It may not have a face or a tail, but it’ll get you through in a pinch.

We all love the Wubbanubs.

Who knows how many wee ones have sucked themselves to sleep on those cute little animals attached to pacifiers? It’s a stuffed animal, it’s a pacifier, it’s a win/win!

Until…uh oh! Wubbanub falls out of the grocery cart, or Mommy can’t find it in time to bring it to Nana’s. Then what?

I whipped up this improv “Wubbanub” today for my grandson. I grabbed a pacifier I already had on hand, then took a silk handkerchief that had belonged to my mother and ran it through the loop at the pacifier’s end until I had equal lengths of fabric on either side.  As you can see above, I kept tying knots until I came to the ends.

Our little man took to it immediately. The silk was soft and the knots were interesting to feel. I had the added satisfaction of knowing he was holding a little bit of his great-grandmother, who would have loved him to the moon and back.

This can be done with any soft fabric (a baby washcloth or dishtowel) as long as you can pull it through the pacifier’s end loop. In fact, I did this many times for my daughter twenty-some years before Wubbanubs hit the market. It’s a grandmother’s trick from ages back.

Safety warning!

This is an in-a-pinch hack, not a final solution. Unless you stitch the knots to keep them permanently tied, do not leave the baby unsupervised with this make-shift toy. We don’t want a little one to untie the knots, suck, swallow, and choke on a loose end of fabric. Keep an eye on your sweetie until she’s asleep, then remove the pacifier.