Clothes shopping advice for first year

F2M n Spouse

Opinions on buying for first year.

Did you buy enough clothes to cover them for the entire first year, or only bought clothes for the first few months and bought as time went on?

Heath wants to stop at 6 months but I'd prefer to have her covered up to the year marker. My other fear is if we wait until she needs the clothes they'll be "in season" so way more expensive and I'm HUGE on clearance shopping. I refuse to pay full price especially when I know they grow out of the stuff so quickly. We do have one second hand store here and have gotten Brooke a few things from there but their prices aren't much better than buying new.

ahk00

That's hard. If you buy them all upfront & they don't end up fitting then you will have wasted more money.

merilung

I wouldn't buy them all up front - it's hard to know how fast/slow kids will go through sizes. We guessed the seasons wrong every single time that we tried to buy in advance.

diane&tammy

Babies grow so quickly it would be hard to buy that far ahead. I would stop at 6 months

b&kmakebabies

I wouldn't buy ahead because you won't know how baby grows. Example: our four month old is in 6-9 clothing and 9-12 socks. We have some clothes we never wore at all. My advice would be to buy second hand. Allow yourself one nice outfit per size and then go crazy at a second hand shop. We have Once Upon a Child here and they occasionally sell onsies for fifty cents each! Also, keep all the clothes from family and don't wash them. You can exchange for a size up if need be. Everyone gave us newborn size which he never even needed because he was so long. We exchanged them for other sizes but kept the same style so it wasn't like we were completely returning the gift.

b&kmakebabies

Join the Facebook yard sale group for your area. People put bags of kids clothes on there all the time and most of the time the tags are still on them! Super cheap! Also, only buy a few of each style until you know what she's into. Example: we bought a ton of sleepers and our son only wants to sleep in those fifty cent onsies. He gets so hot at night. He also outgrew the sleepers fast because he is so long.

801logan

Are you going to have a baby shower? We had up to 6 months with a handful of 9 and 12 month clothes all from our shower. We tried guessing but it is hard until you really know their growth patterns. I would say get up to about 6 months and maybe just a handful of items that maybe you just can't live without. But I would keep all the tags on stuff until right before she in that size. Carter's is really good about returns. They have even accepted returns on things I have washed and ended up shrinking too much.

FutureSMBC

I've bought tons of clothes in thrift stores for the first 2 years.
I pretty much wait until they have 50% or 75% off sales and buy what I like in any size.
I've bought onesies for as low as $0.17! I probably have spent less than $150 on everything, including sleep sacks and hats.
Baby clothing is usually in wonderful condition or even new. I was just doing baby laundry today of just the NB-3mo which is what I'll have out for now.
When baby grows out of it, the clothing will just go back to the thrift store as a donation.

perry261

I've been buying up to 9 months and some things bigger if I wanted them. I just wanted to make sure I was prepared and ended up going crazy lol

old mama

I agree about second hand. Watch for garage sales too then you won't have to feel too guilty if your guess was wrong about size. Babies are in clothes for so short a time you can get some great deals...also take a look at Ebay..you can get some great deals off season as well... I love your baby name!!!!

F2M n Spouse

I'm HUGE on deals. Everything we've gotten Brooke has been on clearance or from Once Upon a Child. It's up in the air at this point about a baby shower but it's leaning more towards a YES.

I'm honestly ticked at Once Upon a Child though. Three years ago when we got pregnant and miscarried we went on one of their bag deal days and bought a bunch of stuff. All tags were still on the clothing and had the original receipt to show what we paid for everything and we went to return/exchange and they told us since it's "after the 14 day return policy it would be treated as a walk-in basis to see what it's worth."

They took maybe 25% of the items back and said the rest was in too "rough" of condition for them to make an offer. Excuse me?!? That's how it was sold to us. So that put a bad taste in our mouths. We did still get a few things from there but their organization just seemed horrible and the clothes seemed very worn down and we went to both locations. Their locations are also not in the greatest of areas so that could play a role as well but the prices just seemed a little ridiculous. $10/jeans when I can go get them for $7.99 brand new? I'm sure you need to look around at stuff though. I will give it another shot but after what they did I'm pretty ticked about the situation. Even if I could get half back for in-store credit I'd be fine and I explained that and still no response.

FutureSMBC- I think we need you to start shopping or us LOL. We've spent about $300-$350 and need most of spring/summer clothes covered. I will give Once Upon a Child another shot and go to both locations this weekend and hopefully we have some better luck.

Thank you everyone for your responses.

kelleymel

My daughter lived in the 3 snap tshirts and a diaper for the first few months. At night, zipper footed PJ's were easiest. She had Santa PJ's she was still wearing in march. She really only wore a handful of things that I found easy to take on/off 100x per day. Anything with buttons is a pain. I thought onsies were a pain when the umbilical cord stump was still there. Everyone gave us clothes at the baby shower. I wish I would have just asked for easy snap tshirts and diapers lol

JandRVA

We opted to not buy too much clothing for our little girl and I'm glad we made that decision. At almost a month old, she's almost able to fit in 3 month clothes lengthwise (they're still baggy on her since she's pretty small weight-wise). She spent the first few weeks in a rotation of 3 zip up fleece pajamas in newborn size (I love the zip up ones much more than the snaps - so much easier for the dozens of diaper changes that happen) and now we're expanding to some of the larger clothes that were given to us at our baby shower and some second hand items we got from friends.

RedHeather

I haven't bought many clothes for my daughter (now 16 months old). I ended up getting most of her clothes for the first 9 months as baby shower and Christmas gifts (she was born late-October), then I started getting hand-me-downs from a coworker whose grandaughter is about a year older than my daughter. My mom also enjoys buying stuff at yard sales and resale shops, and I encourage folks to buy clothes as birthday and Christmas gifts. I have ended up with some clothes that my daughter never wore, but since I didn't pay for them, I didn't mind. I have given away a couple boxes of clothes to other moms, and I have sold some stuff to consignment stores, and I have several boxes of outgrown stuff that I'll give away or sell at some point. Basically, if someone offers me clothes or baby/kid stuff, I accept it. I don't enjoy shopping, but I do enjoy getting free stuff.

So, I guess my advice would be that if you are getting really good deals, go ahead and stock up. If you don't end up using every piece of clothing, chances are you'll find someone willing to take them. Or, if you plan to try for another kid later on, you could save them for a potential future sibling.

michgirl

The once upon a child on Alpine in better than the other one (in my opinion). I got almost all my boys clothes from yard sales. I buy any size as long as it's a good deal and in good condition. I then have totes by size in the basement.

gprime11

I had totes of clothes up to a 4t, which we are just getting in to, when Q was born. I looked at garage sales, especially ones that let me fill a bag for a few dollars. I did have to buy a few things when he was born from the premie section. Was there a few thing he didn't wear? Yep, but not many. Other than shorts, babies wear the same thing in all seasons, at least mine did. It was totally worth not shopping with a toddler. I'm actually kida bummed that i have to go buy clothes in a few months. Shoes however, don't buy. Your kid may have a skinny foot, or fat foot, or hate shoes with a passion.