This page is aimed at people who would like to make clothing for very small babies, those born at less than 32 weeks' gestation, and / or weighing less than 1.5 kg at birth, who are likely to be in incubators. If your baby is older or larger than that, you may be able to skip through to my stage 2 or stage 3 pages - but have a look at what I have to say here, first. Any baby in intensive care, even if larger, may also need special consideration regarding clothing.
The first thing I will say is that it's important to seek the advice of the health professionals at the neonatal intensive care unit as to what clothing is appropriate. The reality is that these tiny babies not only may have no need of clothing at this early stage, but they may be unable to wear any. They may have several wires and tubes attached, to help them breath or feed, and to monitor them, such that any normal clothing could not be used, as it would not be possible to get the necks and sleeves over these without detaching them. Additionally, they may need to be under a blue light, which requires maximum skin exposure. Or they may be swaddled in a special type of plastic blanket that won't stick to their delicate skin, but will keep them warm.
To find out more about dressing a very pre-term baby, read on.
Until I met the very pre-term babies in my life, I suppose I had little idea of the realities.
At this stage, they will not be able to wear clothing, though the unit may provide a hat.
Often, the first personal things such a tiny premature baby can wear, will be a little hat, or bootees. You can see that all of these babies are wearing little hats. You can find my free PDF pattern for a hat for a premature baby here. And I have linked to other hat patterns in this post, some of which are suitable for premature babies.
If you are a knitter rather than a sewer, there are several sites with knitting and crochet patterns for hats and bootees. The Carewear web site has this pattern for a pair of sewn bootees. This also appears in the Carewear Booklet below, as well as several knitting an crochet patterns for hats and bootees.
Probably the earliest other garment the very premature baby will be able to wear will be a simple garment such as the Carewear kimono pattern.
This has 4 sizes, the largest of which I believe is equivalent to full-term, the smallest to a very premature baby. The 'revised' version also appears in the Carewear booklet below. In the booklet, it comes in 2 sizes, 2-3 lbs (or up to about 1.5 kg) and 4-5 lbs. The challenge is, that you won't know what size to make, until you know the baby is ready to be able to wear it, and then, by the time you've made it, the baby may have grown! That's why I only ever made one little premature garment for my grand-daughter in hospital.
I've referred to the 'revised' Carewear Booklet. This has 92 pages, so you probably wouldn't want to print it all. However - be prepared alert: this booklet is not just for premature babies. It covers many patient needs, including Alzheimer's and cancer patients needs, and sadly, also some burial gowns. If you'd prefer not to deal with this, don't open it, just look at the pattern links for the bootees and the kimono I've given above. But if you are prepared to whizz past the bits you don't want, there are also many free knitting and crochet patterns for hats and bootees, as well as the sewing pattern for bootees on page 75, and the kimono gown pattern on page 70. You can find the Carewear booklet here.
They also have this very useful page on their web site with sizes and needs.
The limited range of clothes that you can make for a very tiny premature baby can seem frustrating to an anxious grandma or auntie who wants to get on with it. But you could (with the approval if the NICU) make little soft blankets. This little man is beyond the first stage now, in fact, he's home already, but he's brought his first home-made blanket (the quilted one) home with him.
Often, the unit may provided some of these, but how lovely if the baby can have its own personal things. The problem can be that everything may taken by the hospital to be washed and sterilised, so there would be no guarantee of its coming back to the right baby. Perhaps you can applique some initials, or find out how you can take bedding for laundering yourself. Check sizes with the unit. In the one we were involved with, there were two main sizes: one quite small, so it was just a little blanket smaller than the floor of the incubator that formed a layer under the baby; and a larger size that could be used to wrap over the baby, or used in kangaroo care. Most were made with soft cotton or flannel, perhaps with non-pill fleece on the other side, with some thin batting in between. If you search my blog, you'll find several example of how to make sewn blankets. But there were also acrylic knitted blankets, I remember.
You could even make an heirloom quilted blanket to go home with the baby, like the one above.
Once some of those tubes and wires have gone, and the baby has grown a little, it may be time to think of some other clothing. If so, move on to my third page on premature baby clothing - Ready for more clothes.
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