DIY Adaptive Clothing for Tube Feedings for Babies and Toddlers

If you are unable to find baby and toddler adaptive clothing at major retailers, is there any alternatives?

Yes! You can adapt regular baby and toddler clothes to work with Gtubes and GJ Tubes. 

Over the last 2 years, I have found some really helpful tips and tricks for making your own adaptive clothing (specifically pajamas) and also how to make regular clothing for babies and toddlers more accessible for feeding tubes.

Footie Pajamas for Tube Feeding

Most moms would agree that babies and toddlers typically sleep in footie pajamas.  It’s just a normal choice for most kids, but when that kid has a G-Tube or GJ-tube, pajamas get very difficult to work with especially if you do overnight feeds.

For infants and babies up to size 24 months, I recommend using snap button up pajamas.  I personally love the Carter’s Brand pajamas because they are super cute and go on sale fairly often.  If you sign up for their mailing list, they will let you know when they are having a huge sale or even a clearance event, and then you can stock up on a bunch! 

Baby Snap Footie pajamas from Carter’s

There are two ways to make your feeding tube extension work with this style of pajamas.

4 months old wearing snap pajamas (no footies)

First option is to feed the extension through the snaps at the waist level. (This is a good solution for Gtubes with bolus feeds overnight especially if you remove the extension after feeds)

Second option is feed the extension through the snap at the groin/diaper area. When my daughter was in this size range and had continuous tube feeds overnight, this is the route we went with.  I always had her extensions taped down across her belly and then just fed the line out through the diaper area.  This was easiest for us to have access to change diapers, prime the line, etc. (She was also a roller and mover in her sleep, so this allowed her more freedom to move her legs and not get tangled up in her feeding tube line.

1 year old wearing snap pajamas 

For kids in sizes 2T to 5T, you can actually use regular zip up pajamas and adapt them yourself! Unfortunately, I have not been able to find ANYONE that makes snap button pajamas in a size larger than 24 months, so I had to figure out a way to make zipper pajamas work.

Here is a super easy way to make adjustments that will last a long time and take less than a minute to do!

Easy DIY adaptive footie pajamas for tube feeding

Tools needed:

scissors or a seam ripper

pen

standard zipper pajamas size 2T and up 

 Determine if it is best for your child to have the Gtube or GJ tube extension to come out at the waist of the groin/diaper area.

 If the side of the waist is best,

1. Put the pajamas on your child and see about where on the side would work best.  While the pajamas are unzipped, use a pen and mark the inside of the pajamas on the side seam (zigzagged sewing) where you would like your opening. 

2. Using a seam ripper or scissors, you want to make about a 1 inch opening inside that side seam. By making the opening on the seam you will cut down the fraying of the fabric over many washes. 

If the diaper area is best,

1. Locate the oval like shape of fabric that is between the legs of the pajamas. (This area is about 2-3 inches wide and 1 inch tall and is surrounded by seams on all sides.)

2. Find the center of the oval fabric and fold the oval in half with your fingers. Carefully cut the just the tip of the fold off about 1/2 an inch. By using this center cut we have a nice clean edge and less fraying with continued washings!

Every Day Baby Clothes for Feeding Tubes

Now that your precious angel has woken up and is ready to tackle the day, what do we wear? 

Once again I went back to Carter’s because I love their prints! We fell in love with the snap rompers.  They work just like the snap button up pajamas but were more versatile like bodysuits. Occasionally I have even found long sleeve and long leg options that were similar to pajamas but no footies.

Now if you search for snap rompers you will find a lot of varieties, some with just buttons in the diaper area and some with snaps starting at the chest all the way down to the diaper area.  These are the ones you want!

Just like with footie pajamas, you can push your G or GJ tube extension between the snaps at the waist or down by the diaper area. 

Now that you have the snap romper on, the styling options are endless! During the summer time, you can leave the rompers as is or you can pair with an elastic waist pair of shorts. (I like adding shorts as an extra layer just in case of a poopy blow out while we are in public!)

During the winter time, I pair each romper with a pair of pants and a cardigan type sweater if it is a little chilly. I like button up sweaters due to them usually being bigger and that way they don’t seem too tight around the stomach.

Snap Rompers come in long sleeve, short sleeve, and sleeveless options. The boys section and the girls section have tons of super cute prints! I bought a bunch of the boy rompers because they had longer shorts built in.

Why are rompers better than regular bodysuits?

We started out with the normal bodysuits.  I have a older son that lived in body suits so we had a TON of hand-me-downs.  We tried the kimono style bodysuits with the snaps on the side and we tried sizing up on body suits, but we kept having the same issue!

They caused irritation or leakage around the site.  Bodysuits are made to be pretty tight against the body and it seemed that when my daughter turned and twisted it would catch on her GJ.  So we had to find a different way.

My daughter also had a colostomy bag for the first 9 months and constantly having to completely life the bodysuit up and over to expose her belly was just frustrating.

I actually stumbled upon the snap romper at Goodwill. I was desperately looking for an alternative to the bodysuit but I didn’t want to spend a fortune on a solution without testing a cheaper version first. I didn’t even know that full snap rompers existed, because my son was gifted so many outfits that I never really shopped for him.

I felt like a first time mom all over again, when I was trying to find a way to keep my daughter safe and still have access to her G J site.

Now not every baby will have the same situation, but I know a lot do!  The snap rompers had much more room around the stomach (not as tight) and SUPER easy access any time.  These became life savers.  As soon as I saw a clearence event or mega sale on snap rompers, I bought a ton and I bought the next size up.  

If you hold a 6 month body suit up next to a 12 month body suit, there are huge differences in size.  I found that I could buy a size up from what we needed in rompers, and as she grew there was still plenty of room.  

Everyday Toddler Clothes for Feeding Tubes

After wearing the snap rompers for so long, and starting to notice the snaps in the diaper area were getting harder to close, it was time to panic. I could not find snap rompers in bigger than 24 month size. 

So I went back on the hunt for the perfect clothing options that would allow super easy access, be affordable, and look cute. As you may have guessed, I went back to my local Goodwill.

I feel in love with a super cute and simple dress with very little seams and embellishments.  It even had pockets! I purchased the dress in 2T and was very surprised at how well it went on my daughter and how easy it was to lift up to have access to her stomach and to change diapers.

At this point my daughter was close to turning 2 and we were doing mostly overnight feeds, but she still had an extension attached for medicine during the day.  We chose to keep her extension taped down all the time, so we didn’t have to keep putting it back on and she was still having to vent her G portion into a diaper regularly as well.

I found that if I purchased dresses a size up, so in her case a size 3T that extra room came in really handy.  I would pair her dresses with either bicycle shorts or pants, and then put the vent diaper into the front of the shorts/pants to carry some of the weight from the diaper.

Now obviously, dresses won’t work for most little boys, so I have found the best option here is to pair a sized up T-shirt with elastic waist shorts or pants.  My son actually was very sensitive to wearing anything tight, so this his standard wardrobe and he doesn’t have a feeding tube.  At this age I always recommend the elastic waist shorts and pants (think joggers or sweatpants) because it makes potty training so much easier as well.  Denim jeans were just too difficult for my son to pull up and down by himself.

The elastic waist is also usually soft and doesn’t have anything that can snag a G-tube site. We tried a few pairs of pants with a fake button and it actually irritated her site when it rubbed, so now I make sure there are no embellishments around the waist.

Adaptive Clothing and Belly Bands

All of the options I have mentioned above (pajamas, rompers, dresses, oversized shirts & elastic shorts/pants) work wonderfully with a padded belly band.  If your baby or toddler is extra curious about their feeding tube extension or button site, a padded belly band acts as an easy solution to keep little hands away. Belly bands come in flannel/fleece and all cotton.