totally covering her face and was really labouring to breathe. This freaked me out. So the comforter was removed. Which nearly broke my heart as its her favourite blanket in the whole world. You just have to show it to her and she wants to lay her head on it and suck her thumb!

So yesterday I decided to turn it into a nice flat cushion. I drew up a stylised elephant shape to give it a bit more interest, lightly stuffed it, then 'quilted' in the elephant features (eyes, ears, legs). This means that it won't bunch up around her face, and won't get all saggy when I need to wash it. I wasn't sure if she'd reject it now that it was a cushion not a blanket - but her reaction was more than I could have hoped for. She cuddled and stroked her elephant and got really upset when I put him back in the cot. She was actually wanting to get in there with him even thought it wasn't nap time!

I had a bit of fur left over so I thought I'd make a mini elephant comforter cuddle toy to take with us in the car/Nonna's house etc too. I'm really loving the look of them, and Chelsea's reaction to them, so plan to have a few available in my etsy store shortly.