Buying Kids Clothes

You have a new baby in your home, it’s your first child, and you are working through how to sleep, feed them, and keep yourself upright for the first few months. As you start to figure out how things are working for you as a parent, you begin to realize that there will be more to life than simply sleeping and eating. One of those things that you are going to need is to clothe your child in something beside onesies (although they’re great for the first year).

Clothes for kids can be expensive, but they don’t have to be. With your first child, you’re going to have to get clothes for them from somewhere whereas a second can wear at least some of the clothes from the first. Where you get those clothes from is really up to you, and they’ll often come from multiple places. We look at some of the most common places to get clothes for your kids below.

Keep in mind that kids grow fast. Kids will wear clothes for one season usually and then be done with it. They’ll outgrow those clothes by the next year, and so don’t expect to get them into those clothes for a long period of time. If you have a big budget that you want to spend on clothes for your child, that’s fine. However, it’s generally not the best idea to buy a bunch of expensive clothes.

Friends and family

This is going to be your absolutely cheapest method of obtaining clothes for your child. If you have friends or family that are either done having kids, or they have a child of a different gender as their last, then they’re going to have a bunch of clothes that they no longer need. In many cases, they’ll be more than happy to give those clothes away. If you’re willing to take the clothes, then you should.

While the upside of these clothes is that they’re free, the downside is that you’re going to have to go through a bunch of clothes that aren’t organized, and you simply don’t know what you’re getting. You’ll end up spending a good amount of time going through and figuring out what you have and don’t have in these clothes. You’ll likely have to buy a few additional clothing pieces to supplement whatever you receive.

Second hand stores

Similar to getting clothes from your family and friends, paying for clothes secondhand is a pretty good choice. There are a lot of places to get baby clothes secondhand. You can go to local stores such as the Salvation Army, or you can go online to places such as swap.com or Facebook marketplace to find these clothes. In some cases, you may be able to buy bags of old clothes for really cheap.

The biggest downside to buying clothing from secondhand stores is that you have no idea where those clothes have been or how they were used. You’re hopeful that they were well taken care of, but you don’t know. For some people, that simply makes them too uncomfortable to buy them. Family and friends are ideal for these clothes because they’re coming from people that you know and trust.

Assuming that you can live without knowing where these clothes have come from, then you’ll be able to outfit your child quite well - you won’t be lacking clothes for them. If you have bought bags of old and used clothing, then you simply have to go through them all and sort them as needed, but you’re likely to find a decent amount of good clothes in there.

Buy new at store

Of course, there is always the option of buying all of your clothes brand new for your child. This is by far the nicest option if you can afford it - you know where your clothes are coming from, they’re new so they should last longer (but who really knows), and you can look at all of them before you actually pay for them. If money is not an issue, or you’re going to make this your choice, then go for it.

There are lots of places that you can buy clothes from. Generally, we’d recommend buying from stores that are cheaper, and buying when there are sales. Places like Walmart, Target, Old Navy, Children’s Place and so on can all have very good prices on new clothing for your kids when they have sales. Buying their regular priced stuff can get expensive, but sales and clearance can go a long way.

Designer brands on clothes can be expensive, and we’d recommend that you avoid them. Name brand apparel, such as Nike, looks really nice, but it’s expensive. If your child wasn’t growing like crazy, then it might be worth it. However, your child will probably only be wearing it for about six months so skip it regardless of how cool or nice it might look. It’s generally not worth it.

Conclusion

There are a lot of places to buy baby clothes from. Don’t be afraid to mix and match your options. Figure out your budget and go with the options that work best for you.