Terri asked:
“Can you explain the things on his chest in the first picture It looks like something weighted, like a weighted blanket for anxiety? I sew for a NICU unit and always looking for comfort items.”
I had posted a picture of Gannon and an update on the Jo’s Country Junction Facebook group.
This picture….
These are weights. They are a heavier fabric and filled with those plastic filler beads. Gannon seems to like them. I think they put pressure on his tummy which helps with the gas pains.
The nurses told us that they often use these on kids with or without anxiety.
I had Kalissa take a picture of them. See?The “U” is filled. Then a line is sewn in the center….
Then a line is sewn on each side on the tail end. Filler beads only go in the center section of the tail area.
Kalissa took a picture with her hand so you could see the size.
Here’s a little drawing so you can see the sewing line better. Beads go in the “U” and in the center of the bottom. On the bottom the center part is also filled with beads.
I hope that helps. I think these would be a nice added item for any NICU. I think I would suggest T-shirt material or a light denim type fabric. If it was that, I think they would stand up to a machine washing.
Here’s the picture from this morning’s blog post. I think you can see it more easily.
In the first picture of this post he has two of them on him. In this picture, he only has one on.
Hopefully you can make sense of the explanation…
So nice to see him sleeping comfortably. Prayers continue.
What a wonderful thing to help babies. Definitely on my list of things to make now. Praying for Gannon’s health, as well as the rest of the family. So hard when babies are sick and they can’t tell you what hurts.
Breastfeeding can be done and not so difficult to exclude dairy from mom’s daily diet. My daughter did it… she couldn’t afford to buy cheese and much dairy but when she visited me, she pigged out on cheese and drank lots of milk and my poor grandson, also at that time, a wee babe, screamed and was in agony. We had no clue why? She went home with him and back to her non dairy diet and he calmed down. He ended up at a specialist who confirmed his dairy allergy… to the point, that as a child, if he had dairy, we had to use an epi pen on him to open up his airways that were closing. So, figure out out substitutions for dairy… and if there can be another 6 months of breastfeeding, it is so worth it. All of this, of course, is assuming that it is a dairy allergy. It means reading labels closely (who knew dairy is in hot dogs?… I found out the hard way). And it probably depends on serious his allergy is to dairy? My grandson is now 15 and can tolerate small amounts of dairy without his airways closing. So, hopefully, by adulthood, he will have grown out of the allergy completely. But he lived a healthy life without dairy. Am sure your daughter, the Home Ec teacher, can come up with some good ways for calcium and vitamin D to be included in their diet. Liquid calcium is available. I know you will gets of advice, but having gone through this many years ago, it is possible, just takes patience and education and label reading to be dairy free. A bummer at Easter with milk chocolate being everywhere!!
Interesting on the weighted blanket – and being washable? I have not heard of plastic filler beads before. I have bags that can be heated in the microwave but they are filled with wheat or rice and have a covering on them that can be washed but not the bag with the filler in it.
Interesting read on the dairy. This could be a relatively easy fix although I do love my milk and cheese. And a good excuse not to eat any ice cream. And the weighted blanket, what a great idea for all babies that are stressed.
My grandniece screamed every evening from 6 pm until 10 for the first 7 months of her life. Numerous visits to the doctors didn’t give any solution. They finally just gave her drops of something that seemed to cure it (????) Wished I had known about the weighed blanket, I would have been happy to make one for her. We are going down there to celebrate her 1st birthday. I will see if she still needs a weighed blanket. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Jo: If you get directions for making these I’d like to share with my quilt guild. We have a large group of ladies who make charity items and we might make these for the hospital. Take care of yourself!