By Dani Jansen
As the temperature drops in Montreal, I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to keep my baby warm while avoiding his wrath at being confined by cumbersome winter layers. (I try to save my baby wrestling for important things like diaper changes.) To be able to pop him into a carrier and know he’ll be warm is pretty much ideal, and I finally found something that lets me do just that.
The MakeMyBellyFit BabyCover keeps baby snug in your regular ol’ carrier. On a particularly cold day, his fleece suit plus the carrier (and my stolen body heat) are enough to keep my guy toasty, and I don’t have to spend forever getting him ready. When we get to our destination, he isn’t overdressed. It’s awesome! The only downside is that when we take the car I have to go without my jacket as I strap him into the carrier. But it’s hardly the worst discomfort I’ve endured for him.
The first day I used the BabyCover, I made a rookie parenting mistake: I put the baby in the carrier and THEN looked at the instructions. Thank goodness the cover was simple to figure out. It was so easy that my squiggly baby only had time to get mildly annoyed with me. We were on the move in mere minutes!
The cover snaps onto the straps of your carrier with easy-to-use elastics. It fit both my Tula and my husband’s Ergobaby. There are also three rows of clips to connect the cover to your coat. They’re built like bungee cords, so the cover easily fits all my jackets, as well as my husband’s. If, like my husband, you are a human furnace, you can leave the clips undone to let some air flow in.
To keep baby warm, the bottom of the cover pulls down over their feet. When we go inside a store to run an errand, I like that I can quickly free baby’s feet to keep him (and me) from overheating. Finally, there are toggles to help snug up the fit of the cover. All of this means the cover is very flexible in terms of sizing, while also being easy to use.
The outer shell is windproof and waterproof, while the inside is a snuggly fleece. I wouldn’t wear this in a rainstorm, since baby’s head would get wet, but it works well in light snow if baby’s wearing a hat.
The only small fault I can find with this carrier cover is that it could use a hood, especially when it’s really windy out. However, a toque with ear flaps has done the trick so far. And is there anything cuter than a baby with little bear ears? Seriously?
My mother keeps asking where all these great parenting products were when I was a baby. I tell her my favourite products have all been invented by parents who saw a problem and found a way to fix it. The MakeMyBelly Fit items are perfect examples of this. Babywearing is great in winter, but who wants to be stuffing an angry baby into layers of clothing and then trying to fit them into a carrier? (Side note: what pregnant woman wants to buy a winter coat for one season? Coat extender = another brilliant idea.)
Now if only I could have my own stroke of genius idea. And the skills to create it. And the business sense to execute it …. Maybe I’ll just stick to being impressed by other people’s innovations.
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