Letting go of well-worn lovies, frayed baby blankets and favorite stuffed animals from childhood is considered part of growing up. But more adults are now — literally — embracing them, saying that cuddling up with stuffies is soothing and makes it easier to get into a more comfortable sleeping position.

Jill Provost is one of them. She didn’t have sleeping with a stuffed animal at 50 on her bingo card, but it happened. When her son was born 10 years ago, her husband’s cousin sent them a stockpile of stuffed animals from the toy shop where she worked. “At the time, I was sleeping with a furry white Brookstone pillow,” she tells Yahoo Life. “I sleep on my stomach and need something to prop up my shoulders and chest to avoid straining my neck.” Provost can’t remember why she eventually stopped using the pillow, but she does remember digging through her son’s bin of stuffed animals to find something else to sleep with — and that’s when she found Moose. “He seemed the right size and heft and was super soft,” she says.

“For a while I was embarrassed to be sleeping with a stuffy,” she says, “and I would hide him if we had company. It was more of a utilitarian choice at first, but admittedly I’ve grown attached to him. I don’t need to take him with me when I travel, and I don’t miss him, but if I lose him in the sheets in the middle of the night, it can take longer to fall asleep without Moose.”

Provost is far from alone. One survey (conducted in part by Build-A-Bear, which has a vested interest in stuffies) found that 40% of adults sleep with stuffed animals. Sales of stuffed toys have exploded — from $1.35 billion in early 2021 to $2.15 billion in the first half of 2024 — and it’s not just parents clamoring to get them for their kids. Adults are buying them for themselves. People 18 to 24, for example, are driving the majority of sales for Squishmallows, which launched in 2017 but really took off during the pandemic. And it’s not just because it’s a collectible. As one toy expert put it: “There’s a real comfort in squishing them.”