stuffed animal pacifier: tutorial

On the heart parent FB page I’m on, someone there mentioned a cute little stuffed animal with an attached pacifier called a WubbaNub.  Once I saw it I thought how easy they would be to make.  It allows for a baby to find their pacifier quite easily, which is cool.  So this is not my idea, and the process is super simple, but here you go.  You know, in case you want your baby to look like they are smooching a cute stuffed animal.

Ruby doesn’t really like pacifiers.  But I’ve found that she will take one every now and then, and so this is actually in preparation for her surgery coming up soon.  Since she will have to be fasting before surgery, I will try and see if she will take this pacifier with the puppy as a little extra comforting, since it will be familiar to her. I actually bought the puppy at Primary Children’s Hospital for her last week at her sedated echocardiogram.  And since she had to be fasting for the sedation, she did take this kind of pacifier rather well.  After she is completely done with pacifiers, I plan on taking it out and just sewing the puppy back together.  This will be a keepsake from her days we’ve spent and the days we will spend at PCH.  You can of course try and find another way to attach the pacifier with a ribbon or something, but I like that this method allows for the pacifier to be sticking out of the stuffed animal so there is less chance of the puppy ending up over her nose while she is sucking on the pacifier.

What you’ll need:
stuffed animal (probably a beanie baby will work—the brand of this one is Plushland.  It is an 8” stuffed animal)
pacifier (we used one that we got at the hospital, but I have seen these for sale at Walmart)
seam ripper
needle, thread, scissors

Grab your pacifier and seam ripper.  The great thing about this stuffed animal is that the seam was on the mouth—there are probably many stuffed animals like this, so that might be something to take note of when picking one out.  Measure the little tab on the back of the pacifier to see how many stitches you need to take out.  Then use your seam ripper and take out those stitches.  Takes about 30 seconds.

Now take a little stuffing out if you’d like.  I just pinched a small amount and took that out, but you probably don’t even need to.

Now you have a little flap of fabric.

Fold that flap down.  

And stick the outer side of the tab portion of the pacifier onto that flap. 
Now you are just going to hold the stuffed animal flap onto the pacifier tab and fold it over to reach the other side, closing the mouth around the pacifier.  Thread your needle with at least a double thread and knot it at the end.  Start sewing from the edge of the mouth part of the stuffed animal with a slip stitch, starting from the inside of the stuffed animal to hide the knot at the end of the thread that you tied.  Work your way over and once you get to the pacifier, just sew right through the tab, which will secure the pacifier into the puppy’s mouth. Make sure and sew through the tab of the pacifier a few times to secure it safely.

It’s surprisingly pretty easy to sew through the pacifier!

But feel free to get out the pliers if needs be. I did a couple times and it does help, but it can certainly be done without.

Hand that thing over to the nearest baby and it’s easier for them to get the pacifier in their mouth and keep it there.  Plus, it’s a cute toy.

Don’t look this concerned look fool you.

She was just wanting you to get a closer view.

And she really does have fun with it.

**I would for sure take care that the rest of the stuffed animal is never covering the baby’s nose.  I’m not sure what the disclaimer is on that for the real deal WubbaNubs, but that is how I feel about them.  Ruby won’t sleep with these but I would think you would want to watch that if your baby does sleep with them.