G Tube Jammies

When your baby has a g tube, sometimes things come up, and I'm not just talking about puke. Things you wouldn't have thought of before, like how pajamas with zippers won't really work during night time feedings. Zippers don't allow the feeding tube anywhere to come out, except up at the top by your child's neck. And you don't want tubes to be close to your baby's neck, that's just asking for a strangulation to occur. Jammies with snaps are ideal, because you can snake the tube between the snaps with no problems, away from the baby's neck. So what do you do if you have jammies with zippers that you really really want to use? Solution: you get creative.


I have several of these sleep-sack-type fleece sleepers that I loved to use during the winter when Evje was a baby. She would wear some cotton pajamas underneath, and then I would zip her up into the fleece sleep sack, and voila, your worries about baby kicking off her blankets during a cold winter night are gone. But this concept wouldn't work very well with Elsie's feeding tube because the sleep sacks have zippers . . .

So I did some research online and found a tutorial for adding a pocket to pajamas or other clothes to allow access to the g tube. I tried following the tutorial, but when there aren't pictures for every single step, and I mean EVERY single step, then sometimes I get lost. What can I say, I'm a visual person. Or I'm just really slow. Anyhow, I tried to follow the tutorial, but didn't really understand a few of the steps in the middle, so mine didn't turn out exactly the way it was supposed to, but I'm happy with the results anyway. Ta da!

As you can see, I created a hole or a pocket that allows you to access the g tube port without having to undoing the zipper and undress your child. Then, in order to prevent small fingers from exploring the pocket or a cold breeze to blow through the hole, I made a pocket flap with a button to close the hole. This way, the feeding tube can still exit the jammies, but the hole is closed off. Don't worry, the button is securely reinforced so that it doesn't fall off and become Elsie's chew toy or choking hazard.

There are a few little things that I will do differently for my next attempt, but overall, I'm pretty happy with the way that they turned out and that I didn't ruin the sleep sack, as I am prone to do when I try to get creative. I predict some cozy nights in a warm sleep sack coming up!