Passing down stuffed animals to your kids - yay or nay?

May 4, 2015 11:09 PM

Husbunny has a few stuffed animals from when he was a kid, well-loved and frankly looking ratty and gross to me, but eye-of-the-beholder and all that, he intends to give them to our kids.

One of them is a giant dog probably filled with sawdust. Remember the way giant cheap stuffed animals were made back in the early 80's? It is not squishy, and the fun-fur is matted the way it gets from a lot of abuse. He has had it ever since he was a kid, it was a gift from his uncle. I hate it, it is awful.

The other is a regular sized brown teddy bear, also well-loved and he's had it over 30 years as well. Also a gift from when he was born. At least this one seems of better quality and could probably go through the washing machine.

Anyway, we are currently pregnant and I'm trying to get him to declutter and downsize/box up his vast collection of sentimental items currently filling the office/soon-to-be baby room. We have a tiny house. I'm also not keen on giving little kids old stuffed toys that are probably full of 30 years' worth of dust mites and allergens and who knows what else, and fear it will make the kids sick with allergies. But i need credible substantiated evidence either way, so convince me that will be fine, OR no, it really isn't a good idea, and here's why.

posted by lizbunny to Grab Bag (31 answers total)

Looks like it won't hurt the kid

But it sounds like there is an underlying respect/communication issue between you and your husband.
posted by GregorWill at 11:20 PM on May 4, 2015 [11 favorites]

I gave my 7 y.o. son one of my ~35 year old stuffed animals (Blinky the Baby Elephant), and it instantly became one of his absolute favorites. He loves it, it's special to him, and when I look in at him sleeping and he's holding it, it never fails to bring a smile to my face. I remember holding that to my face as a child for comfort, and the thought of my son doing the same is a wonderful feeling.

If your husband has a similar reason for wanting to share these childhood treasures with your child(ren), then perhaps the concerns over clutter/allergens are worth taking a chance on.
posted by EKStickland at 11:30 PM on May 4, 2015 [20 favorites]

I got some of my parents' toys and loved them.

That said, both need to be Eco-friendly dry cleaned and aired out for a few years before presented. You have, like, 2.5 years to get these things cleaned and ready. Do that :))
posted by jbenben at 11:37 PM on May 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh I just went ahead and distributed my menagerie between my kids at strategic moments in time, and didn't even worry too much about cleaning. I had a huge collection of old Steiff brand animals of various sizes and kinds.
My (grown) kids now have fewer allergies than do I (this is no scientific advise).

Now, somewhat older and wiser, I would probably follow jbenben's advise up to some degree and try find out about compatible dry-clean methods and the timeframes attached to them. Don't stuff stuffed animals into the washing machine (unless there's a tag that explicitly invites you to do so).

Just to make this point too: the nostalgia box that belongs to one's partner is the nostalgia box that belongs to one's partner. This is not a trivial remark.
posted by Namlit at 11:51 PM on May 4, 2015 [9 favorites]

Don't studies show kids live in environments that are too clean and too disinfected, and thus they develop things like allergies, asthma, etc.? Exposing the kid to dust mites early may not be such a bad idea. I mean, you don't want them to be exposed to lead dust or asbestos, but things like germs and dust mites aren't bad for children.
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:06 AM on May 5, 2015 [22 favorites]

Why not restuff them? There's apparently a service for this if you or your husband don't want want to do it. (I think some of the before/afters look good!)

Sounds like you'd be ok with the bear - maybe there's room for compromise?
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:12 AM on May 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

According to The Unclutterer, steam cleaning should clean the stuffed animals, and as per the above comments, too much clean is bad for your kid anyway.

So really, what you're dealing with is that you hate these stuffed animals, but your husband has sentimental feelings about them. You know how certain objects from your childhood can give you this beautiful transported feeling? Is that how he feels about these old stuffed animals? Maybe you can ask him and find out how attached he is. If he is super nostalgic about them, I'd drop it. If he is more like "I just thought any kid would love a giant dog," maybe you could bargain him down to one of them instead of two?

Also, living with a kid brings more mess and flotsam and jetsam than you know. Unless you are Martha Stewart, within a year it's likely these stuffed animals are going to be the least of your worries, whether they stay or go.
posted by sockanalia at 12:42 AM on May 5, 2015 [6 favorites]

Agree with others that they're probably safe and nothing a good clean won't take care of. I think (someone else confirm?) dust mites need fresh skin, if something is 30years old and not been cuddled for a long time, the mites have moved on.

But also agree with Namlit big time. If your husband wants to declutter, then a tip from me is to take pictures of his treasures before releasing them. This is only if HE wants to get rid of them.

If you need to declutter for your small place, start with stuff that no one loves or needs.
posted by stellathon at 12:47 AM on May 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Yeah a lot of the hand-me-down toys I got had been restuffed.

I had a few handmade things that had belonged to my great-grandmothers. I got allergies from living in the pollen-filled Willamette Valley, not the toys :D

The upside of great-grandmas who'd raised kids during the Great Depression was that yeah, you discover how easy it is to disembowel stuffed toys, wash their furry carcasses, then restuff the empty chrysalis into a new life. (toying with metaphors teehee) A local craft shop should be able to show you how, or even do the disemboweling and re-emboweling themselves. Depending on the eyes, they may also need to be removed before washing; plastic ones tend to lose all their paint in a washing machine, even if put in a pillowcase. They're pretty easy to sew back on.

I had toys from every era except my own – lots of aunts and uncles who handed down their toys; a grandmother who would sew Care Bear knockoffs rather than let my parents buy them. I loved them all, my favorites were those from my twice-maternal great-grandma though. Lost all of them due to family drama (they weren't handed to other kids), and very much wish I had at least one or two, clutter notwithstanding. So yeah, ask your husband more about them. You might get some neat stories.
posted by fraula at 12:53 AM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

My youngest son J has a bear called Fredbear. He belonged to me when I was very young, and before me, he belonged to one of my cousins (who is now in his mid-50s). He's made of some sort of scratchy hessian-like material, with only patches of slightly scratchy fur remaining. Only one eye, and his squeaker's long gone (I barely remember it). He's hardly ever been cleaned. Maybe once through the washing machine in the 70s. I'm sure my wife thinks he's an ugly bit of junk, but I know she understands why I gave him to our kids.

As it is, he rarely shows any interest in stuffed toys (never has, really). But I don't worry about dust and random allergens. My kids play outside in all kinds of muck. When J has 18 months old we caught him sucking on a snail like it was a gobstopper, and apparently enjoying the taste. Kids are (and arguably should be) filthy things.
posted by pipeski at 1:21 AM on May 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Give 'em a clean and they'll be fine. Newborns are not going to be super interested in cuddlies anyway, so you're really looking at a one year old for whom you'll already be aware if they are hyper allergy sensitive or not.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 3:09 AM on May 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm going to say this very gently: this sounds like a "you're having your first child" type of problem. Literally this and a thousand other things are totally fine, won't hurt the baby and you should do. Think about what you're saying: your wonderful husband, father of your children, has toys he is SO attached to he's held on to give them them to his children THREE decades later! There are few finer sentiments of parenthood than this. The kids will be fine, if not better off for receiving this gift. There will be no allergies. There will be no I'll effect. All toys will be ratty moments after the kids receive them. A few that have made it through one kid will probably bout last many that you buy today. Good luck!
posted by chasles at 3:34 AM on May 5, 2015 [33 favorites]

I gave our son a bucket of my old toys (cabbage patch kids, pound puppies, random stuffed what nots). That being said, I definitely waited till he was way past the 'let me examine this with my mouth' stage. He's 2 now and he just got them not long ago. They are gross but some of them he really likes. Just wait a couple of years to share them. You can toss what they don't love then.
posted by MayNicholas at 3:43 AM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

My mom tried to do this with her beloved toys from her childhood. I didn't want anything to do with them. This may turn out to be a non-issue.
posted by phunniemee at 4:19 AM on May 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I'm with you, mam! Stuffed animals are gross, period. My ex-husband was a nostalgic clutter loving person. During a fit of hormonal nesting with my first pregnancy, I broke down in hysterical sobs because there was no room for the baby, due to his crap. He had an entire room of just his things, as if he were a child living in my home, instead of an adult man. We also had a small house. He never did learn how to value people over his stuff and now he gets his stuff and I get to be happy.

Your situation doesn't seem so dire, though (at least, I hope not). Explain to him (show him the chapter in one of the pregnancy books) that women nest while pregnant and you have certain things that have to be done or you will go crazy and that is not good for the developing baby. All clutter must be dealt with, period. If he needs to, he can put his ratty toys in storage or at his mom's house, to give to the kid when the house is bigger and you are no longer in the delicate state of pregnancy.

This isn't an issue of whose right and whose wrong or even the safety of ratty stuffed animals, it's about him growing up enough to put you and the baby's needs above his own. Ask him to rise to the challenge.
posted by myselfasme at 4:51 AM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Restuff the giant dog; I did this to my own beloved giant sawdust-filled tiger. Wash the "skin" when it's unstuffed. It will be greatly improved.

I think the emotional connection is more important than any allergy risk. My kid has 3-4 of his parent's stuffed animals. He sits in my husband's childhood chair at dinner. He enjoys my husband's GIANT box of Lego. For a time, he used my childhood lunchbox. We are not hoarders nor particularly sentimental folks, but these little moments of continuity have been surprisingly important to me. If your house truly is very small, and your husband's collection is overwhelming, you can ask hm to reduce it to a reasonable, agreed-upon size. But I really disagree with the idea that the agreed-upon size should be "nonexistent", and I think the way you're describing these things that are precious to your husband seems really dismissive of his feelings about parenting and childhood.
posted by tchemgrrl at 5:22 AM on May 5, 2015 [10 favorites]

there are lots of services that will refresh the animals. this seems like a nice thing you can do for your husband which will also give you piece of mind.
posted by nadawi at 6:05 AM on May 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

If you give them to YoungBun, make sure your husband's expectations are realistic. It would be awful if he became distraught because they were ruined by your child as, let's be frank, could easily happen. If your husband attaches emotionally to stuff, he could experience that as a terrible personal affront, even though he knew, intellectually, that is was just a kid being a kid.

Similarly, what makes a kid adore one stuffed animal over another can be a mystery. My mother gave me some of her things and I... just wasn't into them. That made her distraught and so I had to play with them so she wouldn't feel bad. I felt something was wrong with me; this is one of my earliest memories. It sucked all around.

Can they be decoration occupying a place of pride on a high shelf in the nursery instead?
posted by carmicha at 6:06 AM on May 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is a really special item from your husband's childhood. If I were you, I'd keep out of his decision about whether to pass them on to the kid. This doesn't seem like something you need to vote on.
posted by latkes at 6:42 AM on May 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

I am pregnant with my second child, so I get the stress over decluttering and the panicky feelings it can cause. I am currently tearing apart our guest room/office and trying to figure out how the heck to cram everything into other areas of the house, and it is incredibly frustrating. Stuffed animals for the baby are NOT worth stressing over. Buy one of those stuffed animal hammocks, hang it up high in the kid's room, and forget about them.

These are old stuffed animals, not smallpox blankets. Practically everyone I know has given their kids at least one stuffed animal from their childhood; your kid will be fine. It's your husband's child, too, and if he wants to give his child some of his old stuffed animals, that is really his prerogative. If he has saved them for this long, then passing them on to his kids is obviously something that is meaningful for him, and its really not okay to try to take that experience away from him.
posted by gatorae at 6:45 AM on May 5, 2015 [9 favorites]

Wow, it is COLD to tell your husband to throw away beloved childhood toys that he wants to pass on to his kid! I honestly cannot really even relate to where you are coming from here...it just sounds so mean and petty. Sorry. The toys are not going to suddenly GIVE your child allergies...if they turn out to be allergic, you will deal with that then, but the toy itself is not going to create an allergy that did not already exist. (Also, if you cannot deal with gross, get ready for a fun time...I adore kids, but dude...they are super gross and you're going to have a lot worse than matted stuffed animal fur to deal with...)
posted by rainbowbrite at 7:22 AM on May 5, 2015 [7 favorites]

If you get them hot enough it will kill the dust mites. Put them out in direct sunlight for several hours on a hot day and/or steam clean them.
posted by Jacqueline at 8:01 AM on May 5, 2015

My kid hates stuffed animals, so there might be some light at the end of your tunnel there.

But if I were in your position, I would look up some resources on cleaning them - no, on second thought, since passing these on is so important to hubby, ask hubby to look up some resources on cleaning them in a safe, eco-friendly manner, and then he should do that (rather than handing a box of dusty smelly old toys to your kid).

Next, put the stuffed animals out in the hot sun for a few days (they shouldn't fade in just a few days' time). Sunshine is the best disinfectant, as they say. (Sidenote, we also did this when we bought our crib mattress).

I am totally in your camp, and that includes when I pulled out my own beloved, cherished toys when I was pregnant with my first. I ended up picking one or two things to keep because they were either incredibly sentimental, or really were one-of-a-kind. I cleaned them as best as I could and donated the rest. My kid should be allowed to make sentimental memories with his own stuff, and I didn't want to be come resentful if he didn't take what I deemed to be good enough care of things I had loved.

But like I said, my kid isn't really into stuffed animals, or other toys for that matter; he's way more into interacting with us than he is into *having all the stuff*, so here's wishing that your kid will find people more important than things too.
posted by vignettist at 8:02 AM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

We didn't have any of our parents' toys at home, but there were old-school stuffed animals that were part of the previous-generation toy closet at my grandmother's house (mom's childhood home). I did play with those animals sometimes there, but I didn't cherish them. I really did like that Mom told me stories about them. "Oh, that was the bear that I took with me the first time I went to Girl Scout camp!" "That cat used to be pink, but I dropped her in the lake and Granny washed her, and she never looked the same after that"
If they're just old toys, then no; but if they're old friends, I think it's great for them to be introduced to the kids as such.
posted by aimedwander at 8:14 AM on May 5, 2015

My 5- and 7-year old are eagerly awaiting the arrival of a box of my childhood stuffed animals. (Some of them are more than 40 years old.) Other than shaking out the dust and maybe putting them in the sun for a while, I don't plan to worry about cleaning them & have no concerns about dirt/dustmites.

What I *am* looking forward to is being able to sit with them and say "These bears were made for my by my aunt when I was born. And this was my favorite doll; her body is falling apart because I loved her so much. My other aunt made these elephants for me & my little brother." I expect the kids will form their own attachments to some of the toys and I'll end up donating others. I'm looking forward to sharing a bit of my childhood and the things I loved with them.
posted by belladonna at 9:21 AM on May 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

Your husband sees his beloved toys through the lens of nostalgia. You see old, matted, stained, threadbare toys that your baby will shred and eat. Have them washed, re-stuffed, and repaired. They won't be bad for your kid. Another option is to have them de-stuffed and framed, maybe with a patterned background or fabric or wallpaper, and some sort of creative framing.

My ex- gave our grandson some of his beloved childhood toys. Daughter-in-law made a fuss over them, then stashed them away.
posted by theora55 at 9:39 AM on May 5, 2015

Add mine to the voices saying that this is about your partner's relationship with his child and his feelings should count for more than the cleanliness of the items, which can be fixed with a pro cleaning. And yes, pretty soon you will be claiming the 5, 10, or 30 second rule about pacifiers that fall on the floor. I think it's reasonable to ask him to get them cleaned and repaired, and then wait to introduce them until your kid is actually into stuffed animals. But getting rid of these (two!) things he's kept all these years seems unfair.

Now, if boxes and boxes of his things were piled up where the baby's supposed to be sleeping in a few weeks, that would be another story. :)
posted by Pearl928 at 9:54 AM on May 5, 2015

Oh, and I re-read to see that he's having trouble parting with a lot of his own things. That is a problem. I'm pregnant and living in a small house, too. And I'm much more the packrat than my husband. I've had to get rid of lots of my stuff to make way for baby. Not my favorite thing, but baby is the priority right now. If he's not being helpful in clearing out space for his kid, that would be so frustrating! I feel your pain.
posted by Pearl928 at 9:58 AM on May 5, 2015

I "inherited" (read: appropriated) my dad's beloved stuffed bunny Jojo when he died (I was 24 then, shush). It was a wonderful comfort to have this thing to hug that had meant so much to him (NB I didn't inherit it as a kid, it probably wouldn't have survived that). Please don't make your husband throw away these childhood mementos.
posted by ClarissaWAM at 10:49 AM on May 5, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks for the responses.

I am understanding of my husband's immense sense of nostalgia and aware of the need to compromise with sensitivity to his feelings, despite how I sounded in the initial (late-night) post. But he is a packrat and we are expecting twins if all goes well - need to make room for two babies in a small room, not just one.

I talked to him this morning and proposed taking a photo series with his giant stuffed dog, which we can get put in a family-style photo frame for the kids bedroom wall. And he liked it, said that sounds like a reasonable compromise. He suggested we do the dog and bear together in a photo montage. And then we can either rehome the dog, or bag it and stow it away.

And I am ok with the bear staying around, thanks very much for the suggestions on how to clean him and possibly re-stuff so he can be more than just shelf decor. There are also plenty of other saved toys that will get passed down too, don't worry.
posted by lizbunny at 10:58 AM on May 5, 2015 [3 favorites]

I would suggest that cleaning the toys should be his responsibility, something he can do to prepare your home for your two lovely children. Can you frame it that way?
posted by Omnomnom at 11:04 AM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]