I breastfeed my seven reborn dolls – it makes people mad but I can’t help but care for them like they’re real children
By Carly Stern,
2024-09-06
A NEW York woman has admitted to breastfeeding her reborn dolls — despite stares when she brings them out in public.
Though she felt embarrassed at first, she now does it proudly and doesn’t understand why it makes some people so angry.
Kelly Cunningham, pictured, has created her own family made of reborn dolls Caters She has seven reborn dolls, four of which are pictured, that she treats like real children Caters
Unable to have children and desperate to care for someone, Kelly Cunningham , from Ronkonkoma, New York, decided to invest her time in being a parent to a collection of reborn dolls.
What started as just buying one doll for her birthday soon turned into a family of seven dolls.
The 27-year-old breastfeeds and makes formula for all of them.
She realizes that “people stare at her” until she’s “out of sight,” but she refuses to care what people think.
“The way I see it, it’s just a doll I’m breastfeeding,” she said.
“I never understood why a woman’s boobs are so sexual that it’s frowned upon to talk about it.
“If I was breastfeeding a real baby no one would say anything, so why do people get so mad because I admitted I breastfeed?”
Though she doesn’t produce milk, she still spends plenty of time doing it.
“Breastfeeding is more about the physical closeness,” she told The U.S. Sun.
“I just put Adam up to my nipple for 30 minutes three times a day and that’s it.”
While researching the reborn community, Kelly was aware that breastfeeding a doll was “frowned upon,” and regrets sharing that she does it because it makes lot of people “mad.”
She admitted to constantly being eyeballed when out in public, and at first, she felt embarrassed.
But now, Kelly is striving to achieve fame through her love of dolls.
The TikTok influencer has spent the past 14 years as a cosplayer, and though she was “pretty amazing” at dressing up, she never reached the heights of success she was hoping for.
Her interest in reborn dolls began when she watched a video about them where Kelly became enthralled that the dolls looked like “real babies.”
She takes her reborn children on outings and feeds them as if they were her own real kids Caters
However, the news that Kelly became absorbed by the dolls came as no surprise to her father, who had told her that it was normal to have a desire to be a parent in her late twenties.
“My dad explained to me it was normal to have that desire to be a parent now that I’m in my late 20s, so I didn’t really question why I loved these dolls so much like real children,” she said.
She purchased her first doll for $300 at 27 and named it Jennifer Emily Cunningham.
Kelly imagined that the doll would star as the “perfect” child cosplayer as a young Princess Zelda from The Legend Of Zelda franchise.
“I just couldn’t help but want to care for Jennifer like a real child,” she said.
The former cosplay addict dresses up her dolls, all of which sleep in beds Caters
“I can’t explain how it happened, but I suddenly got so attached to her and spent that week buying her clothes and eventually her own bed that sits next to the end of my bed in my room.”
Five months later, her obsession was truly realized when she began collecting more reborns to have her own family.
She purchased Ashley for $246 on Temu, Summer for $82 on Amazon, Adam for $69, Anthony for $99 on Amazon, and Molly for 4109.
Elizabeth was purchased for her for $189 from her Amazon wishlist.
Despite having no job , opening up her collection to TikTok has allowed her to earn a living through the social media platform where she saves enough money to expand her collection.
She can be seen comforting one of her reborn dolls as if she were a real child Caters
“I did my research with the reborn community, so I already knew that breastfeeding a doll was frowned upon in the reborn community.
“Looking back on it, I should’ve kept it to myself because I made a lot of people mad admitting it.
“I made fake baby formula for my dolls because again, with my research, I know that real baby formula in the reborn community is a big no-no.
“I remember I had the idea maybe two months ago to start making both reborn TikToks and cosplay TikToks.
Wherever Cunningham goes, her dolls go as well — and she doesn’t mind the attention she gets from her unusual obsession Caters
“With my very first reborn videos, I didn’t want to jinx it, but I had a feeling the videos would make me more viral than my cosplay TikTok’s and would at most get at least 40 likes or less per video.
“Ever since I was little, I always dreamed of being famous for something. I always dreamed of success.
“When I’m out with my dolls in public, people stare at me until I’m out of sight.
“It started when I took Jen to the park 30 minutes away on foot so I could keep losing weight.
“I saw everyone in their cars looking at me and I felt bad about myself at first, but now that I’m sharing it online, I’ll just ignore it and move on, the same goes for when I’m in public.
“I don’t care anymore what people think.”
After purchasing her first doll, she quickly realized she wanted to add to her reborn brood Caters She takes care of the reborns no differently than a mother would her own child Caters
Her reborn collection is mostly fake and stolen sculpts. The breastfeeding thing makes all reborn collectors look bad. I’m a collector but that’s my limit.
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