Last year when Kai got his feeding tube it came with a little black backpack. Many kids who are mobile and who have continuous feeds throughout the day wear there feeding pump in this backpack. We used our backpack to hang the pump from the stroller most of the time. After a few months our backpack was starting to fall apart. There are other mini feeding pump backpacks on the market, but since Kai doesn’t wear his pack I figured I could use any backpack.
There were a few things I did need the pack to have, I wanted a separate pocket in front for the pump and a larger section to hang the bag and of course it had to be fun and cute! I saw these Skip Hop animal backpacks and knew it was perfect. Not only do they have a nice wide structured front pocket, that pocket also has a net built in net that fits the pump perfectly!
He got one as a gift for Christmas and a few months later I finally got around to adapting it to hold Kai’s pump.
here is what I did:
First I made a strip of fabric to use at the top of the pack where I would hang the feeding bag. I lined this fabric with some interfacing to give it a little more weight and strength. Then I attached some plastic resin snaps (the kind used on cloth diapers. These snaps are very easy to use and readily available at Jo-Ann fabrics). I then sewed this to the back of the backpack where the feeding bag will hang.

Next I had to make a whole going from the small pocket to the big pocket, where you feed the tubing through. I got a small piece of fabric and adhered some appliqué fusing, essentially making a ‘patch’. (when ironing this piece of fabric into the bag be sure not to touch the hot iron to the nylon backpack, it WILL melt. I used a larger piece of fabric to cover the whole area just to be safe) I made a patch for each side and sewed them in place. This was the hardest part of the project because it was difficult to get all the stiff backpack material to fit under my sewing machine at a wired angle. It’s not the prettiest sewing I’v done, but i made it work! I then made a very large ‘button whole’ for the tubing to go through.

That was it! The Tubing is fed in through the whole and threaded into the pump. The pump sits nicely in the net the backpack came with and there is still a little room for a syringe or two!

The pocket zips from right to left so i just lay the tubing over the pump to the left and zip it up. The tubing hangs out just below the zipper and is ready to be attached.