Your Unsolicited Baby Advice

Maybe I'm just full of myself, but as I've been going through and sorting clothes to get ready for the move, I've come to a couple conclusions about baby clothes that I thought worth sharing.  Feel free to tune out now if you're not interested.

1) For the love of all that is holy, do NOT buy infant sleepers with buttons.  Yes it looks adorable, but trust me, when it's 3am and you've just feed the baby and changed the blown-out poop diaper while still half asleep, the last thing you want to mess with is the ten zillion little buttons that never seem to match up.  And if your kid is like mine, he'll find a way to poke his leg out between the buttons anyways.  Buy sleepers with a zipper and save yourself time and the opportunity for baby to hear her first swear words when your sleep-deprived self realizes that you still have a button left over when you get to the top.

2) If you plan on passing down clothes to siblings, buy quality items.  I'm lucky enough to have a fairy godmother who after having her one and only child, passes EVERYTHING her son C is done with to me.  The clothes she originally bought at places like Gymboree and Children's Place are in great shape despite being worn.  When I go to consignment sales I only buy top-brand items because they hold up the best.  I still buy things on the wal-mart clearance racks (Granimals sweats hold up really well) but I can tell that they probably won't last past Ben, where as the quality clothes that went through C, Josh and Ben are still good enough to save for my next monster.

3) Buttons do have their place in baby clothes and that is for bibs.  If you can find the snap ones, buy them!  There are two problems with velcro.  The first is that is your kid is a bib-ripper-offer then many times that rough material will scratch up the back of his neck as he pulls hard on it.  Second, it will snag everything you wash it with.  Even if you attach the two sides together, after a while the loop section becomes pretty easy to detach and the little hooks snag on everything.  Since I don't do separate baby laundry, this means MY clothes get snagged too, which just isn't cool.

4) If you're buying someone a shower gift, buy basic items for ages 9 months and up.  Trust me, she'll get a TON of infant clothes, most of which will only be worn a few times before baby outgrows them.  I wouldn't buy seasonal specific clothes because babies grow at such different rates, but basics like onesies, sweatpants and sleepers are useful pretty much year round.  Or take a risk and buy her baby food, diapers and wipes.  No one will ohh and ahhh when your gifts are opened, but they will be appreciated.

So there are my two cents on baby stuff.  Take from it what you will.