Toddler Identity Band

Traveling with little ones is tough, especially with long layovers in airports and jet lag. This trip, I was worried about our two-year-old Jonas.

What happened if we got stuck in an airport somewhere and he ran through security or somehow managed to run away from us in a crowd?

He’s really fast and doesn’t like to sit still (see picture of him on the plane) I knew I couldn’t just put him on a leash and that he would want to run around.

As it happened, we ended up missing a flight and spending five hours in Salt Lake City after having been awake for almost 24 hours. Although I watched him like a hawk, my husband and I were really tired and watching our baby Lukas as well.

This identity band helped to keep me calm, knowing that if for any reason Jonas got separated from us, the airport would be able to identity him quickly. Being two, he was still too young to say his full name and would probably say his name was tractor or auto. Thankfully, he never got away from us, but I saw many times how easily it could have happened and I’ve heard from many people just how horrible it is when you lose your child somewhere.

Although this identity band is pretty simple on the outside, you can easily add a sticker on the inside with telephone number and address if wanted and thanks to the snap it can’t be pulled off easily by a toddler. 

How to:

1. Measure the width of your child’s wrist and cut one piece of light-colored material out this length plus about a half inch and another piece using a darker fabric twice the length plus an inch. I used white and blue for contrast and made the outer blue piece about four inches wide and the white piece about two. The blue material is leftover organic flannel, which is nice and soft on the skin.

2.  I used embroidery thread and quickly sewed Jonas’s name and birthdate in the middle of the white material. Then, I folded the white material in twice and ironed it flat.  If I had had more time, I’m sure I could have sewed it neater, but I kind of like the crooked look that came out of my lack of time.

3. Cut your dark fabric in half so that you now have three pieces of material the same length. Now sew the light colored fabric with the name of your child onto the middle of one of these strips. I sewed the white piece onto the blue using matching blue thread.

4. Put your other dark piece of material face down onto the one you just sewed and sew around all three pieces together leaving only about an inch opening. Turn your material inside out. Sew this shut by hand, or go around one more time with the sewing machine about an eighth of an inch from the edge as I did.

5. Finally, wrap the band around your child’s hand and mark where it closes. Add two snaps (I prefer the kind you push or hammer in) and your identity band is finished.

Time to fly!