Blanket Sleeper - Variations

Variations

Blanket sleepers sometimes depart from the standard design by incorporating unusual or uncommon features. An incomplete list of these follows.

Drop seat

One of the features most commonly associated with blanket sleepers in the public imagination, the drop seat (also known as a trap door or butt flap) is an opening in the buttocks area, traditionally closing with buttons, designed to allow the wearer to use the toilet without removing the sleeper. Drop seats were very common on sleepers made before the 1950s, but today they are rather rare. (Similar drop seats were also a common feature on the traditional union suit.)

Modern versions of the drop seat often replace the buttons with snap fasteners.

Snap front/legs

Some sleepers, especially in infant sizes, replace the usual front zipper with a front opening closing with snap fasteners. In infant sizes, this opening usually forks at the crotch, and extends down the insides of both legs to the ankles, in order to give access for diaper changes. This design tends to be less effective at eliminating drafts than the zipper closure, and is most often seen on lighter-weight sleepers designed for warmer weather.

Some infant-size blanket sleepers made in the 1960s featured an ankle-to-ankle zipper through the crotch, serving a similar function.

Snap waist/back

Two-piece sleepers sometimes fasten around the waist with snap fasteners. This is most often seen on so-called grow sleepers, made mainly in toddler sizes, with features designed to extend the useful life of the garment by compensating for growth in the wearer. These are usually made in lighter material than one-piece sleepers, with an especially high waist, two rows of snaps on the top piece, a back opening on the top piece also closing with snaps, and turn-back cuffs.

Two-piece sleepers made before the 1950s often fastened similarly around the waist with buttons.

Drawstring cuffs

A common feature on sleepers until about the 1930s was turn-back cuffs closing at the ends with drawstrings, designed to fully enclose the wearer's hands. According to advertisements, these were intended both to keep the wearer's hands warm, and to discourage thumb or finger sucking. (These were mostly found on smaller sizes, but have appeared on Dr. Denton brand sleepers in sizes for children as old as 10 years.)

Costume sleepers

Occasionally garments are made that are designed to serve a dual function, as both blanket sleeper and fancy dress costume (similar to the ones worn by American children on Halloween). Animal costume sleepers are the most common, often featuring hoods with costume ears, tails, and/or hand covers resembling paws. Other motifs such as superheroes or clowns are also sometimes seen.

The use of the terms bunny suit and bunny pajamas as synonyms for blanket sleeper references the persistent cultural meme of a blanket sleeper fashioned as a (usually pink) bunny costume, with a hood, long ears, and puffy tail.

A related phenomenon in Japan, of footless, lighter-weight, hooded, one-piece animal costume pajamas, is known there as disguise pajama or kigurumi (although the latter term can also refer to costumes that are not intended as sleepwear).