Blanket Bear Buddy

Stuffed with Love and Practicality

• What: Blanket Buddy
• When: 6 months and up
• Why: Snuggly, durable, and packable
• Where: Amazon

We received one of these Blanket Buddies by Thirty One for my third child at only a couple months old. He immediately loved it, and snuggled the super soft fabric. We didn’t let him sleep with it until he was much older, around six months, but it has lived in his crib ever since.

Thirty One Blanket Buddy at Walmart

The teddy bear comes with a zipper down its back that opens to reveal a blanket rolled up and tucked inside, supplying the innards of the stuffed bear. The bear gets kind of floppy with the blanket removed. It will no longer sit up, but my son doesn’t seem to mind. He likes the bear both stuffed with the blanket and without. He now sleeps under the “soft blanket,” among others, every night.

The blanket has extra fabric on the corners – the same fabric that covers the paws of the bear – that make for interesting texture changes if you also have a fiddler who loves things like Taggies. The convenient storage for the blanket makes it a super easy choice for traveling, as he gets a lovie and a blanket all in one compact package.

We’ve owned and loved ours for almost three years and it still looks and feels super soft. I’ve not cleaned it with more than a random swipe in all that time, though I think it could easily go in the wash.

My older two kids love it, too, especially once they discovered the blanket tucked inside. If I had known it existed, they would probably have gotten one as infants as well, despite the baffling manufacturer’s recommended age of 3 and up. Only the zipper pull seems like it could ever cause an issue and we’ve had zero problems with ours.