My Disastrous Attempt at Raising a Pokémon Fan (And What Worked)

It was a Tuesday in 2019, I was running on maybe three hours of broken sleep, wearing a pair of Target leggings that smelled vaguely of sour milk, and I decided this was the perfect moment to introduce my then-two-year-old son Leo to my most prized childhood possession. My vintage 1999 holographic Charizard card. I handed it to him, expecting this beautiful, cinematic passing-of-the-torch moment where he would gaze at it in wonder and we'd bond over millennial nostalgia.

He shoved it directly into his mouth.

Like, didn't even look at the shiny dragon. Just unhinged his jaw and went for it. Before my husband Mark could even drop his coffee mug, Leo had also grabbed a tiny blue plastic damage counter dice from the binder and tried to swallow that too. I spent the next five minutes doing a frantic finger-sweep of my screaming toddler's throat while Mark yelled something about choking hazards and I silently mourned the now-soggy, teeth-marked cardboard that used to be worth like three hundred bucks.

Disaster.

So, yeah. That's exactly what you shouldn't do when trying to merge your 90s obsessions with your current reality of keeping a tiny human alive. We millennials are so desperate to share our childhoods with our kids, but we totally forget that the stuff we played with back then was basically a collection of brightly colored choking hazards.

Anyway, the point is, bringing a baby into your fandom is a minefield.

Why your childhood binder is a literal death trap

thing is they don't tell you about nostalgia when you're a parent. It's dangerous. All those little plastic Amiibos and mini action figures that look so cute on your bookshelf? To a six-month-old, those are snacks. I grabbed my phone at 2 AM one night while nursing Maya to Google "baby pokemon safe toys" and I kept falling asleep mid-type, so my search history the next morning was just baby po and baby po over and over again, which honestly looked like I was heavily researching infant bowel movements. Which, to be fair, I also do.

I was so tired I was trying to find safe stuff on eBay and kept hitting the wrong keys. I distinctly remember trying to search for "elf baby pokemon cards" because I wanted one of the cute fairy types for her nursery, but my thumbs were so swollen from pregnancy carpal tunnel that I kept typing eif baby pokemon cards and getting incredibly weird search results.

Sleep deprivation is wild.

When you're dealing with babies, you really have to rethink the whole approach. You can't just hand them a deck of cards. Those things are heavily coated in whatever gloss they use, and once a teething baby gets ahold of them, they turn into a soggy, potentially toxic papier-mâché nightmare. And those heavy metal coins they use for coin flips in the game? Absolute nightmare fuel for anyone who has ever taken an infant CPR class.

The starter trend that actually saved my sanity

So how do you actually do it? I stumbled onto this TikTok trend that's honestly the cutest thing ever and entirely safe if you do it right. You basically recreate the start of the video games for your kid.

When Maya was about nine months old and finally crawling, Mark set up three soft plushies at the end of the hallway. A grass type, a fire type, and a water type. You just set them down, put the baby on the floor, and whatever they crawl to and grab first becomes their "starter." It's adorable. Maya aggressively army-crawled toward a round green plant-dinosaur thing and aggressively chewed on its face.

The trick here—and I can't stress this enough—is that the plushies have to be baby-safe. I'm talking strictly embroidered eyes. No hard plastic noses. No little beads inside that give them weight. If you're buying a plush for a baby pokemon celebration, you've to treat it like a crib toy. I spent twenty minutes aggressively pulling at the seams of a stuffed Squirtle at Target while a teenage employee watched me like I was losing my mind, just to make sure the arms wouldn't pop off.

If you need a safe spot to keep the baby contained while the older sibling is organizing their massive, dangerous card collection, you need a physical barrier or a really good distraction. We started using the Wooden Baby Gym | Rainbow Play Gym Set with Animal Toys for Maya whenever Leo brought his binders into the living room.

I genuinely love this thing. I know play gyms are supposed to be these loud, flashing plastic monstrosities that play the same three off-key songs until you want to throw them out a window, but this one just... sits there. It's wood. It's quiet. Maya would lay under it and smack the little wooden elephant while Leo sat three feet away safely organizing his shiny cards. Plus, one time Leo accidentally chucked a heavy plastic Pokeball toy directly at the wooden A-frame and it didn't even dent, so the durability is top-notch.

If you're looking for sustainable baby gear to build a safe play space, check out Kianao's collection of organic baby essentials.

So what exactly counts as a baby in this universe?

If you're trying to plan a nursery theme or just figure out what to buy, it helps to know that there's an actual, official category in the game lore for this. I didn't know this until Mark literally made a baby pokemon list on a Post-it note and stuck it to our fridge so I'd stop buying the wrong ones for Leo's birthday.

If you want to know about all baby pokemon, you're basically looking at the un-evolved, infant versions of the regular monsters. Pichu instead of Pikachu. Cleffa. Togepi. Igglybuff. They're basically just circles with giant eyes. They're incredibly cute and make perfect nursery decor because they look harmless.

But the lore behind some of the parenting in this universe is wild. Let's talk about Kangaskhan for a second. It's this giant dinosaur kangaroo thing, and according to the lore, the mother carries its baby in its pouch for three straight years.

Three. Years.

My back goes into spasms if I carry Maya in the baby carrier for forty-five minutes at the farmer's market, and this fictional creature is out here doing three years of intensive attachment parenting while also fighting dragons. I'm honestly jealous of a cartoon. I complained about this to Mark while I was icing my lumbar spine and he just stared at me and said I was projecting my mom-guilt onto a Gameboy game from 1996. He wasn't wrong, but still.

Anyway, kids spit up. A lot. Especially when you dress them in cute themed outfits for a local card tournament. We took Leo to a local play event and Maya had a blowout that ruined a very expensive, custom-ordered Pikachu romper. I threw it directly in the gas station trash can. Now, I just dress her in the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit Sleeveless Infant Onesie from Kianao when we go to these things. It's literally just a plain, incredibly soft shirt. No characters on it, which is fine because licensed apparel gets crusty and weird in the wash anyway. It stretches over her giant head easily and I don't cry when it gets stained. Survival over aesthetics, guys.

Wait, is this actually good for their brains?

So, Leo is seven now, and he's fully obsessed. And I was feeling super guilty about the amount of time he spends talking about hit points and damage multipliers until we went to his annual checkup. My doctor literally laughed when I apologized for Leo bringing his binder into the exam room.

She told me that kids who play the actual trading card game learn math way faster. Apparently, having to calculate "thirty damage times two because of weakness, minus twenty for resistance" in your head in ten seconds is great for their brains. I don't know the exact neuroscience behind it, I'm just a mom drinking a lukewarm $7 vanilla latte, but his first-grade math teacher did mention he's weirdly good at double-digit addition now.

So I'm claiming it as an educational win.

For the babies, obviously, they aren't doing math. For Maya, the whole franchise is just a sensory experience. It's all about textures and colors and mostly chewing on things.

The teething phase from hell

Which brings me to the chewing. When Maya started teething, she went after everything. She almost choked on a plastic tail that she managed to bite off one of Leo's cheap action figures that he left on the rug. I panicked, yelled at Mark, threw away half the toys in the house, and handed her the Kianao Panda Teether Silicone Baby Bamboo Chew Toy instead.

It's fine. It does the job. It's just a piece of silicone shaped like a panda, but she gnawed on it aggressively for three straight months while sitting on the couch watching Leo play his video games. It kept her from swallowing plastic shrapnel, so in my book, it's a massive success. Plus I can throw it in the dishwasher, which is my main criteria for anything that enters my house these days.

As for screen time, I know the AAP says no screens until they're older, but if turning on the anime for twenty minutes lets you scrub dried oatmeal out of your hair, just do it. I won't tell.

How we finally made it work

If you're going to mix babies and your favorite childhood games, you just have to lower your expectations and secure the perimeter. Don't hand them the expensive cardboard. Get the soft plushies without the creepy hard plastic eyes. Set up a play gym as a baby-safe barrier. And maybe accept that your pristine 90s collection needs to stay on a very, very high shelf until they're old enough to do basic math.

It's messy, it's chaotic, but seeing Maya hug a stuffed Togepi while Leo tries to explain battle strategies to her is pretty much the best thing ever.

Before you dive into your attic to dig out your old toys, make sure your baby's play space is seriously safe. Shop Kianao's sustainable, non-toxic baby essentials here.

Messy FAQs About Babies and Fandoms

My baby just ate a piece of a trading card, should I panic?
Okay, deep breath. I've been there. My doctor told me that small pieces of plain cardboard usually just pass through, but you've to watch them for choking or blockages. If it's the foil kind or a big piece, or if they seem weird, call your doctor right away. And then move the binders to the top shelf. Seriously.

Do I've to memorize the baby pokemon list for my kid?
Oh god, no. There are over a thousand of these things now. I still call half of them "the blue squiggly guy" or "that weird bird." Your kid will correct you loudly in public anyway. Just nod and pretend you know what a Lechonk is.

Are the local game tournaments safe for toddlers?
Honestly, the official events are super well-regulated with background checks for the organizers, but they're boring as hell for a toddler. It's just older kids sitting at tables doing math quietly. If you bring a baby, bring endless snacks, a stroller they can nap in, and maybe an organic teether, because they'll try to eat the table.

What's the best first toy if I want them to be a fan?
A 100% soft fabric plushie. No plastic parts, no beads, no removable outfits. Treat it like a sleeping lovey. The 'Choose Your Starter' thing is great, but only if the toys are basically just pillows with faces sewn on.

How do I explain to my 7-year-old that the baby can't play with his cards?
I told Leo that his cards were "ancient artifacts" and the baby's hands were "acidic." I'm pretty sure he thinks Maya is slightly toxic now, but he keeps his stuff away from her, so I consider it a parenting win.