“6-month” clothes are really 3–6 month clothes (and other reasons to stop buying so many)

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about baby clothes: the number on the tag is the ceiling, not the age.

A “6 month” onesie is sized to fit a baby up to six months. Which means it fits a three-month-old. A “3 month” size is for a baby up to three months — so it’s newborn clothes with extra room. And “newborn” is for the first couple of weeks, if your baby is small, and skipped entirely if your baby isn’t.

Once you know that, two things happen. You stop buying the size you think you need and start buying the size up. And you realize why every parent has a drawer of tags-on newborn clothes that never got worn.

What we actually did

We stopped buying newborn-size almost entirely. Two outfits for the hospital, one newborn and one 0–3, and that was it. Everything else was 0–3 and 3–6, because those are the ones that get months of use instead of days.

We stopped buying anything that wasn’t 100% cotton. Babies’ skin reacts to things adult skin doesn’t notice, and cotton is the material I trust against it. Blends and synthetics went back.

We stopped buying anything we couldn’t get on and off a baby who was screaming. Snaps at the bottom, zippers that go two ways, envelope necks. If it has to go over the head with no give, it doesn’t get worn.

And we stopped accepting the premise that a baby needs a wardrobe. A baby needs about eight things that fit, in a size that will still fit next month. The rest is for the photos, and the photos are mostly of them in a swaddle anyway.

Coming next: what we wash all of it with, and why I read that label harder than any other one in the house.