If you are anything like me, you find baby clothes absolutely adorable and hard to resist buying all the cute outfits.
After the initial shock of finding out we were expecting our first, I excitedly went looking at all the baby clothes in the stores around me. They ranged from cute little outfit sets with buttons and multiple pieces, to basic coveralls and bodysuits.
We had a baby shower and it didn’t take long before I realised how overwhelming it could be to manage so much baby stuff. We had very little space and it was quickly overflowing with everything baby.
The category that became overwhelming the quickest was baby clothes. The different sizes, and style. With a tight budget, and even tighter amount of space I realised I needed to be selective with the clothing I kept.
I’ve since had two more babies and been able to simplify even further as I’ve honed in on the balance between what I need to be able to function (while managing older children, a household and chronic illness) and not overloaded with “too much stuff”.
My babies grew quickly so my approach is to buy a little in a couple sizes at the start so that when they grow into the next size I don’t have to stress about getting to the shops or finding the budget for a whole new baby wardrobe.
Here is my go items for the first couple of months:
Size 0000
* 10-14x Short Sleeve Bodysuits
* 10-14x Zipper Coveralls with Footies
Size 000
* 10-14x Singlets
* 10-14x Short Sleeve Bodysuits
* 10-14x Zipper Coveralls
Size 00
* 10-14x Singlets
* 10-14x Short Sleeve Bodysuits
* 10-14x Zipper Coverall
I’ve found this usually means I can go up to a week between washing the baby’s clothes while accounting for blow outs and spit up changes.
As babies spend the first few months mainly sleeping, I focus solely on comfortable and easy to change clothing. I start buying outfit items such as leggings and tops around 6 months old which for my first two baby’s meant about size 00-0 (my third grew faster and was going into size 0 at 4-5 months old).
Clothing Tips:
Envelop Neckline - when looking for bodysuits I look for ones with an envelop neckline. These mean if baby has a blow out, you can slid it down the baby rather than taking the dirty section up and over Bubs head.
Zipper Coveralls - save your time, your sanity and your energy by opting for zipper coveralls with feet build in. It means during those late night changes you don’t have to struggle with lining up buttons or press studs. Bonus if you can get the ones with feet build in; then you don’t have to worry about loosing tiny baby socks or trying to put them on a wiggly baby.
Layering is your friend - it doesn’t snow where I live but we get frosty winters and hot summers. Layering is good year round. It means you can dress baby and add or remove clothing as necessary. In Summer a nice short sleeve bodysuit or singlet and nappy is perfect. In colder winter days you can layer with singlet, bodysuit and coverall over the top.
Disclaimer: we did buy a special outfit for each of our children for their newborn/baby photos. These were more for us and being able to get the extra cute baby pictures to look back on; they took longer to dress them in and was a lot more fiddly. But remember the clothes don’t make the baby cute, the baby is already cute.
