measurements for diy baby sling anyone?

[furrymonster]

Hia, I am wondering whether anyone has the kind of baby sling that is essentially a long piece of fabric that gets tied around baby and parent. i can find loads of instructions on how to tie the sling in different ways, but none of them say how big the material needs to be.

If any of you guys use a sling like this could you let me know the measurements and type of fabric please.

I have an 8 month old and she is a bit big for her close baby sling now, her feet dangle by my knees! I'd love to be able to carry her on my hip whilst still having hands free.

Thank you.

what is your dress size?

Mine is 19 inches width and 5 1/2 metres long. It is also homemade and fab.

I'm not much of a wrapper, but found this helpful.
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between 4.5 - 5.5m long and 50cms wide, a jersey fabric ( like t-shirt) with a bit of give/stretch.

Mark the middle with a decal / stitched mark.

At 8 months I found our stretchy wrap was really starting to struggle to cope with DD's weight - if you want to go stretchy make sure its a good hefty fabric or it won'dt be supportive enough to carry your DD comfortably for more than 5 minutes!

A lot of women will move up to a woven wrap around this time to avoid this problem - the only challenge then is to get the right weave (not to stiff, not to loose) so that the sling has a little give but holds well.

For sizes, the didymos site gives you a good idea of what length of fabric you'll need for different carries.

Have you looked 2nd hand? Prices can be a fraction of new - Natural Mamas is a good place to try.

Ooh what Tangle said is a good point. I spent something like 36 quid on what wasn't the best possible fabric in an attempt on a DIY wrap, then picked up a 5.2 m Storchenwiege for 25 quid on eBay! OK, I was very lucky, but buying second-hand improves your chance of getting something custom-woven to carry a baby for not much more than the price of brand-new fabric that is possibly not quite satisfactory

The consensus on threads I have read seems to be that you can't find any fabric as good as the "German style" diagonal weaves (didymos, storchenwiege, girasol, hoppediz etc) and could spend a lot of money trying . After reading a thread on natural mamas I tried osnaburg fabric (around £3.50 per metre) which was ok but not as supportive as the "proper" wraps I own.

The standard wrap size for most carries is 4.6m long and about 70 cm wide - but you may need less or more if you are relatively small or large.