Dressing Your Preemie in the NICU

I got a message today from a former customer on a message board I belong to and it reminded me of why we make Preemie Tees. Some days the days are long or we would rather be doing other things and posts like this help me to keep going when the going is tough. I have included her post and my response plus a few other customer comments over the past two years. I think it is really important for everyone to realize that this small act of dressing preemies has far reaching effects - tiny acts produce great big miracles!

I also purchased some clothes for Mia while she was in the NICU from preemietees.com. I looked at alot of different places and I chose preemietees because I could customize her clothes--snaps or velcro; front or side opening, etc...--and there are a TON of fabrics to choose from. The different options were great because she could wear clothes with all the wires, IVs, etc.

I also liked the fact that they are made for micro-preemies. Mia didn't fit into the preemie sizes from Wal-Mart or Babies R'Us until about a month after she came home!

The clothes I bought at preemietees were the first things I purchased after she was born and it helped me feel like I was doing something normal--buying clothes and dressing my child in something that was from home-not the hospital! I felt like I was doing this extraordinary thing in the midst of feeling (at times) very helpless. It wasn't until I washed and took the clothes in and dressed her that I realized the impact it had on me. I would recommend (if the hospital and Drs. are OK with it) buying clothes for your LO. It seems so small and sometimes silly, but it really was empowering.
Kelly

Hi Kelly!

Thank you for that sweet and heartfelt endorsement! I found all the things you said to be identical to what we experienced with Elliot. My daughter Brooke was so scared of him. I knew she had to bond with him to save his life! After some praying and thinking it occurred to me that if she dressed him it might help. What happened after that was nothing short of a miracle. Just dressing him made him seem more like her baby and the walls came down and she fell in love with him. It literally changed everything. Last year I learned from one of the March of Dimes studies that they found that dressing a preemie in the NICU helped mothers to bond with their babies significantly. They are proving what you and I already know...it helps to dress a baby in the NICU! This is why we do what we do!

Thank you for sharing your story with me.

Debbie

Other Customer Comments:

I just wanted to tell you that we are very satisfied with the clothes we ordered for our daughter, Alexa. She was 1 lb 4oz at birth (26 weeker) so we have had a very difficult time finding clothing for her that was not super expensive. Your clothing was absolutely perfect for her. I have told all the other NICU Moms about yout site, so I am sure you will be hearing from them too! Thank you for giving preemie parents like us quality, affordable clothing for our tiny miracles!

Sincerely,

Heather P.

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I just wanted to tell you how wonderful I think you company is and I look forward to getting to the place where I can order something for my daughter Kariana to wear. She was born on October 13,2006 weighing 1 lb 7.7 oz & 12 3/4 inches born @ 25.4 weeks. I found your site looking for the same thing your daughter felt, some way to make this, the worst experience in my life, back into what it was intended to be, the most joyous! Thank you for your commitment and for sharing your story with other parents like me, I now have more hope. God Bless You.

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I wanted to see how your company was growing, so I \"googled\" to find you. I am thrilled with the progress you have made. I believe it is a great service to those of us who only want the best for our preemies - to be able to dress them, and treat them as \"normally\" as possible. It will help many moms out there be able to care for their child a bit sooner - make them feel like they can be the Mom, not the nurse. Way to go!

Kristin

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Debbie,thank you so much for the preemietees,they fit cooper really good and look so cute on him as well.The nurses in the nicu always comment on how easy they are to put on him especially because he likes to fight when he is being changed! It also makes it easier on me and his dad now we have have a little more"hands on time with him". again thank for doing what you do to make parents with preemie's in the nicu a little more tolerable.
Jamie,Jason and baby cooper!!

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Hi ... as a former NICU mom .. thanks for selling clothes that aren't so expensive that the average person cant afford them! I had such a hard time finding my daughter things ... and so wanted her to be in her clothes and not naked all the time because nothing would fit yet. If I have another preemie ... I will be back to shop!

Jennifer

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Hi Debbie,

I ordered several outfits from your website for my beautiful daughter, Madison. She is a 24 weeker and weighed 1 lb. 9 oz. at birth. Her nurses love her clothes and likes to tell me that she is the best dressed kid in the NICU.

Thank you for providing clothing for these tiny ones… I was very distraught to find that the preemie clothing available in stores was way too big. By chance I found your website…Being able to dress my child in cute clothing really does make me feel a little bit more like a "real Mom" to her. I hope you will continue to provide clothing options for these little sweethearts.

Sincerely,

Casey

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These are just a few of the hundreds of comments I get from parents! I hope you enjoy them. If you have ordered Preemie Tees feel free to add any comments of your own!

Why We Make Preemie Tees

From time to time someone will ask me about Elliot's Preemie Tees. The questions that I get the most from non-preemie parents is "Why do you make Preemie Tees?" or "Is there a market for that?" Depending on how the question is asked I sometimes have to fight the urge to not to stare in disbelief at some people. But then I remember how dumb I was before Elliot came into my life. The short answer to these questions are, "I make them because I want to help others like us and, yes, there is a market for them." The long answer is what follows. I hope it will give you some insight into why we do what we do. Enjoy!

When Elliot was born he weighed in at a whopping 1 lb. 12 oz. He was so tiny I hardly knew what to do. The first time I saw him I was horrified, not because I thought he was ugly or anything, I just thought he was so small and there was an IV or wire coming out of every conceivable place. It was scary! What worried me more was the way my daughter interacted with him. She seemed afraid of him. Instinctively I knew that she needed to bond with him and fast. As a struggled to think of ways to help this happened I started to think about what "normal" parents do to bond with their babies. I realized that parents basic responsibilities, when it comes to caring for their babies, are to love, feed and clothe them. I knew Brooke loved Elliot. She was also working so hard to feed him by pumping breast milk and leaving it at the hospital and freezing it at home for later. So my next thoughts turned to clothes. Where could I find clothes for such a tiny person? Was there even such a thing? Would the NICU let her dress him? I had all these questions and more so I set out to find the answers. What I found shocked me and then made me angry. I found preemie clothes alright, but there wasn't much of a variety, the sizes were very odd, the quality not very good and the prices were high.

I did buy some clothes for Elliot and it cost me $14.99 for a tiny t-shirt and hat set. I was appalled. It was thin and not very well made. But it was kind of cute so I washed it and took it to the hospital. What happened next absolutely astounded me. This seemingly small act of dressing her baby was a huge milestone for Brooke and our whole family. She loved dressing him and he looked so much better and more like a regular baby that it completely changed the way she saw him. For the first time she began to think of him as her baby! It was a miracle!! Could clothes make that much difference? It turns out it does. The March of Dimes just did a study in New York and they found that bonding occurred faster if the Mom could dress the baby and the mom did better as a result and so did the baby. It improved the overall outcome. I know this because the NY Chapter of the March of Dimes contacted me about Preemie Tees and they told me about the study. They just proved what I had already witnessed for myself!

I had been a seamstress for 25 years. I had made prom dresses, blessing gowns, baptism dresses, wedding gowns, smocked and heirloom clothes for my children. My girls never wanted me to just make a dress from a pattern. They wanted this sleeve and that bodice and a different skirt. I was constantly remaking patterns into original designs. Brooke's wedding dress is a good example. There is nothing like it. Made from two patterns and part of it I pulled out of thin air. (This is a picture of her with my other two children, Brent and Ashley at Brooke's wedding.) The point is, if I could do this I could certainly make clothes for Elliot and do it better and cheaper. So that is exactly what I did. The patterns had to be simple and they had to go on easily and come off easily, because he couldn't be disturbed and messed with like a regular baby. So...I decided the "fun" of it had to be in the prints and not the designs. Designs...simple. Prints...fun! So I measured him and set out to design the first Elliot's Preemie Tee. I kept all of these measurements. When he grew so did the patterns.

The first set of clothes I brought to him in the NICU caused quite a stir. Everyone wanted to see them and my daughter couldn't wait to tell everyone "Look what my Mom made for Elliot!" All the nurses kept telling me, "You should go into business, there is a real need for preemie clothes that fit." It was fine to do for Elliot, I loved him and it wasn't any work because I was helping my Brookie. Could I really do this all day long, everyday for complete strangers?


With this thought in the back of my mind I made more clothes and changed the designs, perfecting the construction, trying this and seeing how that looked. Elliot didn't care and Brooke loved it. I could make 4 tiny t-shirts out of a 1/4 of a yard of fabric of a cost of about $1.50 each. That is when I got mad! Most people who know me know you never want to make me mad because that is when I get enough fire in my bones that I will actually DO something about it. It was about this time that the medical bills were piling up and Elliot was approaching the $250,000 dollar baby with more to come! How could anyone take advantage of the parents of preemies like that? How could they charge so much for their tiny little clothes that they grow out of in weeks? I had seen gowns for $25 to $30 dollars for these teeny weeny babies. It just wasn't fair!! And it made me mad to think people were taking advantage of people when they were the most vulnerable. That is how Elliot's Preemie Tees was born - cause I got mad!

And I did a lot of research. it took me 6 months to get everything together. The hardest thing was and still remains the fabrics. I decided early on to use knit fabrics exclusively. They are stretchy and have some give to them and they are soft. But the cute ones are hard to find. It is my single hardest task - to find cute fabrics! I also figured out that in the NICU parents lose all ability to make choices. they have no choice over anything in the NICU and for very good reason. But the fact remains it takes away the control leaving poor mommies and daddies feeling helpless. So part of our business model was to give choices back to parents by letting them choose what clothes their babies could wear. Most of what is out there is ugly - let's face it! And the choices are sometimes between ugly and uglier. The best compliment I have ever gotten came by way of a gift card note for a customer, it said:

"A girls is never too young to be concerned about her wardrobe, hope these clothes put you on the cutting edge in the NICU!"

I couldn't have been more thrilled!! This is exactly what I was hoping to achieve with Elliot's Preemie Tees. When a parent comes to our website they will pick a style of clothing and then choose a fabric, then finish it off with their choice of snap colors. With 8 styles, over 30 fabrics and 3 snap colors to choose from the possible combinations are in the thousands! Where else can you get choices like that? So what what we are helping parents to do is to order something that is made for their baby - made to order exclusively for your baby! There is nothing else like it anywhere!! We are, literally, a one-of-a-kind business for preemies.

Our sizes set us apart too. Don't believe me - go take a look for yourself! Preemie sizes are often 1-3 lbs, 4-6 pounds. There is a big difference between 1 pound and 3 pounds! Then to make it worse, most of the variety in preemie clothing starts at 6 pounds. If you have ever had a preemie then you know that 6 pounds is almost full grown and there has been a awful lot of time and NICU stay to get to 6 pounds. If you have to wait to get to 6 pounds to dress your Preemie that is a lot of bonding time, parenting and enjoyment that has been missed. Sadly, most of the retailers just don't get it! But we do! Our sizes are 1-2 lbs, 3-4 lbs, and 5-6 pounds. I found that when I made clothes for Elliot these sizes gave him enough room to grow without being too big and he also could wear them for a good amount of time before he grew out of them. We call this sizing, "Preemie Fit Sizing", because it fits, it is a simple as that.

We have been open for business for a little over a year now. The question remains, could I do this day in and day out for complete strangers? The answer is a resounding YES! First, you are not a stranger to me, you are a fellow traveler on a similar journey and your path is my path. Second, I have yet to make a dime from my business. so your clothes are really a labor of love for me. I do love it! I love making people happy and I love making a difference in their lives. I love getting notes and pictures, it keeps me going. Someday I hope to have a profitable business, I am sure I will, but it is perfectly ok with me the way it is!

I have big plans for Elliot's Preemie Tees! We are designing a NICU dress for little girls and some pants for boys. A diaper cover is in the works too! Some people have asked for smaller sized blankets so we are looking into that too. A big project for the future is a toddler line of preemie clothes. As you know, preemies grow differently than other babies and the clothes never do really fit. Elliot is always losing his pants - some days he crawls or walks right out of them! So we are looking into that too! I don't see us doing this for a few years though unless we get a really BIG investor. If you have an idea or suggestion you would like us to try - let us know. We are here just for you! You are what matters the most to us!