Tossing A Yucky Lovey

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Any tips on introducing a new lovey and taking away the old one? 

DD is 16 months and has been attached to this lovey since around 6 months. Uses it to sleep and more or less as a pacifier. Unfortunately, by the time she started using this lovey consistently, the company that sells it discontinued it, so I was unable to buy a backup lovey. She sucks on the ears, so it gets yucky pretty fast and it’s a nightmare trying to wash it at the perfect time in between nap and bedtime every day. Lovey really needs to be thrown out at this point and replaced with a new one that I can have a backup for to swap out when it needs a wash. 

I know it’ll probably just have to be a painful rip off the bandaid type situation. But was hoping someone else had experienced this. Any tips on how to make this less painful?