Kid’s Headphone Sizer Hack
In discussing our upcoming trip, my husband and I thought we should bring Elise’s tablet along for the plane ride. We aren’t fans of plugging the kid in, but this is an entire day of traveling and we think she is going to need a focused distraction. This is doubly-true because we’ll be traveling without her Dad, so mama can’t opt for wine at noon.
Jeff researched child-friendly headphones that control the sound to “protect little ears,” but a good portion of the reviews he read stated the same thing: once the plane gets going, the kids can’t hear anything! Because of this, we opted for a pair of regular, well-rated, over-the-ear headphones and they work perfectly!
The problem? Even on the smallest setting, the headphones are quite a bit too big so I designed and whipped up this easy headphone sizer.
Elise really enjoys her Kindle Fire HDX (partner link). She is not the type to throw electronic devices, but we’ve still put it in an Otterbox to help protect it from her toddler gross motor skill level. We don’t really want to be buying another Kindle any time soon (we already have one for each member of the family).
We’ve used her Kindle to play a some preschool apps together and although Jeff and I help her through some of the more challenging parts, she completes most of the games herself.We have a couple of apps that allow Elise to have fun while being exposed to matching, memory, patterns, and even subtraction and addition! She’s only 2.5 but she counts the pieces to get the right answer – kids amaze me.
We are Amazon Prime members, so we also have access to a large amount of child-friendly programming we can download to the Kindle. Her favorite cartoon right now is Curious George, so we tested a couple of episodes while traveling on our beach vacation. Obviously, she was over the moon.
But those headphones kept falling off her ears because they were way too big!
Kid's Headphone Sizer Hack
Even on the smallest setting, headphones are quite a bit too big so I designed and whipped up this easy headphone sizer.
Materials
- I used a scrap piece that was trimmed to 14 inches x 5.25. Note: your piece might be different based on the headphone size, but I think this will work for most.Â
- I used about​ 3/4 of an inch thickness of batting because that's the difference I needed to have the headphones sit comfortably (but snugly) on her head. For this, I just cut a long piece and stacked it on itself. The piece is about 1.25 inches wide and about 15 inches long.
- Velcro 2.5 inches (both hook and loop sides)
Instructions
- Using a seam allowance of a 1/2 inch, I folded the piece in half (lengthwise) and sewed the perimeter of the piece leaving about 1.5 inches open for turning. I clipped the corners before turning the piece inside out, trying my best to poke out the corners.
- After pressing, I divided the piece into thirds (with pins but you can use anything that can be erased). I inserted the batting into the center section and then centered it within the space (equidistant from all edges). I pinned to avoid any shifting while sewing the sections. The point here is to get the batting in securely so that it doesn't shift around after you've sewn the three sections.
- I top stitched the outside edge to know where my "edge line" for each third's sewing would be and then I used my trusty painter's tape to mark the two sew lines I needed. Straight lines seem like they'd be easy, but I can make them wonky in a second so I use cheats.
- Once I stitched my straight lines marking off each section (making sure the batting was not moving around, I added the velcro by folding over the sizer on the headphones so that I didn't mess it up.
- Once you add the Velcro, you're done with your sizer!
See how it’s poufy in the center? That’s the batting tucked in nice and snug.
In related news, I hate the seam ripper.
Once you add the Velcro, you’re done with your sizer! Here’s what it should look like from the side. These owls now stay on her headphones in the headphone pouch and are at the ready when we need them for our trip.
And the true test: what does the little one think about them? Well, to be honest, she really likes the owls but doesn’t really care about it. All she knows is that the headphones stay on her head. I’m going to call it a win.
Look at this vision in pink! Can you tell she’s putting together her own outfits? Down to the pink Hello Kitty underwear and pink Princess Anna socks, this kid was a walking, talking, stumbling, Pepto Bismol bottle that day.
Oh – and forget that it was 90 degrees… She just had to wear that sweater.
What about you? Have you crafted any ‘hacks’ lately?