Jacob and Hope Carrington

I am the mum of twins Jacob and Hope. I gave birth them in 2020 (in the middle of COVID), at just before 25 weeks. As a result of them being extremely premature, they both grew their angel wings (Jacob aged 4 weeks and Hope aged 6 weeks).

When both Jacob and Hope grew their angel wings, myself and my husband had a very limited supply of clothing that we could dress them in due to their small size. Thankfully a friend had sent me some clothes as she had previous experience of having a child with Neonatal Intensive Care. This meant that I had a few options for dressing Jacob. Unfortunately, when Hope grew her wings, I had a vest that I could dress her in (thankfully it was a warm day, so I felt that this would be appropriate for her to wear).

As a result of the feelings that I felt when I struggled to find appropriate things to dress Jacob and Hope in, I knew that I wanted to give something back to the unit and other parents. This is where the idea of the Dinky Boxes for NICU was born. The aim of the dinky clothes in the boxes is for them to be given to parents to dress their babies in when they are out of their incubators and having cuddles or are potentially passing away.  The dinky boxes contain clothes that are sized 3lb and 4lb and split into both boys and girls boxes. I buy the clothes, wash and dry them, then package them individually labelled to go into the boxes.

Up until the present day, I have stocked the box with over 1000 items which have been given to families at times that should be spent making precious memories, and not stressing about the clothes that they want their babies to wear.