Cuddlies, fluffies, call them what you will - when it comes to settling small children to sleep, most parents wouldn't be without one

Small children often snuggle with something soft when sucking fingers or thumb. And parents know to their cost that detaching their child from said 'transitional object' can lead to bitter tears and tantrums.

In the 1940s, child psychologists - maintaining a tradition of loftily inducing insecurity in parents - suddenly noticed and suggested there was something wrong if a child cuddled a blanket instead of its mother.

Research literature, although confusingly inconsistent, has only toyed with ascribing a disorder to children with security blankets. However, there is no evidence to suggest this is a behavioural problem and children with blankets turn out to be no more or less maladjusted than children who chucked teddy out of the cot at an early age. Referred to in academic studies as a 'non-social' object, cuddlies have been studied solemnly for years without any conclusions being reached.

A major problem in evaluating the research is the poor recollection of those involved. In a 1982 study, 24 percent of mother and student pairs disagreed completely about whether there had been a cuddly at all, and an additional 19 percent couldn't agree on what form it took.

The negative view lingered in the 1980s, and I was influenced by it when my first child was born in 1989. I was proud that she didn't seem to need anything soft and cuddly - until I noticed a bald patch on the side of her head. She'd been pulling out her hair to snuggle with. I cut up a soft old jumper and she happily transferred to that - dropping it and her thumb sucking without pressure when she was four.

So when my son was born, I allowed him to pick fluff - 'wuffies' - from his wool cellular blanket while sucking his fingers. This time, I welcomed it - I had a vague memory of doing something similar. He could be put to bed anywhere from a very early age - as long as he had his wuffy blanket, he went happily off to sleep.

A friend, whose mothering skills I respect, persuaded her babies to cuddle with muslin nappies. Most families with babies own several of these, once know as 'Harringtons' and used as general nursery mop-ups. The absent-cuddly upset never arose in that household, and the muslins could be washed regularly.

I have tried this strategy with my latest baby. He flaps his muslin about, and generally turns to suck his fingers if I drape one over his face to help him settle at night. But then, he also snuggles with the fringe on his blanket, the telephone cord, his toothbrush, a wooden spoon, toast fingers - in fact practically anything of any texture if he feels like sucking his fingers.

Studies, most of which seeming rather unkind, involved taking cuddlies away or replacing them with a favourite 'hard toy'. Children who were left in a strange environment with their cuddly to hand were far more sociable, outgoing and confident than children who had been deprived of a comfort object.

Naturally, excessive dependence on cuddlies could indicate that something is wrong. But the expression 'security object' was not coined accidentally. Ultimately, they act as an inanimate prop for a small person's forays into the outside world. More portable and flexible than a mother, they help a child make the transition from his parents' arms, to nursery, to school and eventually into the outside world. And why not? It can be a big and scary place.