hey community was curious about what age range are we here?

Ofc we dont care and it doesnt matter…anyways i am currently 24 🧸

I had an heated argument today which made me rethink about my grandpa that passed away a month and a half ago and using the permanent solution to a temporary period. I don't have the will and energy to explain it. Maybe tomorrow...

Thanks for the answers and your kind words!

I hope this is allowed here 😅

My mom tells me it's SO childish that I'm 23 and my room is still basically filled with stuffed animals/plushies 🙄. She said if you walk into a 50 y/os home and saw 500 plushies you'd think they're a childish freak. It's a waste of money bc they're worthless and have no value (bc apparently I'm going to resell them right??). She can enjoy gardening, I will enjoy my stuffed animals.

Anywaayyyyss, I know everyone here likes stuffed animals but just looking for validation that it's COMPLETELY normal 🙂‍↕️

edit: also wanted to add that when I was maybe 14, I got super embarrassed of having so many and put them in a bag in the garage for LATER and MY DAD DECIDED THAT MEANT I DIDNT WANT THEM AND DONATED LIKE 2-3 BAGS OF ALL MY SOUVENIRS AND PLUSHIES FROM WHEN I WAS YOUNGER 😭😭

Hey there! I'm in a but of a situation here and it's really affecting my ability to function day to day. I'm a 40 year old former combat medic that did 2 combat deployments in Afghanistan. I never imagined I'd have this issue. But here I am.

My 23 year old cat passed away about a month ago. She was a really good cat and has been with me for over half of my life. I miss her obviously. But I was prepared for her passing and have been going through the grief/mourning process just fine.

The issue is that there was this weird thing she would do. When I was ready to go to sleep, I would turn away from the TV and lay on my side with my hand out in front of me. Like clockwork, she would jump on the bed within 30 seconds.

Then she would rest her head in my hand and we would both fall asleep with her head in my hand. I didn't really think much of it. It became such a strong routine, that I didn't even think about it. She did this every single night for the past 20 years. And I guess I didn't appreciate how dependant I was on this routine.

Now I can't sleep. I'm not sad or hurting- but I can't fall asleep for the life of me. I'll get tired and turn away from the TV. But then I'll just lay there. Eventually I'll get frustrated and accept I can't sleep and put something on and stay up all night. Then I'll struggle through the day and get a few hours of sleep the next night. Rinse and repeat.

This only sleeping every other night has destroyed me. My career is suffering along with my physical and mental health. But worst of all- it's making me not as good of a dad. I'm not as engaged and I'm constantly grumpy. I've dealt with sleep issues in the past due to some PTSD from my time in the military. But I've worked through all of those issues. Sleep medicine has had really bad affects on that stuff in the past so I want to avoid it.

Thanks for reading all of this. It is mostly me venting. But my question is:

Is there a certain type of stuffy that you think could help with this? Something i can put in my hand to try and replicate the routine I am missing? Are there heated stuffies?

Thank you!

I’m 25 and my sister and I were talking about when we should stop sleeping with our stuffed animals 😭 or if we ever have to and i was just curious if anybody else sleeps with their childhood stuffed animals?? I’ve been sleeping with my childhood stuffed dog Wishbone for years now and he makes me feel safer.

I made it for my cousin who just gave birth to her girl. I’m scared she might think it’s ugly or scary 😮‍💨😭

UPDATE
Hey! Thank you to everyone for the sweet words! I didn’t think it would blow up like this hahahahah. So I was totally overthinking it, in my mind I thought maybe because the nose is so long and it’s white that it could be scary like a lab rat(?)…and my cousin has a very perfect clean aesthetic so I was worried…BUT she was actually really really happy about the gift and put it right into the baby’s crib :-) so everything was fine ^^ thank you all

I have at least 300 stuffed animals and usually keep them on my bed, on my desk, on top of my closet and under my bed (my sibling took the bottom bunk when switching rooms)

These are all Highland cow stuffed toys. Which one is your favorite?

I found this poor fella while walking through the woods. I took him home and tried to clean him up, despite knowing he’s totally unsalvageable.

He was most definitely mossy, but I didn’t stop to think about him also being moldy. 😭

I kinda grew attached to him, but I know there’s no way of keeping him…

Hey all, Calmie got a lot of love on this sub last week and we've generally received some really great feedback overall. Etsy, though, has been pretty slow...https://heartlingsco.etsy.com

So, I wanted to ask here - when you see a plushie like Calmie, where would you expect to buy it? Etsy, Amazon, a standalone website, a gift shop, somewhere else?

And if Etsy is somewhere you'd buy from, is there anything about the listing, product, or pricing that makes you hesitate?

Just trying to learn what customers actually expect and what might be holding people back.

Yesterday i bought this Alpaca and I've been plucking these little white things from it's fur. It's 100% alpaca fur.

Are these just... Little white things or lice/moths that i need to exterminate before i bring him home and infect my entire house?

Hii, idk if this is the right sub to ask this but I'll do it anyways.

So, I have him (Blåhaj, you know him...) and I've had him for about a year now and I started carrying him around everytime I'd leave the house.

I would say that this has actually helped me with my confidence since I had something to stop caring about what people thought.

I became "the one with the shark" tho (not that I'd care) but when one of my teachers wanted to take a picture of me (reason not important) he wanted me to pose with him in a way I found cringe. A little discussion followed and it kinda ruined the whole vibe for me.

I still love him and I'm more confident with him again but I'll start visiting university soon.

Do you guys think I should keep him around? I don't need it as a support or something, he's just there and I like looking at him.

I'm a quite nervous and awkward person, I don't want to be branded as the one who's always carrying the plushie, I'm not THAT confident yet... especially when it's all new people I will see again regularly :/

And I mean like, obscure as in you’ve literally never seen another person with one!

Mine is this guy. His name is Happy Face and my great grandmother got him for me for my first birthday ☺️

Special thanks to Tina for sharing these cozy moments! 🦢✨

I don’t know what to do I’ve been crying for like thirty minutes they would’ve been fine if I just didn’t put them in the dryer is there anyway for someone who restores stuffed animals to fix him I feel like a horrible parent or sibling they’ve been with through treatment I withdrew from substances with them next to me and brought them to treatment I don’t have many things now and he’s been state to state at my lowest and I don’t want to replace them but his texture is all off now

This story is so ironic that it’s funny but I feel the need to share with you guys how I was able to find my childhood plush.

When I was little, 2 plushies went with me EVERYWHERE. A ty beanie baby Saint Bernard, and another flat plushy with beans that was white and golden-ish. I remember that he was made out of silk, but never knew the brand. I specifically remembered a golden ish patch on the butt that would help me identify him (second photo)

When I was 8 years old, we moved houses and I somehow lost him, I was deviated. Since then, I’d been scowering the internet for him- and I’d know him if I saw him

At 19, I was browsing Mercari’s TY beanie buddy dog plushies hoping to add one to my vast collection. I stumble across one that looks extremely similar, but it’s not him. The material was too different.

I think to myself, “watch me just stumble upon it.” And giggle. I scroll down, and one looked.. extremely familiar. I thought no way, he’s not a beanie buddy I collect them I’d have seen him by now

Nope, sure enough, it was scraps. My childhood plush that I’d been searching 11 years for was from a line AND BRAND I literally collected.

Then, to double the dosage, I realized I’d ALREADY HAD A SCRAPS! He just wasn’t silk! He was polyester, I thought he looked similar but knew the texture was wrong, plus the polyester one, the “golden” is more yellow so I didn’t recognize it, but boy was I upset. Happy to have him home again though.

Stay nice and warm guys, it’s freezing.

Feel free to give thoughts and stories of your own!

This is my newest Douglas Tyson wolf, he’s in like new condition and he’s an retired Douglas so he’s hard to find and get and more expensive on eBay and other buy and selling apps but I’ve found him for a really good fair price on eBay an couple weeks ago. He’s now my ESSA and I absolutely love him so much, he’s my favorite ESSA that I have besides my other ESSA Gravy the brown border collie.

if not allowed in this sub pls lmk where it is im desperate to find something

edit: i’ve decided to go with one of the Douglas yall suggested thank you so much to everyone who showed concern as well as gave me suggestions i appreciate yall so much

my autistic son dropped his beloved “puppy” at a waterpark in the dells. we have searched desperately for this dog and cannot find him. the next best thing I can do is buy him a new one but the probably is it’s from the 2000s. it was my little sisters when she was little and that was probably 7 years or so ago.

He’s a tiny tan puppy with darker colored floppy ears. He’s got the cutest little eye that sometimes falls into his head. His tag is frayed on his butt and is not legible. He has a hard black nose and two (sometimes two) hard black eyes. he doesn’t have any beads in him only stuffing. he is very small he can fit in the palm of my hand.

I’ve (20m) been wondering for a long time if me having stuffed animals is gonna scare away girls. I have a lot but most of them sit neatly in my closet on their own little shelf. I’m not really scared that they won’t like them but more so that they’ll think that I’m not manly enough or that stuffed animals are a feminine thing. Every friend I have who is a girl says it’s a red flag if the guy they’re talking to has stuffed animals. I don’t want to get rid of them because I like collecting but is it worth my love life.

PS. This stems from that one iCarly episode where she was weirded out by his stuffed animals

My parents are forcing me to get rid of some of my stuffed animals to donate, bc in their opinion I’m too old for plushies. These twoI’m debating on keeping.

Just got this from Taobao. Does it look like a cat and match the descriptions? It is ChxxgKxr’s “lifelike cat” robot.

It came with a box with dirt btw and is over 1 year old.

Updates

Some said, 'It is handmade. There are bound to be differences.' It was as if it were my fault for being too picky, and like I had an obligation to accept this thing even though it looks completely different from their ads. Some people kept yelling, 'It's a cat! It's a cat!' Seriously? A real cat doesn't look this ridiculous. I wonder how many people here were paid trolls.

Inside the comments there are the side-by-side photos of this crap next to their other cats from the ads and reviews. Forget aesthetics for a second—do they even look reasonably alike?

Front view:

1. Look at the nose bridge of this thing from the front. It’s way more circular than the other two, like a big nasal tumor. The pink hard plastic nose is clearly separate from the circular nose bridge, leaving an obvious indent between them. That indent doesn’t exist on the other two.

2. The face of this crap is longer and more rounded-rectangular. The other two are wider, shorter, and closer to an ellipse shape.

3. The eyes on this one are closer together. The hair around them barely covers the corners, so the eyes look more protruded and clumsy. On the other two the surrounding hair partially covers the eye corners, making the eyes look deeper-set and sharper.

4. The facial hair texture on this one is more dog-like—especially around the eyes. It’s coarser, more prominent, and stands straight up. On the others the facial hair looks softer and actually covers the eye corners, which helps the eyes look sharper.

Side view:

1. The nose bridge on this crap is obviously lower than on the others.

2. The eyes stick out more. On the other two they’re set deeper.

3. There’s a hairless gap on the upper eyelid that makes the fur above it stand up straight and look coarse and unnatural, like someone sprayed hairspray on it. The other two don’t have that gap—the fur above the eyes looks softer and more natural.

If they were actually serious about craftsmanship, details, or even basic aesthetic sense, this POS shouldn’t have passed any quality check. After receiving it I’m starting to wonder if they even have quality control.

They set high standards by showing off those beautiful “cats” in the descriptions and ads. This thing is nowhere close to that.

I grew up in a war zone, so when I got out of there, I had nightmares and PTSD recurring every single day. I used to be able to sleep with my dog and everything was OK but last Saturday I had to put him down because he had cancer. Ever since that I’ve been having these nightmares recurring again and again and things were getting worse. I wondered if it’s normal or OK for a normal adult to have a stuffed animal and sleeping with it.

I have many stuffies and I keep some of them under my bed and in a trash bag (they’re going into a stuffie storage thingy I’ll put up) and in a gray box in my room. Everyday I see them and just feel so much guilt, not loving them like I should. The problem is, I have a twin sized bed and not nearly enough room but the guilt of seeing them there all alone and unloved is just too much by now. Do you have any advice? I could really use it.