Our approach to: Clothing

In this series I share summaries of what we have done from birth until now (my son is 4) and in today's post I will be talking about our approach to clothing.

                                            During the baby years:

- We bought nearly everything second hand which saved us so much money, plus it was really fun creating his wardrobe and looking for lovely pieces for him to wear.

- I mainly looked out for light, pure cotton clothing which allowed his hands and feet to be uncovered so that he had the opportunity to experience all of the textures around him. We looked for loose, stretchy trousers and tops that enabled him to move easily and as much as he wanted to.

- We kept the main rooms in the house warm so that he could have less layers on

- Whenever possible, we would go outside and be in nature, so that he could feel grass and leaves, roll around and explore being in nature.

- On a practical note: zipped onesies were SO much easier than the popper ones!

- We often added fun sew on patches to plain t-shirts (especially on the pocket)

During the toddler years:

- H&M jersey trousers have been my absolute favourite up to 4 years (I'd still buy these now if they offered age 4+)

- We opted for elastics, slip ons and velcro fastenings over shoelaces with shoes

- Sometimes we would get the size up and take in the elastic waist a bit, so he had more room to move around

- Facebook marketplace, baby sales, car boot sales, Vinted

Offering independence when dressing

This is an area we are definitely still working on(!) but here are a few ways we helped our son to access his clothes and to have more independence when getting dressed

- We have a shoe cabinet for the family: he has the lower shelves so he can access them himself

- We installed a low down set of coat hooks for our son - perfect for coats, bags and a little pouch for accessories (hairbrush, sunglasses, gloves, etc)

- We have small laundry bins (simple baskets or mini office bins) dotted around the house, making it easier for our son to put his worn clothes in there

- He learnt the coat flip when he was a toddler which was a game changer in terms of his feeling of independence!

- I keep the majority of his clothes up in higher up baskets and I put a choice of 2-3 in his level baskets or drawers, for him to choose from each day, to avoid overwhelm

- Choices seem to be one of the best things to offer my son; whether it is which coat he is wearing today, which welly boots - this lets him feel he has a say in his clothing each day

- My son now has a lot more opinions about what he does and doesn't want to wear, so where possible I show him the options (when buying new clothing) and let him choose, often from a few that I have saved