DIY Mei Tai Baby Carrier

A few weeks ago was my best friend's cousin's baby shower. I wanted to make her a Mei Tai baby carrier. For those who aren't familiar with it, it is an Asian inspired baby carrier. I could've purchased her one, but I wanted to take on the challenge to sew it instead. Plus, it was great for the budget! I could have made one for my daughter, but I actually have 3 baby carriers that my mom and mother in law made for her already. The baby carriers that my daughter has are the Hmong baby carriers. They are similar to the Mei Tai, except they do not have a strap at the bottom to tie to around the hip.

Here is one of my daughter's Hmong baby carrier.

Here's how it looks like with a toddler in it. The two straps go over my shoulders under my armpits crossing each other in the back, making an X over but under my baby's butt. That X will hold her in place and then the straps will come under her legs to tie in the front.

What I like about the Hmong baby carrier is that it's not huge and too bulky to carry around. You just wrap the straps quickly around it and put in the bag and go. With the Mei Tai, I feel like it takes a lot more space. It may also have to do with the size of the panel too, but I think the double straps makes it bulkier, especially if you have to fold quickly and go. I do however think that the Mei Tai is more newborn friendly because of the bottom horizontal strap to hold the baby in. I should have taken a picture of my baby in it, but I totally forgot. I didn't take step by step pictures on how I sewed the Mei Tai baby carrier, but I followed directions from a tutorial from Hobo Mama. She sewed her Mei Tai combining styles from three other blogs.

I decided to sew a reversible carrier with a soft head rest/cover. One side is a purple floral pattern, and the other side is a fun colorful owl pattern. I added a head rest and made the straps using a light green cotton twill fabric. Here's how it came out. It came out a little wider than I would've liked, but overall, it came out better than I expected.