May 2021 Moms
mrosek91
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Product Spotlight: Baby Apparel
mrosek91
member
Happy Monday! Today on the list of topics to discuss we have BABY APPAREL. So let's have our first serious baby clothes discussion! Looking ahead at the product topics, in later weeks we'll also have specific conversations on summer essentials and winter essentials for our growing babies, so we'll be able to revisit seasonal particularities, so don't feel the need to comb your brain for every last item! This thread can focus on what to get throughout our pregnancies to be ready for those first few newborn rollercoaster months!
So tell me all about tiny baby clothes! Do you have favorite brands? Where do you get your basics and where do you get your splurges? Does one even splurge for a newborn? Did you have a special coming home outfit? Any particular stylistic preferences to warn FTMs (e.g., do you avoid teensy buttons like the plague and only get zippered onesies)? Opinions on baby hats and baby socks?
How much do you REALLY need for a newborn: did STMs find you changed their onesie 10 times a day or, like, rarely? Any shopping tips to get a good baby clothes haul (which they'll inevitably use for 10 seconds before growing out of it)--did you get used baby clothes? What range of sizes should we get now that we have a little time to plan and shop: should you buy ahead and be equipped through months 0-6 or 12, or buy as you go? How do you dress them to sleep: do you use a sleep sack on top of pjs? Baby shoes: adorable accessories or complete waste of time? And while we're talking clothes, how do you wash baby clothes? Do you use special soap? Please share!
Prior and upcoming Product Spotlights
So tell me all about tiny baby clothes! Do you have favorite brands? Where do you get your basics and where do you get your splurges? Does one even splurge for a newborn? Did you have a special coming home outfit? Any particular stylistic preferences to warn FTMs (e.g., do you avoid teensy buttons like the plague and only get zippered onesies)? Opinions on baby hats and baby socks?
How much do you REALLY need for a newborn: did STMs find you changed their onesie 10 times a day or, like, rarely? Any shopping tips to get a good baby clothes haul (which they'll inevitably use for 10 seconds before growing out of it)--did you get used baby clothes? What range of sizes should we get now that we have a little time to plan and shop: should you buy ahead and be equipped through months 0-6 or 12, or buy as you go? How do you dress them to sleep: do you use a sleep sack on top of pjs? Baby shoes: adorable accessories or complete waste of time? And while we're talking clothes, how do you wash baby clothes? Do you use special soap? Please share!
Prior and upcoming Product Spotlights
Re: Product Spotlight: Baby Apparel
I generally don't prebuy. It's impossible to know how long your baby is going to stay in one size, and what season they will need of the next size up. All of those places have fairly quick shipping, so once I determine my baby needs the next size I find coupons, and go on to do a big shop. It's rare that all of a sudden nothing will fit, you'll have enough of a window where things will be getting tight but you can still get them on, that you can take some time to shop.
Also this -
question---assuming the sleep gowns are even better than the zippy pjs for this reason??
For the most part I, like @mrosek91, am a deal shopper. There are ALWAYS sales. It you like Carter's clothes, they sell them other places as well, such as Kohls, Macy's, etc and they have sales and coupons that get the clothes down to around $3! I typically don't spend time shopping at stores like Once Upon a Child because I feel like I can do better at other places with a coupon or sales. Gerber has some really cute stuff online with great sales that make their stuff really inexpensive. Since we're having summer babies, rompers are adorable and easy!
I suggest very little newborn clothes with more of a focus on 0-3 month.
Gerber - Runs small
Carters - True to size
Cat and Jack - Runs Big
Old Navy - Runs small
Hudson Baby from Amazon - Runs true to size but shrinks down a ton (like 1 to 2 sizes)
We just use Tide Free and Clear and for stains we use OxiClean (because there are so many stains.)
*Rainbow 8/2015*
*Expected Rainbows 12/2018*
*Loss of Twin 5/2018*
We love Carter's and Target (Cloud Island and Cat and Jack but also the Carter's line there and a couple of others). We avoid Gerber brand because it tends to run super small and Burt's Bees has really cute stuff but their slim fit jammies were always too snug on our daughter.
People told me not to buy so many outfits for the first year because babies live in onesies and that might be true for some babies but we used every single item of clothing we bought multiple times. We pretty much bought ahead for the first year but tried not to overbuy for any one size since babies can outgrow stuff like crazy. We bought just a few newborn pieces since babies tend to grow especially quickly early on. We will probably buy a couple of preemie things this time around since twins tend to come a little earlier/be a little smaller but we also don't mind if clothes are a little big so we won't buy too much. We're actually in the process of going through our daughter's baby clothes to figure out what we can use for the twins and what we need to buy.
We really didn't do a whole lot of outfit changes throughout the days. Our first didn't spit up a ton or anything so we only changed for blowouts so some days we might not change at all and some days we would go through 4 outfits. We probably went through more outfits in a day when she started daycare. Tip: we love sleep and plays for the early stages!
We did have a coming home outfit for our first but not sure if we'll do that for the twins. We really only had one for OG (our daughter's initials) because someone gifted it to us. For the hospital we just brought a couple of onesies, one footed pajama, and the coming home outfit.
Big fans of zippers here! A few snaps are fine too but we had a couple of those that snapped all the way up both legs and around the crotch and those were a little obnoxious especially if your baby is screaming its head off.
Baby shoes are adorable and we have a couple of pairs but super unnecessary. I recommend stocking up on socks though.
Baby size tip: it can depend on the brand but in general we've found if something is 3 months or 6 months or 12 months or whatever, that's really "up to X months" so 3 month clothing is 0-3 months, 6 month clothing is 3-6 months, etc. Again, this depends on the brand and most brands have size charts but I know it can be confusing for first time moms. We also pay attention mostly to the weight/height in the size charts especially as they get older.
Here's another tip: people like to let you believe that once your kid is two, their age lines up with their clothing size: 2 year olds generally fit in 2T, 3 year olds in 3T. LOL that may or may not be true. Our almost 3 year old wears 5T/girls' XS clothing but she is also a giant (almost always in the 98-99th percentile) and we have friends who have 5 year olds wearing 3-4T. Not really something to worry about earlier on but something that would have been nice to know as a first time mom lol.
For sleeping: for the newborn stage we use a velcro swaddle and either a onesie and socks or footed jammies/sleep and play and socks under that depending on the season/temperature. Once our first was out of the swaddle we transitioned her to a Magic Merlin sleep suit (omg major life saver for us) and a onesie and socks under that since the suit was pretty warm. After the Merlin stage we switched her to just footed jammies and since she turned 1 it's been a mix of footed jams, two piece jams, and now she has a couple of night gowns or most recently she has been boycotting pajamas and instead sleeping in one of our t-shirts and socks.
Laundry: I don't do laundry but I asked my husband and last time I think we just switched all of us over to Tide Free & Clear and now he says we use some super sustainable laundry detergent that we can still use for the new babies.
I have a handful of newborn outfits, mostly just onesies and pjs. It depends on how big your baby is, mine are all about 9lbs but have a big range in length. DD2 was 17in long, DS was 23in long. Since this baby is a girl, and measuring average, she will probably be in newborn clothes for about a month. Especially because she will be born earlier than any of my other children.
*Rainbow 8/2015*
*Expected Rainbows 12/2018*
*Loss of Twin 5/2018*
I like Carters, half our clothing gifts were from there. But to be honest I get a lot of second hand clothes and I dont like to spend more than $1 a piece. I'll spend a little more, maybe $2 or 3 on a sleep sack. I really liked the swaddleme I picked up, because the velcro is great for my husband. We also have a muslin sleeveless zippered sleepsack that was great for hot weather. We're so hot, that I think if he was in the sleepsack I just left him in the diaper.
To be honest my baby was 6&1/2 lbs and dropped under 6 the first two weeks. Every baby is different, but I had to buy extra nb onesies. So if you think they'll be small get 5-6 onesies and 1-2 pjs. And you can always use socks as baby mitts.
I'm anti shoes, but its a preference and its hot all year round, so sometimes he wore socks, but mostly we let him go bare. He started shoes around 1. If anyone is interested in the benefits of going shoeless for non walkers/early walkers let me know.
*Rainbow 8/2015*
*Expected Rainbows 12/2018*
*Loss of Twin 5/2018*
On that topic there are some really talented people who make the cutest knit/crocheted shoes, from uggs, to sneakers to little floral dress shoes, all out of yarn.