Sleeping under a mountain of teddies

It's not an understatement to say that Mia loves her teddies. Well, not just teddies, soft toys of any description in fact. She's had a few dolls over the years, but she has never really taken to them in the same way as she has something cuddly. In fact, we once bought her one of those fancy dolls that cries and wets itself, and she was just scared of it.

Unfortunately we've rather got in the habit of indulging her with her collecting habits. My husband in particular got into the routine of buying her a teddy every time we went somewhere, and she'd often come back from holiday with two or three new stuffed friends. Not to mention the excessive number of visits that we've made to Build a Bear over the last few years.

The good thing is that she genuinely does love and play with the vast majority of these stuffed creatures. Harry never showed much interest in soft animals (in fact I had a successful cull around the time that Mia was born). But since Mia has been old enough to play properly they still have some lovely games with them, and Harry has brought out several old teddies that have been promoted to constant bed companions.

They both spent quite a bit of time over the summer making an enormous family tree for their soft toys, working out which ones are related to which ones (sometimes a little improbably) and have come up with histories for them. Mia has even written a factual guide to her favourite 'snow white bear', with information about its habitat and preferences.

It was getting to the point where I could hardly find Mia in her bed at night, buried under teddies on all sides. As for changing the sheets, it became such a mission to move them all out of the way and then put them all back, without sending a few through the machine for an accidental bath, that it often put me off even trying.

Things improved greatly when we bought this huge teddy hammock which fits neatly in the top corner of  her room, and although there's no way they will all fit there is a fair bit of space for her many favourites. She has a loft bed so they are still within easy reach - although I'm not quite sure how she sleeps at night with all those little faces staring at her!