Today I packed up clothing that Raine has grown out of. ALREADY. He is just about 3 months old and I had to accept the fact that there are certain duds & threads that do not fit him anymore. :( He is officially out of sizes Newborn, 1 month, and 0-3 months. Slow down buddy!!! I can't believe this time has passed already. I couldn't part with anything so I just packed all of the tiny clothes for another day when I feel less sentimental about keeping them all and can actually set aside most for donation. Some of my favorite items I can hardly imagine giving away. Maybe to Doug & Rita (if they have a boy) or to a friend. MAYBE Allyson if she is lucky. (No, Allyson is not pregnant. LOL. Just saying...Down the road!)
I am having SO much fun dressing this little guy, so I thought I would share a few of my favorite things...
Favorite Brand:
H & M. Pants, sweaters, onesies, etc. Lots of organic cotton choices and super cheap. Many thanks to Hattie for giving us stuff from here because otherwise I would have never known H & M had baby stuff. When we found out we would be meeting Raine three weeks early, I made a mad dash for this store to get stuff that would fit my little 7 pounder. (Had we gone 40 weeks he probably would have been 10 pounds, so I had not bought anything smaller.)
H & M onesies were my favorite because they were side snap (no need to pull the fabric over his fragile newborn head) and they were super soft organic cotton for only $7. He had several of these...lime green gray, light blue, black/white stripe, and blue/white stripe. There were a lot of gimmicky ones, too, with names of rock bands, cartoons, or words/phrases. I couldn't resist the I <3 Dad. :)
The onesies had coordinating organic cotton pants that were skinny but stretchy with nice wide waist and ankle bands.
My other super favorite thing from H & M is their sweaters. I got two cardigan style sweaters for him ($8 each) in gray and brown and I got tons of use out of them because they were very convenient for layering. We are retiring the gray sweater but the brown one will still fit for another couple of weeks. The jeans in the right photo are also from H & M and have that same wide waistband as the cotton pants, making them super comfy across his tummy (and then I don't have to bother with a zip fly on such a tiny wiggling guy). He is almost out of those jeans but I bought another pair for the next size up because I knew they would be my go-to pants.
Speaking of having to find something for a 7 pounder...Raine's take-home outfit was too big (It was 0-3 months, sized 8-11 lbs., by
Tea Collection and he is currently wearing it now) so after H & M, I stopped by the
Gap to find something special. I love Gap Baby but it is definitely more pricey than H & M or Target, another place I frequently browse. I lucked out with their end of summer Forest collection, which was full of cute screen printed and embroidered forest animals that I knew Dan would love. I am also a sucker for anything in ivory, so it was perfect. I got a long sleeve onesie with an embroidered fox (he ended up going home in it), a bodysuit with animals, and brown knit pants. Gap now offers a new size, 0-7 lbs., so I knew that would be perfect but I couldn't believe how TINY they were! I remember holding up those little brown knit pants and asking my friend that worked at the Gap if my baby was actually going to be small enough for them (especially with a diaper.) She laughed and reassured me that he would. I didn't really believe it until later when I saw it for myself. ;-)
I should add that my strategy for getting duds & threads from the Gap is to wait (if I can stand it) until they are on sale or clearance and order them off the web site. $25-$30 items get marked down as low as under $10 and if I order off the web site, I usually get free shipping and avoid the hassle of combing through messy sale racks and bins in the store. I did this last winter anticipating size 3-6 months for Raine's winter clothing and stocked up on knits, corduroy, and velour. (And right now I'm going to get a few things that I've had my eye on that have been marked down, for both now and next fall...Like
this and
this! LOL.)
Another set of onesies that he wore a lot were by
Petunia Pickle Bottom. They were also side-snap and soft organic cotton. They were sold in a gift set of 3 and he had ivory/blue, ivory/brown, and ivory/lime green with a matching gift set of each striped socks. I got these a few years ago when I worked at Henny Penny so they are no longer available but PPB still does
layette gift sets including a "Social Set" that has some yoga-like pants that are super cute! Not only did I love the onesies, those socks were on his feet practically every day! They were super cute and fit well so they never fell off. I wish they came in bigger sizes. :( Anyway, it's a very nice little package if you are looking for a good baby shower gift.
The other socks we used a lot that stayed on his little feet well were a gift set by
Trumpette, in a rainbow of colors (See below). Also pictured below is a basic lap tee by Gerber. Loved throwing those side-snap shirts on easily. I don't know if other babies are super warm but Raine is a little heat bomb at his core, like his daddy, so quite often we skipped pajamas or gowns for sleeping in just a tee and diaper. And speaking of diapers! I packed away all of his newborn G pants. Some other time I will have to share about our diaper adventure, but for now I can say that we started off using
G Diapers. I look at those tiny G pants now and can't believe he was that small!
I got the Gerber tees at
Target as well as these little pants, jackets, and pajamas...I can always find something there, and it is in walking distance from our home.
What a silly little cute model, huh? ;-)
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