In early May this year my daughters started to ask 'can we have that for our birthdays' to every single children's advert on the TV. With only 13 days between their birthdays (plus 2 years!), its often a case of whatever one wants, the other wants too. With some smaller items we do tend to buy one each as this saves arguments! One of the items that they seemed to ask for over and over again was the Huggle buddy or pillow pets as they sometimes seem to call them.

A cute idea, the huggle buddy is basically a soft fluffy pillow that has a small square of velcro which attaches to its other side to velcro together taking it from a flat pillow to a little pet with legs! Difficult to describe! It is extremely cute and given that they had a selection of a few different pets I was happy that they could have a present the same as each other but with a different option or pet each. This makes it easier to differentiate between each other's (we often have arguments over who's item is who's even if the two are completely identical!), but it also makes it nice for them to have something different to each other. The test came when ordering the two items and trying to remember from the fairly wide selection of pets which they had each chosen. My youngest daughter opted for the extremely cute bumble bee while my eldest daughter went for the penguin (also quite cute!). The selection to chose from is quite wide though and seems to get bigger all the time as I recently bought my niece one for a Christmas present and there seemed to be more choice than earlier on in the year when I bought for my two girls. If you are interested, this is the selection you now have available to chose from:

Rainbow Unicorn, Blue Dinosaur, Unicorn, Pink Butterfly, Elephant, Turtle, Polar Bear, Penguin, Lamb, Dragon, Monkey, Ladybird, Zebra, Duck, Bunny, Puppy, Bumble Bee, Green Dinosaur, Orange Butterfly, Poodle, Hippo, Pink Ladybird, Dolphin, Dalmatian, Pig, Frog, Reindeer. Phew! Quite a selection! The selection is, I would say, predominantly aimed at girls, however boys have a small selection to chose from and I think it would be something that younger boys would enjoy too.

One thing that massively upsets me about the Huggle Buddy is the price. The prices themselves I don't think are too bad (on the advert they conveniently left out how much they actually cost, but I had an idea in my mind before visiting the website and was quite surprised when I was about right), but one thing that really peeved me off and still does, having revisited the site, is the fact that each pet is priced differently. For example, if Polar Bears, Dinosaurs or Rainbow Unicorns are your thing then you're going to be hit for £19.99, but if you are happy with an elephant or turtle then expect to pay £11.99! Even the difference between the Rainbow Unicorn at £19.99 and a 'standard' Unicorn at £14.99 puzzles me. There is absolutely no difference between the two sets except which is more popular. Most pets are middle of the road at around £14.99, which is what I paid for each of mine, but I still think this is unnecessary. I think the makers of the pillows would perhaps have been wiser to take an the average price of all the pets and simply charge that one price for each and every pillow within the range.

Apart from being a pillow, they also double up as a foldable, meaning when the Velcro is fastened together to make the pet look like it is in an upright position, items can be placed inside the pillow to carry around. I think the idea is to carry pyjamas for sleep over's etc, but my children have never taken any interest in using the pillows in this way. I can't see that they would be very secure as there isn't an kind of pocket insert or anything so it relies on the child being vigilant for dropping items and for the Velcro to hold firmly in place. To be honest I wouldn't have much faith in either.

Quality wise, they are okay. Not amazing but okay. My eldest daughter sleeps with hers as a pillow every night but it doesn't ever go anywhere as a foldable pet but it still has a few areas where the stitching has come apart (it's on my to do list to repair!). The material of the pillows feel soft and comforting for a child, but as an adult I find it quite a cheap feeling material. Design wise they are clever and very popular with children, they always get picked up instantly by visiting friends or young family members.

A good idea but a bit of a gimmick.