I made Brinda a weighted blanket, hoping that it would help her calm down a bit. I've worked with kids who use them, to kind of organize their senses, and I've always wanted one myself. But because they're "theraputic", they're wicked expensive. Luckily, the magical web knows all, and I found some directions for making them myself.
I let Brinda pick out the fabric, and bound it with blanket binding. Blanket binding can bite me. It seems so simple, and looks so lovely on the baby blankets Kathy made for us. But we're not friends. The weight is from plastic pellets for weighting doll butts and such. It's not as heavy as a dentist's bib, which is what I'd like, but it's about 5 pounds, which is right for Brinda's weight.
For the record, it doesn't seem to work. Maybe I can use it...
5 comments:
Nice job! I'm intrigued. I wouldn't mind borrowing it sometime.
Did you quilt it after you put the pellets in? How does that work? How do you make sure they don't all pile in one spot? Or do they?
Sorry about the binding. I'll file that away as something to be avoided.
I hope it starts to work! I read recently that swaddling can help sometimes. I suck at that even on infants, so trying it on a preschooler will not work for me.
It looks great. I think a weighted blanket would be great. Were it not for your description of the blanket binding I would think about making one myself.
I think it looks great, and I love the idea!
Where do you get the doll butt pellets? Could you make this with rice? I have worked with the binding without trouble... What happened for you?
My 15 yr old neice wants a weighted blanket... Where did yiu find your directions?
My experience in preschool... Swaddeling works great... I have also used it with Gabriel and he fell asleep in seconds!
Here is where I found directions, more or less: http://mommysews.blogspot.com/2007/08/sew-your-own-weighted-blanket.html
I kind of combined a few. But the short story is, I sewed columns, put some beads in, sewed across, and then added more beads, sewed, etc. So it looks quilted, but it really holds in the weight, and keeps it from moving all to one end of the blanket.
The beads were from Michaels, for doll-making. You can apparently use beans or rice, but then you can't wash it. Big problem for a 3-year-old, not so bad for a 15-year-old.
I'll have to try swaddling Brinda. I'm finally getting the hang of it with Neave, maybe I can tackle (probably literally) Brinda too.
Post a Comment