Realistic amount of clothing per child

[jenn-]

Let's pretend you have a MIL with a shopping habit that likes to buy your children way to much clothing and it has gotten to the point it will no longer fit into their dressers.  What would the comfortable amount of each item you would suggest holding onto per child?

[Mommyof4ks]

We have 7 bottoms, 12-14 shirts, and 2-3 pair of shoes depending on the season. You can send me your MIL if she still wants to buy more. :)

[TammyinTN]

I buy each of our grand-babies a new fall/winter or spring/summer wardrobe each year.   Each of them gets 8 outfits for play, 3 dresses or nice clothes for church and socks, undies and 3 pair of pj's for each season.  A nice winter coat or spring/summer jacket.    They also get a pair of stride rite tennis shoes, sandals/or brown shoes or boots depending on the season.  This has worked out great for all the littles so far.   

[Seasider]

I buy each of our grand-babies a new fall/winter or spring/summer wardrobe each year. Each of them gets 8 outfits for play, 3 dresses or nice clothes for church and socks, undies and 3 pair of pj's for each season. A nice winter coat or spring/summer jacket. They also get a pair of stride rite tennis shoes, sandals/or brown shoes or boots depending on the season. This has worked out great for all the littles so far.

What a wonderful gramma you are! I bet you have the best fun doing that shopping!

[NicAnn]

Dd is dresses/skirts only, so her winter wardrobe looks like this:

7 long sleeve dresses, 3 pair tights, 4 pair leggings, 4 pjs, 4 t-shirts, 2 sweaters, one pair of tennis shoes, 1 dressy shoe, 1 pair snow boots.

 

DS- 4 pair nice pants, 2 pair play pants, 4 collared shirts, 4 long sleeve t, 2 sweaters, 1 pair tennis shoes, 1 dressy pair.

 

I stock up when stuff goes on clearance, so by the time the stuff wears out they are ready for the next size. I generally try to keep their wardrobe as little as possible so stuff actually gets worn!

[Stacia]

Realistically, my 12yo ds wears just the following (we own a few more items than this for him, but what he actually wears is):

 

3-4 pairs of pants

3-4 pairs of shorts

10 shirts (all short-sleeve in his case; one is 'dressy', others are tees)

2 hoodies

1 winter jacket (+ gloves + hat)

1 bathing suit + a swim shirt

2 pairs of shoes (sneakers & flip-flops)

2 pjs

undies & socks

 

Dd (15yo) is probably similar, though she owns quite a few more items. What she realistically wears out of what she owns:

3 pairs jeans

1 pair tan cargo pants

2 pairs cropped pants

3 pairs shorts

2-3 sets workout clothes (she does dance, so dance pants/shorts & tops, plus dance team jacket), plus a performance dress for competitions

1 skirt

1 dress

12-15 tops (mostly tees, but w/ a dressy blouse in there too)

5 hoodies/sweatshirts

2 bathing suits + swim shirt & wrap

3-4 pairs shoes (boots, sneakers, 2 pairs sandals/flip-flops)

2 pairs dance shoes

1 winter jacket (+ gloves + hat)

1 rain jacket

2 pjs

undies & socks

[ondreeuh]

I don't like being a slave to the laundry, and I don't like seeing my kids wear the same things every week. So my boys have 6 pair jeans each, about a dozen short sleeve shirts, a dozen + long sleeve, 6 sweatshirts, and 6 sets of jammies.

[jenn-]

Thanks for the replies so far. I guess we will see how much is exactly in there and what actually still fits. I think some serious purging is in order. As to the laundry comment, all 4 of my kids do their own so this might actually help them out.

 

I buy each of our grand-babies a new fall/winter or spring/summer wardrobe each year. Each of them gets 8 outfits for play, 3 dresses or nice clothes for church and socks, undies and 3 pair of pj's for each season. A nice winter coat or spring/summer jacket. They also get a pair of stride rite tennis shoes, sandals/or brown shoes or boots depending on the season. This has worked out great for all the littles so far.

This would be great if we needed it. My 3 boys are almost perfect stair step sizes though so only the biggest needs anything and I usually get those the season before.

[dancingmama]

I had an issue with too much clothing (mainly because my sister gave me all her hand-me-downs and she loves to shop).  What I did was split the clothes.  I would set out clothes for the first couple months and as Christmas approached I would pull out the "christmassy" stuff (usually stuff with snowflakes or santa or whatever).  Once January hit, the santa stuff would be put away/donated and I would pull out other winter stuff.  As spring approached, I'd put away the reds and blacks and pull out the winter/spring color clothes and so on.  My daughter basically had enough hand-me-downs for her to have a full new wardrobe every two to three months.  So if grandma won't quit, something like this might work.  As it is, she only gets as much clothes in her dresser as she can keep tidy.  That typically means 2-3 pants, a play dress, 5-7 shirts, her dance clothes, couple pair of matching tights, matching/coordinating dress shoes for her dresses, pair of play shoes, boots in the winter/sandals in summer and a special dressy outfit for the holiday of the season (xmas, easter, v-day, t-giving, independence day, and bday) and of course a coat for the season.  She only gets 1 winter coat and 1 summer coat.  :)  

[poppy]

1.5 weeks of outfits plus one night outfit, plus PJs, is MORE than enough for any kid IMO.

 

Between hand me downs and random shopping my kids have 3 times that much - so - my opinion and my actual are pretty far apart unfortunately!

[Melissa in Australia]

3 shorts

 3  jeans

5 pair socks

5 underwear

5 short sleeve tops (T shirts or shirts)

3 long sleeve tops

2 jumpers (or whatever you call those long sleeve things in America pullovers?)

1 coat

5 handkerchiefs

2 pairs PJs

1 swimming suit

 

 

[Laura Corin]

It depends on your climate.  If you have four distinct seasons, I'd say (if you have a reasonably frequent washing schedule) five cool weather every-day outfits; five hot weather every-day outfits; a dress-up outfit or two per season block; accessories to deal with extremes (long underwear, etc)

 

L

[Tess in the Burbs]

If someone were buying my kids clothes they would have more than they do.  However, I prefer to do laundry when the basket gets full and not multiple loads over the weekend.  So we are minimal with our kids clothes.  They tend to wear only 2-3 of items they like anyway. 

 

4-5 pants.  Mostly jeans but one pair or black or khaki is a must

4-5 tops.  I buy large so it might last long enough into next season for cold or hot random days

1-2 pairs shoes.  tennis shoe is a must for running around.  Other pair is what they want.  Both have vans or chucks right now.  Dd had a boot in the past.  Summer they get tennis shoes and water friendly sandal. 

underwear....surprisingly they have more underwear than pants.  Same with socks. 

 

They do however have a good rain coat, a fleece coat, a light hoodie, and a heavy winter coat.  And lots of hats and gloves.  In the past we also always had a good stock of base layers for colder weather(hiking/kayaking).  

 

So their closets feel full.  But actually outfits is less than a week.  When we travel we use the timeshare so we always do laundry midweek on vacation.  Otherwise we would all have to buy more clothes lol

 

Also,  dd does have 2 dresses right now.  I believe one was a hand me down and the other I bought on clearance.  I think she would like more dresses but when we go shopping she always picks the jean outfit over the dress/legging outfit. So we do have a pair of dress shoes she wore a few times with the lone dress.  Was really a waste of money. 

[Starr]

If she buys new clothes give the hand me downs away. She can shop and someone else will be blessed.

[jenn-]

If she buys new clothes give the hand me downs away. She can shop and someone else will be blessed.

 

My nephews stair step immediately after my youngest, so the hand me downs definitely go to a good home.  I just hate waste and I feel buying new when I have perfectly good used clothing is wasteful.  I hate to shop, so that might play into it a bit.  I promise I will be keeping the nicest looking stuff this weed out, so her new stuff will probably be in the keeper pile.  I have one that still blows threw knees on a semi regular basis (the biggest one unfortunately, well and his daddy :001_rolleyes: ), so the spares from him will go into a bin for later in the season.

[Amy in NH]

Return them to the store for credit to save up and use on something you need.

[KungFuPanda]

If they have enough clothes for two weeks, and if I can go an entire week without doing laundry once, I consider that plenty of clothing.

[jenn-]

Thanks again everyone.  It is amazing how much got thrown into the donation bin just off of size alone.  I think I always have problems doing this sort of stuff when the kids are actually here because of the declarations of xyz being the favorite abc.  I think a couple of bins for the summer clothing and pairing back the pairs of jeans to a reasonable amount that fit well and we will be good to go.

[Farrar]

It would drive me nuts for my kids to have just 3-4 pairs of pants.  Laundry!  But more than, say, 8 or 9 is clearly getting into superfluous clothing.

 

If space is the issue, I suggest that you put a week's worth of outfits into drawers to see how much space that takes, with some extra storage for off season or special items like that one dress shirt or the snow pants somewhere else.  Then allocate that much space to each kid and make them donate the excess.  And tell mil that you're doing so.

 

[SKL]

8 days of seasonally appropriate clothes covering all the seasons.  This assumes the mom is disciplined enough to wash all of the laundry every week, no matter what.

 

My kids have aunties who overstuff their wardrobe.  It bugs me.  Frankly I have to throw a tantrum periodically to make them rein it in.  LOL.  I walk them over to the closet and make them watch as I use superhuman strength to force the clothes apart enough to stuff new ones in.  I holler about how the expensive dresser I bought is threatening to break under the pressure of too many shorts/t-shirts.  Usually at this point they say something like, "oh, I didn't realize they already had enough clothes" (really???).  :P

[jenn-]

It would drive me nuts for my kids to have just 3-4 pairs of pants.  Laundry!  But more than, say, 8 or 9 is clearly getting into superfluous clothing.

 

If space is the issue, I suggest that you put a week's worth of outfits into drawers to see how much space that takes, with some extra storage for off season or special items like that one dress shirt or the snow pants somewhere else.  Then allocate that much space to each kid and make them donate the excess.  And tell mil that you're doing so.

 

2 out of the 3 boys are good about wearing the pants two days in a row, but I am still thinking 5 or 6 per kid just to be safe.

[SKL]

I also am constantly weeding out clothes we are done with.  Thankfully I have two nieces who are smaller than my girls.  My younger sister really does use the clothes I hand down, so that makes me happy.  But my goodness, it would be nice to go a month without needing to find more space for new stuff.

[Saraswati]

This is my mother. Every time my kids go see her, they come home with new clothes and shoes. She buys so much, she does't even remember, so I don't have to worry about her asking why the kids have never been seen wearing a specific outfit. 

 

I try not to be irritated by it though - I'm not a shopper, and she's doing me a massive favor by keeping my kids well supplied. I rarely have to go clothes shopping - hurray! I just pop into their closets every couple months and toss aside anything that looks like it's in bad shape, or that I've never even seen. If it's been in there for more than a month without seeing the light of day, odds are it never will, so off it goes. I try to pass on what I can to families that are in need, the rest goes to Goodwill. She knows we don't need the help, and she knows that it's in excess - but it's her money... I'm just happy that she's well off enough to do as she pleases. 

[Jeannie in NJ]

we finally accepted that my son gets overwelmed with too many clothes so now he has 1 pair of sweatpants and 1 pair of army pants. (he hates jeans and we are currently looking for him some dress pants.  He has 2 pairs of shorts, about 5 or 6 collar short sleeve golf shirts, he hates t shirts, 6 to 9 pairs of underwear and socks, one sweatshirt and we are looking for a warm zip up fleece hoodie for him.He also dislikes heavy warm coats.  My son is special  needs and has issues with texture. He also owns a swimsuit and one pair of sneakers and that is all for him.

 

My dd , on the other hand, has a stuffed walk in closet but she buys most of her own clothes and does her own laundry so I don't worry about how many clothes she owns.