Baby Clothing - Fort Myers,FL

Every baby is different so it is hard to say how much clothing you will need. If he/she is a spitter you will go through more clothes if he/she doesn't spit up. Also if you breast feed the baby won't spit up like a bottle fed baby. Take into consideration how often you want to wash also. When they are babies you will pretty much keep them in sleepers other than when you take the baby out. I always buy a bigger size for baby showers because I assume that most people will be buying newborns to 9mos. I usually buy something in 12 months and crochet a blanket to go with it. So basically it is up to you how many clothes you want or need. I had boxes full of clothing from younger neices and also. A lot of them with the price tags on them. I choose to keep them all and didn't get rid of anything until after they out grew them. That way I was sure to have everything I needed. You could let the person having the shower put on the invitations that you already have newborns to 9 months clothing.

My daughter was in 0-3 and 3-6 for a LONG time...almost a year depending on the brand and my boys wore them for a couple months. KEEP them all and if you get new ones, don't take the tags off right away but right before you wear them so if they aren't worn you can exchange them.

Congratulations, these are the fun times. You already have lots of great advise. As everyone has said a lot depends on the size of the baby, mine was a big boy so we never used the first size, of course a smaller baby will. As a first time Mum I found it way easier putting on larger sizes than the snug smaller ones (I notice the hospital always has the 6-9). Like everone says leave the tags on until you use them, that way you can return what you don't use. Good luck:-)

My first two children were small when they were born and stayed in their little clothes for a while. But the second two were well over 9 pounds each, so all the 0-3 month stuff had to be exchanged. They were in 3-6 months for about 2 months and then 6-9 for a while.
Newborns usually stay in onesies, gowns and those little footie outfits. All that cutsie stuff will sit in the closet unless it's pulled out by force and put on baby. It will end up staying on just a couple hours at most and you'll get a couple pictures in it, then baby will spit up on it or something. LOL Keep the basics and a few little cutsie outfits and exchange the rest for bigger sizes. They stay in size 12m a long time.
Congrats on your upcoming arrival!!!

Don't take the tags off of anything new that you get. Play it by ear and return as needed. BabiesRUs is so good about exchanges, so just hold on to everything because you just never know how long your baby will be in a certain size, and what season your baby will be for the next size.

As for the hand-me-downs, don't go through and select what you want-- just take it all! My first born was a spitter-upper and had diaper blow outs all the time-- I swear that boy went through 4-5 outfits a day!

HI, L.. There's no way to exactly predict how much baby clothing you will need. That depends entirely on whether you can get to a washing machine and dryer easily -- if so, you won't need as much as someone who has to bundle it up and get to a laundromat weekly.

Has your health provider made any predictions about how large the baby will be at birth? My baby was really big, and he wore size 0 for only a week! It's good to have a couple of things that size for the first month or so, but there's nothing wrong with putting a newborn in slightly larger things.

I would save everything from 3 months and larger (everything I liked and that looked nice, anyway) and just a couple of things from size 0. Definitely save all you can up to 6-9 months. Don't worry about anything larger than that until the baby needs them -- why take up space with stuff that's way too big?

Anyway, congratulations, and I hope you have the best dressed baby on the block!

Peace,
Syl

Aren't girlfriends wonderful! ??? My best friend gave me tons of hand me down stuff from her two girls when I was pregnant, clothes, swing, snuggli, jumper, crib mattress, excersaucer ++++++. Some of the clothes had stains, I sat on the floor with a big beach towel, and used the "clorox pen" to meticulously go over each of the stains, then soaked the clothes in biz & water, and then just ran them through the wash with Baby All. They all turned out perfect! I had purchased a couple of "special" things in small sizes (coming home outfit) etc, but mostly - the things from the shower came in larger sizes, and the ones that didn't - I did exactly what you said, and exchanged them for larger sizes. It worked wonderfully for us for about the first year and 1/2! I would also - start buying diapers now, just get a package here and there, and with the ones that you most likely will get at the shower - you might not have to buy any for the first 6-8 months! (the little ones have a zillion in the package) I preferred PAMPERS SWADDLERS when my daughter was tiny tiny. They really seemed like they fit well, and were softer than some of the others, and very absorbant. I tried the Walmart brand and she got a horrible rash immediately. My sister swears by the Toys R Us brand, and buys them in bulk when they go on sale, but I didn't have much success with them.
One thing to not forget - receiving blankets. I had several beautiful fluffy fleece blankets, quilts, etc, and no receiving blankets! It didn't even occur to me until it was time to leave the hospital. Thankfully, it was coolish out, so the fleece blanket was fine in the car seat, but really too much to "swaddle" her in once we got home. We ended up using a large cotton dish towel for the first week or two because I just didn't feel like going out to find some when she was first home.

Also - a little tip. If you are registering for car seats. Go with a "travel system" with infant seat that hooks to stroller. We had the Eddie Bauer one, and the guy at Babies R Us was really helpful in showing me how certain ones have a tendancy to tip or rock forward if another child goes to the front of the stroller and grabs the carrier to step and get a look. Some of those infant seats are only held into the base in the car by a little spring loaded button that pops in and out of a hole in the base. The one that we had, has 2 metal claws that open and close, and fully encircle a metal rod in the base of the seat in the car, AND on the stroller. As an added bonus, it also locked onto shopping carts! (you have to pull the red handle to engage or disengage the claws) After one year - go ahead and go straight to the BRITAX seat with the 5 point harness. You can go to You tube, and search "5 point harness car seat" and you will see a video that will make it very clear why NOT to go to a booster seat, and why you should use the Britax or 1 other brand at this time the name escapes me. Most of the bigger car seats say "20 - 50 or 60 or 80 lbs" (depending on the seat), and then in small print it will say "up to 40 lbs as a 5 pt harness, and then converts to a belt positioning booster to X # of pounds".
Good luck! And have fun enjoying that new little baby! When are you due?

congratulations!
yes, keep the clothing!
maybe make piles of "love it!" and "ok" and "I'd never put my baby in that!"
the 'never' pile you can put aside and offer back to your friend later, w/ the thought that she could offer them to someone else...

Keep all that you can & return all that you can! Use the money for diapers (if it's a store like Target or Babies R' us) and for clothes later, like at age 12months or even 2 or three. Hand-me downs are harder to come by at toddler sizes I've found, because kids by that point are actually DOING things, lol, and stain clothing, etc.

Oh gosh, it's all going to depend on the size of your baby!

I found that even with small babies they outgrow 0-3 pretty quickly unless they are preemies. I got a lot of use out of my 3-6 and 6-9. I found 9-12 sizes very difficult to find.

I would keep no more than 10 0-3 month size onesies and a couple of nice outfits.

congrats on your pregnancy!

Keep the clothes until after the baby grows out of them. Dont worry about the shower, you will clothes of different sizes. Keep the tags on them till you are ready for that stage. Neborn clothes can fit differnetly depending ont the brand. My daughter is know wks and just growing out of most of the newborn clothes of one brand and another still fit.

Carters fit pretty true to age.

i'm the type of parent who always dressed my babies in going out clothes. comfortable but ready to go on a moments notice. my son spit up a ton so i was always having to change his clothes like crzy. first of all it depends if you are going to keep the baby in onesies all day or if you are going to keep the baby in regular clothes. also depends on BMs and spit up and all sorts of things. i say you can always use clothes. definitely keep tags and for the baby shower ask for a gift receipt to be put w/ the clothes that way you can get the full amount for the clothes back

Newborns sleep so much that you might find that keeping your baby in a sleeper is easiest. Yes, they grow so fast and no, you don't need much of anything. I'd keep the tags on all new items from your shower so that you can exchange them if necessary. As for the clothes you got from your friend, I'd perhaps keep more from the 6-9 months than from the 0-3 months. Onesies are daily essentials, as are sleepers. How many you decide to keep will depend on the condition of the clothes you have to choose from but I'd keep more of the larger sizes. I hope this helps.

I would want at least two per day for how ever many days you plan to go in between laundry days.
I would exchange the smaller sizes for larger sizes. But I found that this was difficult to do as I couldn't tell what store they came from, or they went on sale and I couldn't trade for the same value. I'd still try and find out though.

Congrats....
I agree with keeping the pre-owned clothing. Babies aren't very active and the clothing normally transfer from family to family in almost new condition. If you don't want to worry about the return policy regarding the new clothing that you will get at your shower, take it back to the store and get a gift card that you can use later when its needed. I can't tell you how many times i used the gift card for diapers because i already had so many clothes. hope this info helps.

The 0-3 mo stuff doesn't last very long. My son and daughter wore that size for 4 weeks, tops, then we moved on to 3-6. My daughter is now 4 months old and starting to outgrow the 3-6 mo size due to her length. You just don't know how long your child will be in a particular size because of their weight and/or length. People may also give you pants and sweaters in a size that you child will be in during July or vice versa so it's hard to figure all this out ahead of time. I agree with the others in that you should keep any/all of the previously owned stuff people give you and the new stuff just use as needed. Most people will include gift receipts with shower gifts, just make sure you keep those. Target will take items back without a receipt as long as it's on your registry. If not, then good luck returning it. I actually got some duplicates, added them to my Target registry, then returned them!