Honestly I think the most punishing part with the plushie is how slow the cameras pan. The longer it takes the camera to pan from left to right the more sanity you lose and the more sanity you lose the longer it takes to swap cameras making things just snowball so quickly.
Otherwise I think it is a fine mechanic. Maybe make it so it can't be stolen while below a certain threshold or something but I don't know if that's necessary. Or maybe could try to come up with a mechanic where the player can get one of the girls (probably Maddie or Ari) to return it to them when they stop in but that comes with a cost.