Sophie the Giraffe Is Basically an Expensive Dog Toy

We have been bamboozled by Big Sophie

Welcome to Did It Work?, a semi-regular feature where I discuss something that we bought or tried with the baby, and whether or not that thing worked. This edition: Sophie the Giraffe.

I had an interaction at a park the other week that has haunted me.

Not haunted in the way that, say, watching It Follows while on uppers might haunt a person. It was more staircase wit as it pertained to some choices that I’d made. Choices I’d made about parenting.

It was about Sophie Giraffe.

Sophie Giraffe is a seven-inch-tall rubber squeaky toy that is a giraffe. She costs around $25. She has been made in France since 1961 (in French, Sophie la Girafe) by a company called Vulli and, while she’s been a staple of the toybox of le bébé français since shortly after her birth, it wasn’t until the aughts that she became a ubiquitous presence in the basket below every American stroller.

Nobody can explain why every baby goes absolutely apeshit for Sophie the Giraffe. It’s a “teething toy,” which is child development-speak for “babies put them in their mouths.” Babies love putting toys in their mouths; it’s one of their favorite activities. This doesn’t explain why Sophie is so much more popular than the other teething toys on the market.

Sophie transcends culture, class, political ideology, and national borders. More Sophies are sold in France every year than there are babies born, a fact I find disturbing. What are the babies doing in France? Are they absolutely mauling their Sophies? Should the brutality of French infants be something of international concern?

I felt a little silly asking for a $25 rubber giraffe, but I would have felt strange if I hadn’t registered for her, like everybody else knew something we didn’t. My mother ended up buying Sophie for us, and our kid, just like every other kid, loves her Sophie.

At the park the other week, Juniper sat on my lap examining her Sophie with the seriousness of a sushi chef examining a cut of otoro. I turned to the parent next to me and made a comment along the lines of: “Boy, these kids. They love their squeaky giraffes, huh?”

“Yeah,” the parent said, “My kids loved theirs too. But I’m pretty sure that babies would go crazy for just about any dog toy.”

That comment rocked me. Oh my god. Oh my god. Sophie is a glorified dog toy. What I fool I was. What fools-plural we are. Quels imbéciles!!!

Of course Sophie is a fancy dog toy. I can’t believe that I didn’t see it before. Dog toys are baby toys. Baby toys are dog toys. Sure, there are probably discrepancies in acceptable toxicity and quality when it comes to materials dog toy manufacturers use versus what human baby toy manufacturers use, but I now cannot be un-convinced that most high-end squeaky dog toys would probably make sufficient baby toys, and just about all baby toys would also be welcome additions to a dog’s toy pile.

I accidentally tested this theory this weekend, when I took Juniper to a place called The Americana. For people who don’t live in or around Glendale, California, The Americana is a shopping center that is sort of like what would happen if a mall, a wedding reception, and Disneyland had a baby. It smells like melted ice cream at all times. There’s a Barnes & Noble, but also an old fashioned train that goes approximately five miles per hour and only carries passengers the 800 or so feet from one end of the mall to the other. There’s a Sephora and also a water fountain surrounded by an astroturf “lawn,” and Frank Sinatra is always playing. If it’s hot outside, it’s crowded. And it’s almost always hot in Glendale.

Juniper loves that place, because as a Scorpio with a Sagittarius moon, she loves chaos.

Anyway, we were there at a time of day that was precarious, as we were coming up against her nap time. I had forgotten a toy. Looking for something to keep her delighted screaming to veer into angry screaming, I handed her an unused squeaky ball that I’m pretty sure was supposed to be for the dog. And what do you know? She was as mesmerized as if she’d been handed her actual Sophie.

This is anecdotal so far, but I’ll continue to investigate. My working theory is that we, as parents, have been bamboozled by Big Sophie, and the bamboozling has persevered for generations.

Of course Sophie works. It's a great toy. But now I'm stuck on a few questions and one honest answer: How many other baby toys are simply dog toys with non-toxic paint and a markup? If ever have a second child, will I skip the Sophie and go straight to a squeaky bone? If it were given a name and some painted on eyes and marketed as Pierre L’Os, the European teething toy that is an international sensation, I might.

Image via Shutterstock