Product Spotlight Series: Baby Apparel

galactickates · August 2018

Lets talk baby clothes!

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(Also just a reminder that if anyone wants to revive old threads to ask questions as we get further along and it becomes more likely everyone is doing further research, please feel free!)

ladystout08 · August 2018

Nightgowns are better than any other jammies for some MOTN changes.

galactickates · August 2018

I've been looking at sleep sacks for that reason but they are all soooooo ugly!

pttomato · August 2018

Snaps are super annoying in the middle of the night. Somehow the crotch ones never seem match up.

BitterBetty12 · August 2018

@galactickates I promise you in the middle of the night you won't care what the sleep sack looks like - you'll just be damn happy you don't have to unzip / unbutton and put it all back together again 100 times. THAT being said. Newborn pajamas are SOOOO cute and I would be lying if I didn't say that I primarily had those even though the gowns are sooooo much easier.

sweetyjenj · August 2018

I didn't like the open bottom gowns because her feet would always poke out of them when she kicked and I was afraid she'd get drafty (winter baby), even though they were easy, we had like 10 and only used them like twice.

Oddly, I liked the snap pajamas because I could unsnap just the bottom to change a diaper without having to unzip all the way from the top, which I was always afraid would wake her up even more. DH hated the snaps, though, and I loved the zippers much more once she got bigger, since they're easier to zip up again while your infant is squirming away.

I think she LIVED in pajamas with onsies underneath for the first like 3 months. There was no reason to put her in an outfit while at home, even when people came to visit we had her in cuter pajamas (babies in Pjs are so cute IMO). There was no reason to put her in an outfit when we went to the stores, because she'd be in her infant carrier anyway with the winter cover on the carrier, so no one could see her clothes anyway. She was in a cute outfit when we visited other peoples homes, but this was rare in those very early months. Once she started daycare then I had her in outfits more often.

emmaaa · August 2018

I hated gowns also. They basically would ride up to her armpits. They also seemed big on my tiny baby and her shoulders came out. We did zippy sleepers inside a sleepsack/swaddle. Once it got warmer, we just did onesies with the sleepsack

emmaaa · August 2018

Keep the tags on clothes in bigger sizes. DD wore sizes much longer than expected (and some babies wear sizes for a short amount of time) so some outfits didn't match up with the season. If you leave tags on you may be able to return or exchange it and if you can't, give them as a gift.

Also, don't only pay attention to sizes. Sizes will vary between each brand. I remember going to grab a 3 month onesie that was the same size as a newborn onesie and my daughter could no longer wear it. So instead of only sorting your clothes by size (in the tag), sort by how the look and fit to get to use the clothes as much as possible.

Dresses suck for baby girls the first year of life lol. The ride up when you are holding them. I preferred rompers and sunsuits during dress season.

pttomato · August 2018

emmaaa said:

Dresses suck for baby girls the first year of life lol. The ride up when you are holding them. I preferred rompers and sunsuits during dress season.

Yes. Particularly in the crawling/early walking stage, when their knees/feet get caught on them.

emmaaa · August 2018

pttomato said:

emmaaa said:

Dresses suck for baby girls the first year of life lol. The ride up when you are holding them. I preferred rompers and sunsuits during dress season.

Yes. Particularly in the crawling/early walking stage, when their knees/feet get caught on them.

Yep. I used a hair tie on those occasions to tie it up lol

saltedcaramel518 · August 2018

Pajamas/onesies/sleep n plays for the first few months. The tiny, cute outfits are hard to resist, but putting anything slightly complicated on a newborn is like trying to dress a feral cat. Also, you’re going to be holding them all the time, so you’ll want something that feels soft.

I heard from several people to not get anything in newborn size. DS weighed 8.5 pounds when he was born, and he was in NB for a few weeks.

Do NOT take the tags off and wash all the clothes. There will probably be a lot your child won’t end up wearing for various reasons.

To add to that, I had several people tell me to prepare to have to change DS’s clothes several times a day because of spit up/poop. DS rarely spit up and didn’t have that many blowouts, so I didn’t change his clothes all that often.

DH was team zip up sleeper, but I didn’t hate the snaps. DS slept in a Halo swaddle, and I would have to completely undo the swaddle to do a diaper change with a zip up sleeper; not the case with snaps.

Favorite places to buy clothes:

Target

Old Navy

Gap

June and January

Primary

Kickee Pants (this is a brand of crazy soft clothes that are expensive for kids’ clothes, but I buy secondhand. The PJs are my favorite)

I’m a big fan of consignment sales and Facebook b/s/t groups to buy more expensive clothes (and by expensive, I mean anything that’s not Target/Old Navy/Carter’s).

BitterBetty12 · August 2018

emmaaa said:

pttomato said:

emmaaa said:

Dresses suck for baby girls the first year of life lol. The ride up when you are holding them. I preferred rompers and sunsuits during dress season.

Yes. Particularly in the crawling/early walking stage, when their knees/feet get caught on them.

Yep. I used a hair tie on those occasions to tie it up lol

YES! DD HATED dresses when she was first learning to crawl. She would get so frustrated.

Also @emmaaa is so right about different brands being different sizes. I found carter’s typically ran bigger than most other brands. BUT I had an issue with mixing sizes in her dressed so I always took out and put away the same size clothes at the same time even if some still would have fit. And +1 to the months not being completely accurate. DD was tall so I always had to size her up early. Especially when she was wearing footie PJs (I always had to size those up first). I stopped putting her in footie PJs at 8 months when she sizes up to 12 month clothes and moved her to two pieces.

hollye30 · August 2018

My baby lived in sleepers for the first 3 months. Only dressed up for pictures and visiting.

I agree with looking at the fit versus the size. My baby was long and skinny so we had a whole bunch of clothes that we didn't use as they were so wide in the body. Carter's always seems to fit him perfectly. When I stored everything away I did it by when it was worn vs the size on it.

Socks can double as mittens. Larger socks like your own can go over snowsuit arms and they stay on well cause they are longer.

@saltedcaramel518 another mom told me that blowouts are often from being in the wrong size diaper or the legs frills or back being tucked in. I always made sure the back wasn't folded over and the leg frills were out. So if DS had a blowout it was likely time to move to the next size of diaper.
That being said his first blowout was his very first diaper and it was meconium it was everywhere and that stuff is sticky.

nononorman · August 2018

Ditto the bottom zip sleepers. We did gowns during the day but I think they were weird on DDs legs at night. I had a 7.5 lb baby and we wore all the sizes in diapers and clothes for a decent amount of time. I was also surprised because everybody says that your baby won’t wear newborn clothes or diapers for more than a week or two but I’m sure we were in them for at least a month and my kid was always at or above average on weight and height.

@saltedcaramel518 j&j all day girlllll

jgil85 · August 2018

Definitely socks instead of mittens! The mittens would never stay on his hands and the socks worked perfectly.

Ds very rarely wore actual outfits and actual jeans on babies seem super uncomfortable .

saltedcaramel518 · August 2018

I just remembered a couple of items that I loved.

Zutano booties. They’re almost impossible for babies to take off (and they’ll always kick regular socks off).

Magnifient Baby magnetic sleepers. They’re magnetic. It’s awesome.

kmvisioli · August 2018

Another who loathed baby gowns for always riding up, and snaps for being frustrating. Velcro was also not my fave because ripping it open was so loud it woke Baby all the way up. I like the zip-up swaddle pods (I think the brand was SwaddleMe) and they were also much better at actually keeping baby swaddled.

My favorite socks and booties were the Robeez kickproof ones. They actually did stay on little feet!

edit to add: I have two tall skinny kids, and the brands I love for them are Carter's, Burt's Bees Baby, Leveret (for pj's), and Osh Kosh B'Gosh. My one shorter/stockier built kid fits Old Navy, Gymboree, and Cat and Jack from Target better.

BitterBetty12 · August 2018

^^ +1 to all of those for fall skinny kids.

Also back to the newborn clothes and diapers comments - I actually found I didn’t have enough newborn clothes for DD and had to go buy / order some when we got home. She was super tall and we still probably wore newborn clothes for a month (20-22 inches in that time frame I think). I think people give newborn size less at showers now so we ended up with way more 0-3 month clothes.

kns1988 · August 2018

Zipper footie pjs all the way for us with a Halo sleep sack. Love, love, love the Halos. Snaps are the devil.

ETA: wait, I just remembered I liked snaps when he was really little because then he wouldn't get as cold during changing. They were terrible as he got older, though.

pttomato · August 2018

I was afraid we had too much newborn stuff and she wouldn’t be able to wear any of it because she was estimated to be around 8.5 lbs at birth. But then she was less than 7 and wore them for them for a while.

sweetyjenj · August 2018

In case no one else has noticed this (I didn't until after DD was entering 0-3 month clothes stage)...
LOOK AT THE WEIGHT LIMITS for sizes! The 0-3 month sizes ARE 3 month sizes, 3-6 IS 6m. Carters goes by 3m, 6m, 9m, etc. but other brands say 0-3, 3-6...they're the same. Carters size is the TOP month of the size range. I originally had sorted clothes into bins according to size, putting 3m into a separate one from 0-3, then thankfully quite early on realized that they're the same.

BitterBetty12 · August 2018

Ugh the carters sizing was so annoying, especially for family members. I told people DD need 6-9m clothes for Christmas and I got a bunch of 6m stuff that didn’t fit her anymore! So make sure you clarify with people who will be buying clothes down the line as well.

+1 to halo everything. DD slept in PJs with a halo swaddle until 8 weeks and then after that a halo sleep sack. She still uses them now at 14 months (and will until she completely grows out of them!).

tosh24 · August 2018

I actually preferred the gowns for nighttime in the newborn stage. I didn't use them during the day, but at night they were easy access. Both my kids are fall babies so I still put a onesie on under the gown and put socks on them, but I never had issues with the gowns riding up in a swaddle.

+1 for newborn clothes unless you are expecting a massive baby. DD was 7.5 lb and DS was 6 lb and both used newborn clothes for AT LEAST 6 weeks. That's a long time to go with ill-fitting 3 month sizes...

Also, don't bother spending money on cutsie clothes the first 3 months. Your baby will be either sleeping or feeding 90% of the time so no point. And I can only imagine how uncomfortable they are. PJs and cotton shirts and pants for the win.

jgil85 · August 2018

+1 to snaps so baby doesn't get cold. Ds was a summer baby and he seriously hated being cold while I changed him and that usually equated to him peeing on me. I'm going to make sure this little guy stays warm and I stay dry

hollye30 · August 2018

Try to get family to buy some stuff in larger sizes. I have a whole stock up to size 6 for my son who is in a 3T now. When he gets to the larger sizes I just see what pieces we need to supplement what we have saved and go get those.

bradleysmommy28 · August 2018

I hated gowns. DS was a preemie and the gowns always seemed too long and skinny - it was weird. But he wore a lot of Carters sleep sacks with onsies underneath. Their sleep sacks are super warm and soft and zip up, perfect for MON. I was also team zipper over snaps but snaps weren't too terrible and were necessary for us while DS was on monitors. Unfortunately we had to cut holes in a few sleepers bc we had limited snap ones so I did get a few more this time around incase we have another "corded" baby. And I also agree to pjs and sleepers for the first few months. Also don't underestimate onsies. I have so many friends and family that never used onsies and it baffles me. DS wore a onsie under every single outfit until it was warm out and the most of his summer shirts were onsies themselves. I hate seeing a baby with a bare belly!

BitterBetty12 · August 2018

+1 to onesies under things. I had a summer baby last time but H and I hate being hot so we run the air like crazy. I basically had to keep her layered like it was winter so we did onesies under PJs with a swaddle and sleep sack. Since were having winter babies this time it’s defintely Good to have layering options.

pttomato · August 2018

FFFC? I never put onesies under things unless it was really cold. DD was a summer baby and was pretty much naked at home during the day for the first month. I stopped using onesies altogether once she was mobile, especially since DH would just leave them unsnapped.

I also way over-layered her the first time I took her out when it was pretty cold (20s) and she got too hot.

emmaaa · August 2018

@pttomato We didn't either. DD was an October baby and it's still warm in the south. The hosptial basically said that she would be comfortable at the temperature we were at and to dress her like we dressed with one extra layer. She is so hot natured and still is

tosh24 · August 2018

The hospital told us the same trick - one more layer than we were wearing. My DS was also a little furnace and I constantly had to check him for overheating. He's still that way. I'll be walking around in socks and a sweatshirt and he'll be sitting in only underwear on the couch and be perfectly fine! I recommend doing the finger test every so often on the back of your baby's neck (so put your index and middle finger together and place it on the back of the neck) to make sure they don't feel too hot, especially during the night.

pttomato · August 2018

One more layer than us was usually too hot for DD unless it was really cold. She generally did better with the same number of layers as me. She gets hot really easily though.

kmvisioli · August 2018

Pretty sure my kids basically only wore onesies or sleepers the whole first year, lol. Picking up or holding a baby wearing a t-shirt they just end up with a bunched shirt and exposed belly.

BitterBetty12 · August 2018

Considering I am hot blooded and kept the temperature at 68 (and then wore fuzzy socks with a blanket) we definitely had to layer DD a bit. But for sure when you’re keeping it warmer inside you can layer less.

My DD is always a furnace to the point that I used to frequently check her temperature to make sure she didn’t have a fever (and her temp actually runs low and is typically around 97.8). But at this point I know it’s just how she is and that she probably got it from me. Same with her cold hands and feet even though her core is plenty warm.

julesf817 · August 2018

Definitely ignore the “don’t buy newborn sizes” advice. My DS was 10lbs 5oz. I brought a few different outfits to the hospital and he was swimming in the 3 Mo stuff. He wore newborn for a while!

reading this thread has just gotten me excited to dress a tiny little baby again.

Also I think it’s worth it to get a few cute outfits, even for the newborn stage. I mean sleepers were practical for most of the time but sometimes it was fun to get him dressed just as something to do. I had one outfit with little sneakers. Totally pointless but so cute. I remember my husband being like “why are you bothering getting him dressed?” Uh because look at him in these tiny carter’s baby “jeans”?

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