The Zippysuit – for popper free parenting

Octopus.

Glove.

That’s the two words that come to mind when I think about attempting to get Bubby D into a sleepsuit ready for bedtime. Of course, a glove has only five finger-hole-shaped-bits and an Octopus has eight legs, so trying to put an octopus into a glove would be a fairly futile mission in any case. (Not sure why you’d want to do that, either…).

But in terms of a wriggly 17 month old wearing only a nappy, there’s clearly a reason why you’d want to try and put her into a sleepsuit, despite her protests otherwise – and that’s because it’s the middle of winter. So the octopus -> glove thing is a fairly reasonable mental imaginationing of how that experience actually turns out.

^ I know that there isn’t actually really a word. But I like the way it sounds.

Anyway, the octopus -> glove thing is made somewhat worse by the fact that, on top of sleepsuits generally always seeming to never have enough holes to put her flailing arms and legs into, I have a bit of a problem doing up poppers – or ‘domes’, as the Other Half likes to call them. (It’ s a Kiwi thing, apparently).

Thanks to Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, my hands are extremely bendy and not that grippy – which just compounds the problem of the nightly sleepsuit wrestle.

So hooray for the Zippysuit! It’s still a sleepsuit, which means the battle still stands…however, the Zippysuit goes on over Bubby D’s neck like a t-shirt, rather than requiring me to insert both arms prior to attempting to fasten a long row of poppers. And once I’ve manouvred her arms into place (easier as she cant fling one side of the suit off whilst I try and get the other side on her!) I just pop a leg in either side of the suit and then….zzzzzzippppppppp…

And she’s in!  It’s that quick and easy.

The 10 minute battle is reduced to a mere minute or two.

And it’s equally easy to get off as well (for me, not her, obviously) thanks to the quick zip undoing method from the bottom, or the envelope neck at the top.

Even better, its red with little stars on. I’m a big fan of nice bright colours – and, even though we’ve had it a while it’s still nice and bright and red. The sizing comes up quite big too (she’s got a 12-18 months size, and when she was 12 months it SWAMPED her), so she’s got plenty of time to use all the wear that’s left in it. The end of the zip is covered by a little zip-guard tab which fastens with velcro and despite the vast amounts of fluff that velcro in our house attracts, it’s still fastening pretty well.

Even if she’s crawling away from me as I try to get her dressed, it’s still really easy to do the zip up and encase her in lovely soft sleepsuit warmth.

Good for her, and good for my fingers, too!