tips, tricks and guides for parenthood
Especially when it’s your first baby, you can be left thinking - how many baby clothes do I need?. Baby’s grow very quicky so buying a huge range of new-born clothing may be pointless as they might not ever get to wear some of it. What you need really comes down to your circumstances. These include the weather where you live, how often you go out with your baby and how often you do the washing. We will expand on these points later on.
It can sometimes be hard to avoid having too many baby clothes. As a parent, you will go out and buy the clothes that you want to dress your baby in. However, friends and family will also buy you baby clothes to celebrate the birth of your baby or your baby shower. This means that over time, the amount of clothing you have really starts to rack up.
In this blog, we’ll go through individual items to help you work out how many you’ll need for your baby. We’ll also add in some handy tips to help limit the amount of clothes you have and ways you can use them during the day and night.
Need help organising? Learn how you can organise your baby's wardrobe without any hassle!
As we mentioned earlier, the amount of baby clothes you’ll need depends on your lifestyle factors.
Weather
The weather plays a huge part in how many baby clothes you’ll need. If you live in a hot area, you’re not going to need thick, warm outfits as your baby will get way too hot. This means that you won’t need to purchase items like baby grows as these cover the legs and feet. Instead, focus on items that are made of thinner materials like bodysuits where your baby will be left comfortable for the whole day.
However, if you live in a colder area, you might need to stock up a little bit more on warmer outfits. Sleepsuits and baby grows are great to keep your baby warm. There’s no point buying lots of shorts and summer tops for your baby if it’s going to be cold. Prioritise your spending on what your baby will need at the time.
Take into consideration how often the area you live in is warm or cold. For example, you could live in an area with more cooler months than warmer ones or vice versa. This can help you plan for the amount of clothes you need to buy for certain seasons.
Socialising
What you buy for your baby also depends on how often you go out to social events. If you stay at home more and only go out to run errands, there’s no need to dress your child up in a full outfit. Instead, a sleepsuit or baby grow will do the job just fine. However, if you tend to venture out and see friends a couple of times a week, you’ll need more going out items for your baby. These can include cute outfits like dresses or matching sets.
Washing
When your baby is a new-born or still very young, it’s more likely that they will be wearing more than one outfit a day due to soiled clothing. This means that your baby clothes will need to be washed more regularly. It’s important to make sure you have enough items to use whilst other are in the wash.
For example, if you only have a few bodysuits and they all need to be washed around the same time, your baby won’t be able to wear these for a day or two. It really depends on your baby.
It’s great to try and make good use of the baby clothes that you have. Sleepsuits are clearly good for when your baby is sleeping, but that doesn’t mean they can’t wear them during the day. This can limit down the amount of clothes that you buy for your baby.
If you’re just going out to collect some shopping and take your baby, there’s no need to dress them up all proper. Instead, a sleepsuit will do just fine. Not only will it keep your baby warm in the cooler months, they will also look super cute and snuggly!
When your baby is younger, they’re probably going to need more items as there are more likely going to be accidents. Take into account how many times you may need to change your baby’s sleepsuit and base your number of items around that.
As we’ve mentioned previously, take into consideration washing time as these items will be out of use during this time. Some parents use up to 5 sleepsuits a day due to changing them because of accidents. You can take this number as a guide for you and your baby. If you think you need less, you can always buy more in future if they’re required.
Bodysuits are more commonly needed during the day as they can be layered with other items. For example, dresses, skirts and bottoms can all be put over bodysuits to create outfits or to keep you little one more comfortable. Their practicality makes them a popular choice in day to day life and may be an item that you want extra of.
Remember, pants and bottoms are one of the items that are highly likely to get soiled on. You can buy bottoms in cute multipack sets which are great as you may need to change them quite a lot. As well as this, bottoms are a popular item as they are easy to put on and make a casual outfit for the day.
Unless you go out to social events all of the time, you’re probably not going to need a lot of these outfits when your baby is really young. We’d suggest around 3 of these outfits. These are great for baby photo shoots but be prepared for an accident. By having two or three of these outfits, it will be easy to change and start again.
Fancy outfits are not essential to get for your baby. It’s your choice whether you want to buy them at all. It depends on your circumstances and your budget. You may find that you choose to spend more money on these outfits as your baby gets older. Therefore, they can then show off their outfit properly and your money is well spent.
We know this isn’t a clothing related item, but it’s a common question that we see quite a lot. When your baby is 0-6 months, you’re going to need these burp cloths a lot. We recommend having around 10 as its common that babies burp up some milk after they’ve had it. You may have even forgot that you will have to burp your baby, find out how to burp a baby in our fantastic blog.
Think about how many times you feed your baby per day and calculate your burp cloths like that. All babies are different and some may need less than others.
We hope that our guide has helped you answer your question - how many baby clothes do I need? There isn’t a clear answer for all parents as we all have different budgets, lifestyle and most importantly, different babies. However, we hope we’ve helped you out and made it easier to work out how many of each item you need for your little one.