How Do You Dress Your Baby?
Earlier this week, I was discussing with my hubby the definition of “preppy“. It all started because I called our son “Mr. Preppy” – he was wearing a polo-shirt style onesie and the collar was “popped” for a second. So cute. In fact, it was his outfit for fall pictures at pre-school a few weeks ago.
It got me thinking about all the different fashion statements we like to make with our children. For the first several years, they are definitely wearing what we choose for them. In a way, we make them little reflections of ourselves. Have you ever dressed your child in clothing that:
- represents a favorite sports team/alma mater/band or musical act?
- makes some kind of political statement?
- matches your own outfit to a tee?
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this; it’s part of the fun of having a child, in my opinion. We’ve all done this in some form or another, either by choice or because the clothing was a gift from family members, right? (My children have been wearing more than their fair share of Philadelphia sports teams gear for the past 2 years, that’s for sure. 
)
I’m curious: do you think about what style you want your baby to wear? Do you seek out certain plaid, button-down styles? Do you gravitate toward the frilly stuff for your daughter? Are you prone to stocking up on shirts that have the latest Disney characters screened on them?
I work in our church nursery each Sunday, so I glimpse a little bit of everything: kids in hand-me-downs, kids in linen overalls and white-collared shirts, kids in Baby Gap from hat to socks, kids in cartoon-related clothes, kids in garage sale clothes.
The picture above is one that I took of my daughter’s closet when she was first born: stocked with precious dresses and outfits that were ultimately only useful one or two times. I loved dressing her in them and I miss all that frilliness. But she’s going on 3 now. She’s in pre-school two days a week. It’s all practical, all the time for her. Jeans, tees, sneakers, and a jacket. We can’t afford much more than this. We get everything at Target and Wal-Mart, and we’ve become huge garage sale fans, scoring scads of good clothing at a fraction of the cost.
Other moms’ thoughts on this subject:
- Junior High, Revisited
- How to Dress Up Your Kids In Style
- Do You Have a Problem Dressing Your Children In Wal-Mart Clothes?
- Dress Your Child For Success: 5 Steps to Building Confidence Through Appearance
What do you think? What habits have you formed in acquiring your kids’ wardrobes?How important is your child’s clothing to you? Is this irrelevant in our troubling economic times? Weigh in below.
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Nick and I are way too practical! Most of Kaylee’s cloths are gifts from the grandparents (she’s the first grandchild on both sides). And everything else is pretty much bought at Target. Target has some really cute cloths though! She wears lots of jeans or corduroys and t-shirts, sweaters, and sweatshirts. Every once in a while we make exceptions…I like pj’s from Rugged Bear and Pediped shoes. And last year we splurged and bought this really cute outfit from Gymboree for Christmas, but it was way too much money for a one day thing. This year I have my eye on a pretty green holiday dress from Target.
I buy lots of cute button-down dress shirts and polos for our boys.
The baby wears them because I get him dressed. And my husband is teased all the time that the baby dresses better than he does.
On the other hand, our older boy dresses himself every morning. I am always disappointed when he chooses day after day to wear a cheap t-shirt rather than his nicer clothes that I paid good money for.
My favorite place to shop is Gymboree (when you can earn Gymbucks).
We have clothes from all kinds of places….I have bought some things at Wal-Mart and Target for sure. We do the hand me down thing too so I usually go for jeans from Old Navy or Kohl’s because I think they last longer. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Kohl’s and The Children’s Place sales. Last year, I went to The Children’s Place outlet store at their end of the winter season sale and hit the jackpot! I bought pants, sweaters, and shirts from .99 to $4–I think the highest I paid was $7 for a pair of pants. That is cheaper than a lot of regular priced stuff at Wal-Mart and Target. I bought ahead for this year and got some fabulous deals. Kohl’s has awesome sales too. I have gone to their end of the season sales and paid $2 for shorts or shirts.
One thing I wish we did more of was shop at garage sales and/or thrift stores to hunt for those good deals. I have a hard time going out on a regular basis to do that though. I know it is better for the environment though to re-use which gets my guilt factor all the time.
One thing we have splurged on is some winter gear–we bought them coats they could wear for 2 or 3 years from LL Bean as well as some hats and mittens. And snow boots–although I think snow boots from Walmart would do just as well. They were gifts from grandparents though.
I do like my kids to look cute–I don’t know what my “style” is for them per say–but there are things that I don’t like.
My 5 year old has gotten very particular about what he likes and doesn’t like–not in the name brand sense at all–but in collared shirts vs. non-collared and jeans vs. other kinds of pants. He gets very attached to his seasonal clothes and has a hard time transitioning from short sleeves/shorts to long sleeves/jeans. It is a battle that I have chosen not to fight–when the weather was getting down into the 40′s and he still wanted to wear shorts, I let him because I knew eventually he would wise up on his own that wearing jeans was a better choice. Anyway, he has several collared/polo style shirts in his closet that he refuses to wear because “I don’t like collared shirts”–even though that is what he LOVED this summer. Go figure. I have started to include him when we go clothes shopping so that he picks out the style he does like–but I have figured out that it often changes from month to month.
Once kids get to the age where they like picking out what they want to wear (from their closets, that is), I think it is good to let them pick it out rather than forcing them to look cute and matching. My opinion though
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If our #4 baby is a girl then I will LOVE getting that cute, pink stuff–but I think I will probably lean toward a girly, funky look over a frilly, lacy one.
With our daughter she is also the first grandchild on both sides and being a girl we got plenty of clothes. But we had to return or re-gift a lot of them since sometimes people do not think about the age your child will be for certain clothes or where you live for the type of clothing. Living in TX we had no use for a snow suit.
Anyways, most of Brielle’s clothes comes from Gymboree, my absolute favorite store. Second would be Target! We do not allow any of her clothing to have charters on them, we feel she will have enough of that thrown at her in the coming years why start it early. But she is usually dressed to the nines! I love dressing her from head to toe looking cute!!
most of our clothes are either hand-me-downs (from cousins and friends), gifts, or from thrift stores. i’ve found that you can get good quality gymboree, gap, old navy clothes at goodwill.
i have a boy and a girl (4 and 22 months). i think girls are so much more fun to dress. but the thing that bugs me is that for their first two years of life our only choices in colors for girls are pink, light pink, and dark pink. while there is quite a variety of colors in boys clothes. i’ve never cared much for pink, and so when i can i try to avoid it. when the clothes are gifts or hand-me-downs though, you don’t have much of a choice.
Love the blog – i found you at Barefootfoodie
We are thrifty. I do buy a couple items each season “new” and then tie it all in together with flea market, yard sale and discount store finds, except underwear and shoes. When my kids get old enough that I do not have start from scratch each season, we will buy them new, brand name clothes. Besides, flea market and yard sale finds have only been wore one season anyway
As far as style goes, we go for preppy. Both of them.
My daughter mostly wears what people buy for her. Although, I do exchange some of the hideous outfits that my mother buys her. I wish my mom shopped at Target. JC Penny does not have that great of a baby’s section.
Annabelle got so many dresses for her 1st year party, that she was in a new dress at church every Sunday.
For Mother’s Day Out, she needs to be practical because they get so dirty.
I would say that Annabelle does reflect some of my style and I try not to dress her in pink all the time, but that is what she has mostly right now. I love putting her in brown, yellow, and orange, because it looks so good with her darker skin tone. I don’t know if she has one style or not.
[...] Dawn over at The Mom Crowd wants to know how you dress your baby. Apparently her husband got the subject of "preppy" going and now she’s wondering [...]
when i had my first baby, i dressed her in baby gap. when we had our second girl, we had to be more frugal so we had her wear her older sister’s hand-me-downs and started shopping for clothes for both of them at target. the used clothes were still in good condition, otherwise i wouldn’t have put it on my second girl. but i did feel guilty that my first girl had much higher quality and cuter clothes. so i still try to find the nicer styles they carry in target. in the end, i think i dress my girls much nicer than i dress myself, but that’s probably because they are still small and thin, so everything looks good on them. but now that my oldest is growing up, (she’s 6 years old) she’s refusing to wear what i pick out for her. she wants to dress herself and so she goes through many pieces of clothing, trying to find the right thing, and i’m not too crazy about her choices and the mess she leaves on the floor! and she’s not even a teenager, yet! i can still influence her a little bit, but other than that, it’s a constant struggle with her and i know it will only get worse as she gets older. i guess that’s what growing up is about. but it’s hard to let go of my baby! well, at least i still have my other baby (2 years old) for a few more years!
I have found the way I dress my kids and the stores I shop at have changed due to 2 reasons: 1) maturity and 2) the people I surround myself around.
Living in the NW all my life and then moving to SA a few years ago from the Seattle area has really changed my perception. Image is huge on the West Coast! Seattle has more millionaires per capita than any other city in the US, so being surrounded by lots of wealth and people who really care about image influenced how I lived and spent money.
With that said, my 1st child was born in the Seattle area so my opinion of clothing him was important while living there, however I was very fortunate because most of his wardrobe for the first 3 years of his life were supplied through gifts and my sister (worked as a fashion stylist in NYC for many children apparel companies until earlier this year). My sister provided clothing from Baby Gap, The Children’s Place, Flora and Henri, Best & Co., K.Kauffman….a variety from mid-priced to luxury children apparel. I do love Baby Gap, Janie & Jack, Pumpkin Patch, and Tea Collection, but I RARELY shop at those stores. When I do make purchases there, I buy only when there’s a good sale on top of current sale-priced clothing. When that happens, I am buying clothing at Target prices because the clothing are out-of-season, so I stock up for my kids to wear the following year.
Being 32 and a little more wiser and practical with how I spend my money, I don’t really care now about outfitting my kids head-to-toe with certain brand anymore. Most of the time I’m shopping at Old Navy, Target, TJ Maxx, or Marshalls for them. I also really like the selection at Kid to Kid, a children’s resale shop here in San Antonio. I’ve found great stuff for my son and daughter there at unbeatable prices!! I had a playdate with a friend and her daughter this morning and commented on how cute I thought her daughter’s outfit was, which my friend in return told me was a Wal-Mart purchase. From this point on, I will include Wal-Mart in my list of stores to shop at for my kids.
Thanks to all for your responses! It’s been an interesting day, reading your insights and preferences. I have often seen out-of-season clothing on sale and I have not yet “stocked up” for a following season, but I think I will, now that I’ve heard so many of you do that with success.
And Amelia, it does pay off to go garage saling several Saturdays in a row. We probably did it 5 consecutive weekends, and we spent about $35 altogether for a closetful of fall/winter clothes, plus 4 pairs of shoes and two coats. (I also saw a ton of great baby stuff that I didn’t need, like nice strollers, toys, etc… I was tempted to get them just ’cause of the great prices.)
I’m addicted to bright colors. My children have a tendency to wander off, so the bright oranges and fuchsia make it easier to find them in a crowd
Ideally, I would outfit my kids entirely in Gymboree and Hanna Andersson. My mother-in-law is the clothes buyer for our kids though, and she finds some fabulous stuff at (what she likes to call) “The Second-Hand clothes from the Rich Kids” store. The prices are comparable to Old Navy and it’s GOOD stuff, especially for ages 2 and under. It gets a little harder to find kid’s clothing in larger sizes, especially for the boys. I wait until the super-sales at the places I like to shop, and sometimes I get great deals!
I’m all about sales. I love going to resale shops, Target and Walmart for Jackson’s clothes. I haven’t had to buy a thing for Reagan yet, but she is only 2 months old. You would be surprised at how much you can get things for at Gymboree and Children’s Place if you wait for the sales. It’s a pretty good deal. I also love the sales rack at Macy’s. Cute stuff. You just have to watch. : )
My kids have been on some super hand-me-down lists!! Connor wore Gymboree almost exclusively the first year of his life. Then he became an Old Navy and Target dresser! Girls are much easier to shop trendy for staying within a budget. I can’t say that my kids actually have a “style” but I really like Connor dressed a little rock-and-roll and LOVE Darah layered and in hoodies!