Friday, January 1, 2010

Review - Wubbanub


Kasia and I got to try out the WubbaNub this month and discovered that we love the WubbaNub! The WubbaNub consists of a Soothie pacifier that is attached to an adorable little animal that is just the right size for little hands to hold. Kasia’s WubbaNub was a precious little pink pony for my precious little pink princess.

To understand the allure of the WubbaNub, one first has to understand the value of a good pacifier. The Soothie brand pacifiers are the ones they give you in the hospital. We had ours for about two weeks after Kasia came home. Then I set it oh-so-carefully on the top of the car while I was putting Kasia in and (you know what’s coming, right?) remembered about 5 miles into the drive that I had forgotten to retrieve it before driving away. Since I had raised James without a pacifier at all, I assumed I didn’t actually need to replace it. Silly me. I soon discovered that for Kasia, a Soothie brand pacifier is the difference between walking her around for 30 minutes before she falls asleep (not rocking—walking)and having her fall asleep within about 30 seconds, in my arms (while I am sitting no less). It is an absolute lifesaver in our house and we never leave home without it.

The WubbaNub takes this life-saving little pacifier to a whole new level. Why? Well, first of all, the WubbaNub just darn cute. And who doesn’t want cute things for cute babies? More than that, though, it’s really a very practical little gadget. I think the best part is that it makes it very easy to find the pacifier when you need it. If you are a mom of a pacifier baby, you know how easy it is to lose those slippery little suckers. Even if you have five of them, they never seem to be easily found when you need them most. Because the pacifier is attached to a stuffed pink pony, we never go more than two minutes without locating it in our house (and chances are good that I would have been more apt to see it sitting on top of my car before driving away as well). At four months, Kasia also likes holding onto it, snuggling it, and exploring it. She’s even managed to get it into her month all on her own during car rides. It’s become a toy, a lovie, and a pacifier all in one.

The only downside to the WubbaNub is that it’s a bit trickier to clean than regular pacifiers. The pacifier doesn’t detach from the stuffed animal and I’m a bit of a germ-a-phobe. When I first pulled the WubbaNub out of the package, I was skeptical that I could get it clean enough to feel comfortable using it. But then I read the tag, which suggested washing the WubbaNub with baby’s clothes and letting it air dry. So I did. It came out clean and the stuffed animal dried very quickly. I also sterilized the nuk by holding it in boiling water (yes, I am slightly prone to going overboard when it comes to germ removal) . Because I could just hold onto the stuffed animal, this actually proved to be rather easy. Since then, I’ve washed it with Kasia’s clothes a couple of times when I felt like the stuffed animal was getting dirty. In between those laundry washes, I just wash off the pacifier part with soap and water and let it air dry. The benefits of the WubbaNub far outweigh the bit of extra time it takes to clean it.

The bottom line: We love the WubbaNub! It’s cute, practical, and fun. If a baby you love uses pacifiers, you can’t go wrong with a WubbaNub.

4 comments:

  1. my question to you on this product is that does the weight of the doll put pressure on the paci? that's probably the main reason why I haven't gotten one. thoughts?

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  2. Great question! I had the same thought at first. The little stuffed animal actually seemed to help her keep the paci in her mouth a bit better when she was really little (now she has no problem doing this on her own); I think it was the weight of the stuffed animal that *helped* her. (I'm thinking you are worried that the weight of the animal will pull it out of her mouth? That didn't happen.) At the same time, it doesn't put so much pressure on the pacifier that Kasia can't easily spit it out. The way the paci is sewn in, the stuffed animal kind of sits on her chest (or in her hands) rather than directly on top of the pacifier. But it's a pretty light-weight little animal, so it doesn't seem to pull the paci down and out. Does that help?

    Your question made me remember something, though. At first, Kasia DID have a tendency to pull the paci out of her mouth when she was holding onto the animal. This annoyed her... but only the first couple days and then she seemed to figure it out, because she never does it anymore. It was well worth sticking it out those couple of days for the rest of the benefits we get from the Wubbanub. :)

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  3. My daughter loves her wubbanubs! She plays with the animals and can even get the pacifier back into her mouth on her own now. She's 5 months old and doesn't use it too much anymore, but we always make sure we have one with us just in case. Plus, kids look SO cute with these things hanging out of their mouths!

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  4. My son had a few of these as well. It really helped when trying to break him of the paci. First we pierced the pacifier portion with a needle to eliminate the sucking portion. After about a week like that we cut off the soothe paci and my ds was able to keep his lovey which I think made saying goodbye to the paci so much easier

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