Baby / Toddler Belt Tutorial

Zoe’s pants are always falling down. She is tall and skinny, and when pants fit her lengthwise they are too wide in the waist. I resolved to make her pants or to have her pants falling down until my friend showed me this “baby belt” thing. I am sure it is available in the stores and online, I just never looked. After seeing the baby belt, I figured I have all the supplies needed and I will just make one myself!

The belt is very easy to make and if you are already making clothes for children, chances are you have most of the things needed on hand.

Supplies:

1″ wide elastic (I also used 3/4″ elastic as well, but it may be too thin for older kids)
snap fasteners – 2 studs and 4 receiving ends
thread and needle

Directions:

1. Cut the elastic to 11″ (28 cm).

I expect this belt to work until Zoe is 2-3 years old. I imagine for a much older child you may want to increase the size of the elastic.

You also don’t have to have any fancy elastics. Just good old white or black 1″ elastic will do the trick!

2. Turn each raw edge 1/4″ (0.6 cm) to the inside and stitch it down. I used a zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine to do this (2 wide x 1 long). You can use the straight stitch or stitch it down by hand. Or you can skip this step all together. However, the belt looks nicer with short ends finished.

3. Mark snap button placement. From one short end measure out 1/2″ (1.3 cm), 3 1/4″ (8.3 cm) and 4 1/2″ (11.4 cm). Mark each distance in the middle of the elastic. Repeat on the other short end.

I laid out my snap buttons to help me visualize how it will all come together. The 2 snap fastener studs will go on each end. The four receiving ends of the closure will go in between them.

4. Install the snap fasteners. The studs and receiving ends should be on the inside of the belt.

Voila! You are all done and ready to use the belt.

For this belt, I used 3/4″ (1.9 cm) Fuchsia Stars elastic from L’oisseau Fabrics. It will work well for Zoe while she is little, but I think it will be too thin for her as she gets older.

What if you have pretty elastic but it has pattern only on one side? The rainbow elastic from L’oisseau Fabrics I used for the belt in the photos (sadly they are all out) was white on the inside and I didn’t want any white to be visible when Zoe wears the belt. Here is what I did to remedy it:

Repeat steps 1 and 2 as above.
Cut another piece of elastic 5″ (12.7 cm) long. With wrong sides together, place it in the middle of the long elastic piece. Working from the wrong side of the belt, stitch the short ends of the shorter elastic to the longer elastic.

I used the same setting of zig-zag stitch (2 wide x 1 long) to do so. But again, you can use the straight stitch or hand sew the two together.

Repeat the other steps above. The only difference is that I installed the receiving ends of snap fasteners to the inside elastic only. My snap fasteners were not heavy duty enough to go through two layers of elastic. This way the middle snap fasteners are not visible from the right side when the belt is used in the smallest setting.

To secure the shorter elastic to the longer elastic I stitched it down in between each snap fastener using a regular straight stitch. I am not sure if it is necessary but I wanted the elastics to act as one.