A word of warning to all baby-gift buyers: don’t buy just one blankie. Play it safe and buy at least three. If you have never had a baby, you may not understand how critical this advice is…but experienced parents everywhere are nodding their heads in agreement.

You will never be able to predict which of your young child’s possessions will become their most beloved. But often, it’s one of the receiving blankets that you were given when they were born. During the first few months of their lives, babies are wrapped in these blankets for warmth and security. But somewhere along the line, they become something more than just practical pieces of cloth.

The attachment will probably not become evident until your child is old enough to talk…one day they will start demanding that the blankie accompany them on every outing, and balk when you try to sneak it into the wash. Naps and bedtime will become impossible if the blanket is not available.

By the time we discovered that my daughter’s soft and worn pale pink blanket had become her most precious possession, it was no longer possible to find an exact duplicate. We had to settle first for an almost-identical blanket, and then later for a blanket that was much less than identical. In her eyes, the two replacements never quite measured up to the original, but they served as stand-ins for laundry time or when the original was temporarily lost.

Don’t think that you will be able to reason with your child if his coveted blanket is permanently damaged or lost. There is no reasoning with a toddler. And don’t expect your child to be responsible for the care and keeping of their blanket, because babies don’t understand cause and effect. If they teeth on the blanket until it is threadbare, or toss it under a restaurant high chair to be left behind, they will not appreciate that you cannot make it reappear.

One night, our toddler daughter threw her precious pink blanket into the fountain at a restaurant. Though not lost, the blanket was soggy, cold and dirty – not the kind of thing you want your child to snuggle with – but we didn’t have an extra blanket with us, and exposing her to a wet cloth that had been rinsed out under a bathroom faucet seemed better than listening to a toddler sob through dinner. After several close calls, our family mantra became “Do we have the blankie?” We learned to carry a spare when we traveled, just in case some tragic accident befell the original.

Take it from someone who learned the hard way - buy blankets in multiples and explain to new parents that they need to rotate the blankets frequently, so that they are never too dissimilar. It could save them a lot of grief in the long run.

Contributed by Laura Weaver