5 Things To Remember When It Comes To Baby Clothes

Whether you’re shopping for your own child or if you’re a good friend who loves to shower your friends’ children with the cutest outfits (and let’s be real here, ALL clothes are cute when they’re miniature) here are some tips everyone can use when it comes to buying clothes for babies age two and under. Bear in mind these aren’t the only tips I have for you but they are, to me, the key ones to keep in mind if you’re about to have a baby or have just had one!

When In Doubt Size Up

Baby clothes are sized differently wherever you shop. I really wish there were a universal sizing that is based on the length of your child and not just age because every baby is different and the month range is so relative. That’s why I prefer to just let Theo grow into something slightly too big vs fitting into something just right because he could very well hit a spurt tomorrow and that’s it for that outfit.

Baby clothing brands, if you’re somehow reading this, start including length as an indicator on your clothes? Uniqlo does it and it’s very useful so, please? Consider doing this? Thanks.

Anyway whether you’re shopping for your own child or if you’re buying things for friends, it’s best to go one or two steps ahead. Take the baby’s age/birth month into consideration, consider the season it’ll be when they’re say six or eight months, and shop accordingly.

This is also very applicable to when you’re looking for shower gifts - you never really know how big your friend’s baby is going to be so err on the size of one size too big and get at LEAST a 0 - 3 or even a 3 - 6 month size for a new baby because sometimes people have 10lb newborns that fit into larger clothes.

Newborn, Months 0 - 3? Go for quantity vs. quality.

Ok hear me out: when your baby is new, there’s going to be a lot of fluids. I’m talking spit-up, barf, poop, more poop.

Don’t get me wrong, definitely treat yourself to that $40 jumpsuit or $25 pair of shorts - if you love something and have to have it, get it! Lord knows I have.

But blowouts will happen. In Theo’s case it happened every time I put him in a nice, new, pricier-than-I’d-like-to-admit outfit. And depending on what color the fabric is, those stains are hard to remove.

I liked the generic cotton Gerber onesies that come in packs of five or eight. They’re stretchy and easy to remove from the shoulders down - a trick an experienced dad told me about - which is more ideal than trying to lift a poop covered onesie up over your child’s head and hair, and you can do that with most onesies (I think that’s the reason why the shoulders overlap the way they do). But I like those very basic onesies because they come in black, white and grey and you can easily order them from Amazon. I recommend having a good stash of those and the more affordable pieces at the start so it doesn’t sting as much when you have to throw one or two out because they’ve gotten too gross.

Hand-Me-Downs are AWESOME

I got by thanks to the generosity of so many of my mom friends. A perk to having a baby later in life was that most of my friends were done having kids, and had a lot of clothes they were getting rid of. For one thing, it saved us money. For another, the clothes were already super super soft.

You may notice that brand new clothes you buy can be rather stiff to the touch, and they tend to soften up only after a few washes. Well, hand-me-downs have saved you several steps. Same with clothes I’ve gotten at consignment sales.

And here’s another thing I’ve learned when it comes to hand-me-downs: even the cheap baby clothes are resilient and last a long time. So once your baby’s outgrown what you’ve bought or gotten as hand-me-downs, pay it forward so someone else’s baby can enjoy them!

Zippers are better than snaps and buttons

A lot of cute kids brands use snaps on their jumpsuits and they’re cute, but boy are they a pain to put on and take off, especially if you’ve got a squirmy baby who doesn’t want to be lying down on the changing table. I much prefer jumpsuits with zips, and it was even better if they had two-way zips, or they zipped open from the toes up.

I LOVE the footie PJs from Cotton On - their zippers are two-way, so if you’re changing your baby and it’s cold, you can unzip from their foot and still keep their torsos warm. My other favorites were the PJs from Cloud Island at Target. You fasten the zipper at the neck and zip shut down to the toes so when you undress you’re unzipping from the feet up. Bonus on these? Their built-in mittens (see picture below) which were super useful the first few months!

Built-in mittens are AWESOME. Try to find clothes with them.

6 - 9 months and up? NOW it’s time to splurge.

At six months your baby will be starting on solids which makes a difference in the diaper region. You’d have gotten the hang of things by now and while I’m not saying that blowouts stop happening (there will always be accidents of some sort) they’re a lot more rare so it’s “safer” to put your baby in the cuter, pricier clothes.

Also, I found that once Theo approached 9 months his torso stopped growing as quickly so a lot of tops and onesies lasted a lot longer in the rotation! These days while I still shop at Target (especially for things to wear to school that I know will get dirty) I’ve started shopping from nicer brands and some local shops like my personal favorite, Scout Baby.

At the end of the day, do what makes you happy. Playing dress-up is part of the fun of having a baby and again, there’s very few things that don’t look cute on them. As far as our lifestyle choices and habits go, this is what worked best for us.

What tips do you have for shopping for your babies? I’d love to hear them!