Now I’m going to say something that most mothers-to-be are going to cringe at. For the first couple of months of the child’s life, they shouldn’t even have all of those designer clothes/outfits/etc. Or if they do, it should be limited to one outfit for photos.
Why do you ask? Because for one reason, you shouldn’t be taking your new baby all over creation. They don’t have the immune system developed enough at this time to deal with constant viral attacks from other people. Therefore, if they’re just going to be lounging around the house, then they need the baby equivalent of sweat pants… and that would be a onesie.
Second, you are going to be constantly changing them during this time. You’re not going to have the skill/dexterity developed at this point to want to try to wrangle a kid into all of those clothes. And believe me, the last thing that you want to be doing is trying to keep the $30 outfit from getting poop on it after junior has a bout with constipation.
Third, they’re going to outgrow it so fast that it’s going to make your head spin. (Especially in our case… Blaze was a preemie, and still the size of a full term baby… now, three months later he’s barely fitting in 6mo clothes.) I wouldn’t even recommend buying newborn-sized clothes, because they’ll more than likely be out of them before they get out of the carseat on the ride home from the hospital. But maybe that’s just our case.
Now, when you do get your onesies, make sure that if they’re long sleeved, they need to be the ones that have the fold over mittens. (or whatever they’re called.) These will help you in ways you can’t even imagine. Trying to put mittens on the hands of babies to protect them from scratching themselves is like Sisyphus pushing a rock up the hill. You’ll work to get the mittens on, then they will just take them off in about .1% of the time it took you to get them on. (If you do have to put mittens on them, I don’t suggest using mittens at all. I would use socks. They usually expand further to get them on their hands, and they’ll stay on the hands longer.)
Next, make sure that the hole their head goes through is LARGE. Kid’s heads are huge, and some onesies are more generous in this requirement than others. I like the ones that have the foldover slits on the shoulders, and the ones that have the snaps in the back. Yes, they are a little more of a pain because you have to snap them up after you get it on them, but its soo much easier to put it on them that it’s worth the extra little bit.
Speaking of snaps, that’s another thing… if the onesie has footies, it’s considered a sleeper. These should have snaps down *both* legs. (Believe it or not, some of them only have them down one side. Why they did that, I have no idea.)
Now, you’re probably going to be asking, “How are we going to keep baby warm if all they have are onesies?” It’s not rocket surgery, but I’m going to have another article on sleep sacks and blankets. With these two things, you should be able to go out in any weather with baby in a onesie.
By now you have a good idea of what to look for in a onesie, and why you should care. (Cost, usability, and convenience.) Hopefully, the moms out there that send me the eventual hate-emails on this can wrap their head around the idea that most of the clothes that we buy for them at this age aren’t for them, they’re for the parents. (I have yet to see a kid this age complain about the clothes they are in. Though I have seen a woman worry about which coordinated outfit that they should put them in for the day. And then have to change it 20 min later…) Save the money and spend it on Doc Brown’s bottles… something you’ll get way more use out of and will make your lives a little better. (But that’s another article.)
Bring on the comments!