Baby clothes

mamatohne

I just broke out a bin of d's newborn-6 month clothes to go through, pull out what I think this baby (girl) could wear as well as all the pj's no matter what they look like. It got me and dh on a discussion. He thinks she shouldnt wear her brother clothes aside from super gender neutral things, while I'm all about saving money and reusing the blue pj's. First of all pj's are so expensive and second who is going to see her but us. We are both super frugal so it shocked me when he disagreed with me on this one. As she gets older I won't be doing this but nb size that she will wear for 1 week, save my money please.

It got me wondering how do other moms feel about this?

jj0313

I'd probably be in the middle. Did your husband say why? Id be curious. Our thoughts around gender norms are so deeply engrained sometimes they can surprise you!

mamatohne

@jj0313‌ He doesn't want her to think she was not important enough for us to buy her her own cLothes. (When she is 15 and see pictures of herself as a baby).

jj0313

Oh. Haha. Well that might be true. I was just telling my husband today that I distinctly remember spending a solid part of my childhood jealous my sister had a bow on her head in her newborn hospital pic-kids can be weird. But if you explain it I'm sure it will be no big deal. Or just ban pajama photos.

Kehlepop

tarynleann said:

@jj0313‌ He doesn't want her to think she was not important enough for us to buy her her own cLothes. (When she is 15 and see pictures of herself as a baby).

I think that is one of the most adorable and thoughtful things I've heard a dad say!
There is this amazing gently used baby clothing store that I bought most of the sleepers from. Is something like that an option? I agree that buying a bunch of sleepers new when it will just be you guys is not necessary, but I see his point

justjinny

I think it is really sweet your DH wants her to have some clothes of her own.  MH & I are also very frugal, but think its reasonable to pick up a few new girly things & look at garage sales, Craigslist and Goodwill too. Most newborn stuff is so lightly used it stays in good shape.

We have a box of neutral stuff from DS for this next LO to use too, but I kept the boy pj's packed away.  We tend to spend most of the newborn phase wearing whatever is easiest, so there are going to be a lot of photos of this LO in zip up sleepers and pjs.

meeshybee

Both my girls wear/wore DS's hand-me-downs. When they were super tiny it was mostly the pj's and pants, but as they got older "boy" shirts were fine, too. Especially as play clothes. DS had a lot of dinosaur shirts and DD1 loved dinos when she was a toddler, so I didn't see a problem with it. If we were going to be out in public, I'd just stick a matching bow in their hair. Girls are way more flexible as far as clothing options than boys.

mrsransom

I would keep the boy PJs in case you need them, but you might find some good sales on girl ones or be given some as gifts to where you really don't need them anyway   Maybe take that approach that you will only use them if you end up having to? 

We also have an older son & are having a girl, & I had saved all of my favorite baby clothes from DS.  When I went through them, I only kept the neutral stuff, which ended up being about 15 sleepers & 15 onesies from nb-9 mos.  After that, it was all extremely boyish, so we decided to donate, but I know we will end up getting more clothes as gifts (especially from my Mom & MIL).

sweetbabyrahe

We are team green, but I already went through all of the bins of DS's clothes. There are so many things I will use again in the 1st 6 months for this baby whether it is a girl or boy. I did buy a few new gender neutral things, and I know we will get more as gifts after this baby is born (especially if it is a girl.) If this baby spits up anywhere near the amount that DS did, we will be going through multiple outfits/day so around the house...baby will be in hand me downs.

FishyMom

I would use a few that I think could pass for girly boy pjs (if that makes sense). So no cars or boats and things like that.  But I suppose it would also depend on how much gender nutral things you actually have.

mander82

I grew up poor.....I am a tightwad.....I would use them.   

SweetMelissa5

mrsransom said:

I would keep the boy PJs in case you need them, but you might find some good sales on girl ones or be given some as gifts to where you really don't need them anyway   Maybe take that approach that you will only use them if you end up having to? 

I agree with this. I kept everything from DS and fully intended to use most of it for my second when she was born, but my mom and I both went a little crazy buying new stuff so except for some sleepers and onesies, most of it didn't get much use. Then, with second DD, even though I had a ton of girl stuff already, we had a similar issue. Part of it has to do with all my kids being born in different seasons and needing different sizes at different times of the year, and part of it is that my mom (and to a lesser extent, myself) loves to shop and buy things for her grandkids.

lincoln79

tarynleann said:

@jj0313‌ He doesn't want her to think she was not important enough for us to buy her her own cLothes. (When she is 15 and see pictures of herself as a baby).

Just tell her you were saving your money for her college fund or a car. lol.

I would totally re-use them. She will have plenty of her own clothes.

missnacholover

That is very sweet of your DH.  I'd maybe buy her a few of her own things but re-use the most neutral not "OMG I'M A BOY!" screaming stuff. 

wallygirl

DH and I just had this discussion. We are team green so of course it is not definite but he was ok with using DD pjs (sleep-n-plays) in nb and 0-3 if this LO is a boy. I'm not only because when they are that small they spend so much time in sleep-n-plays that all the pics of him would be in his sister's pink ones. I'm just not ok with that. I'm not saying that pink is only for girls or blue is only for boys but at that age the way they are dressed is really the only way you can tell which they are.

AnnieRoo13

I don't really see a problem in using them, but do you have a children's consignment store nearby? You could take some of the boy's clothes you have and use the credit towards the girl stuff. Or- not sure how well this would work- but you could buy some clothing dye and try dyeing them? Again, I'm not sure if this would work, but it might be worth trying on one or two.

carafern

lincoln79 said:

tarynleann said:

@jj0313‌ He doesn't want her to think she was not important enough for us to buy her her own cLothes. (When she is 15 and see pictures of herself as a baby).

Just tell her you were saving your money for her college fund or a car. lol.

I would totally re-use them. She will have plenty of her own clothes.

I feel like hand me downs are just part and parcel of being a younger sibling. I had a bunch of hand-me-downs as did my little sister. It doesn't mean she's not important, it means her parents are smart:)

MmmPopcorn

I'm team green, but I bought the cutest little blue fleece-lined baby outfit this weekend. I thought it would be nice for baby to have at least one really warm outfit right off the bat for walks in the neighborhood, and IDGAF if it's blue and we end up having a girl. I do not think blue is a girl color. I don't think there even IS such a thing as "boy" colors. Our nursery is blue and gray.

I think your husband's reasoning is very sweet, but I personally don't see a problem with reusing some of your son's clothes. Like PPs have recommended, you could always compromise and buy a few new outfits just for your baby girl.

kimberly_ann81

Pumpkin will wear her brother's handy me downs, especially the gender neutral ones.  I won't use the ones that are very boyish but some "boy" onesies and pants can go for a girl as well.

rahkitt

I purposely bought DD boy pajamas at times because I thought they were cuter and more interesting!  It was great planning because after her I had a boy and have another boy on the way.  I did put DS in some of her girl pajamas until he was 2, but it always looked a little bit odd to me.  I think boy stuff on girl works better.

mamatohne

Thanks ladies. I'm totally keeping my options open. We have a ton of boy stuff but a lot of the smaller sizes are gender neutral (ish). I do have some girl stuff too and my sister has 2 girls. there will be tons of hand me downs from them. But i dont know what sizes my sister has kept. I just remember how quickly they go from nb to 3 to 6 now to 2t. A lot of ds' s clothes only got worn once or twice so I'm ready to use them again.

MuchlyGen

We have two boys and are having a girl. I pulled out all the clothes and PJs that say things like "Little Man" or "I'm a Big Boy" or "Big Brother."

As far as I'm concerned, those are the only actual gender specific clothes, lol. I have no doubt she's going to end up drowning in pink and floral and princess... I /want/ to balance that out with some blue and some cars and some monsters, just for my own sanity. Blue's my favorite color, why should't she wear it, y'know?

She's going to get plenty of her own stuff, we've even bought a few things from consignment stores, but she's going to wear A Lot of her brother's clothes. We have them, so why not?

Also, I am especially saving the pants. I learned while working at Janie & Jack a billion years ago that girls pants are made differently - skinnier legs, less roomy butts. I think that's just idiotic. Why would a baby girl need tighter pants than a baby boy? So, I want to make sure I have plenty of roomy jeans for her to grow into, for the climbing of trees and playing in mud puddles in between the tea parties and princess gowns. 

Shananagann

First, the 'blue for boy and pink for girl' thing is more modern. It used to be reverse because it was felt that pink was a stronger color, as it's a shade of red. So take from that what you will.

We're team blue, but we intend our kids to be mostly in gender neutral clothing, with the exception of a couple special items like onesies with bow ties and suspenders for a boy (we're total Whovians) and dresses for a girl (I was a big tomboy so I won't be pressing that too much when we have a girl).

When it comes to saving money and newborns growing out if their clothes so quickly in the first few weeks/months, what on earth does it matter what they're wearing as long as they aren't catching cold? I say save your money for something that really matters, but let the hubby get a couple pairs of 'girlie' pjs if it'll make him feel better.

ColtiersMom

I see where your coming from and it nakes perfect sense but if DH told me DD cant wear her brothers nb pjs then I would take that as him saying go buy baby clothes, but I also really like to shop, :-)

JustJainey

It's funny because while I understand your DH's reasoning...when I was a little girl, I was so enamoured with my big brother and wanting to be "just like him", that I used to wear his clothes even before he grew out of them.  I even have a picture of the two of us, where I'm about four and he is eight and we're both wearing bathing suit bottoms because I refused to wear the bikini top part since he didn't have one too.

Hopin

I have Boy/Girl twins now and we were passed down a bunch of boy pjs so we have quite a few of those. My daughter wears them quite frequently. I think that pjs are completely fine to reuse.