To think MIL is being unreasonable and there's nothing wrong with hand-me-downs?

This seems logical. Save your money and the planet now while he doesn't care. Buy new stuff when he asks for it.

As an aside I don't get the love for vinted. By the time you add postage and buyer protection it's rarely cheaper to buy stuff there than new stuff in the sale. It adds on at least £3.50 which if the item costs £1 or 2 is the price of a 3 pack of kids leggings or t shirts from Sainsbury's sale... Maybe if you are buying really expensive stuff it's worth it? But not for cheaper kids clothes. I get mine from charity shops, hand me downs from friends and sometimes FB marketplace

I was perfectly happy wearing my elder sibling's castoffs but remember refusing a jumper my younger sibling had outgrown when they got taller than me!

I don't think your 3 year old will be bothered where their clothes come from. Just make sure you have name labels for each child and relabel when necessary.

Unfortunately he still is!

one thing I did always pass down was school
uniforms. Can’t anymore as they are same size now, but also as the boys now wear cream coloured shirts so you can imagine how they go. Ds1 does art and always comes home with paint on his clothes as he ‘forgot’ to put on the apron.

I do this with my boys (nearly 3 and 19 months). 18months gets a few new outfits each seasons/age bracket but the majority of his clothes are ‘hand-me-downs’ and when my youngest has finished with them I hand them down to my friend who little boy is bout 7 months younger than my youngest so they all get worn a third time too.

The only thing we haven’t been able to hand down are shoes, youngest is in a wide fitting shoe whereas eldest was a standard width…but I had kept them all with the intention of my youngest wearing them too!

Unfortunately my youngest may catch my oldest up in shorts sizes next summer, he’s nearly 4 but till wears 18-24m (or 2-3 if they have a drawstring) in shorts due to being skinny (I have a nightmare with trousers for him). Youngest is 19 months and on the chunkier side so was just going in to 18-24m as the weather changed. I think they’ll both be in 2-3 next summer! 🙈

I still do this with my 15 & 13 year old. The rate the 15year old grows he’s barely in anything 5 mins!

Tell her she’s very welcome to buy him a new coat if it bothers her.

Families have been passing on hand me downs as long as there have been children. I can see why someone who had rather too much old stuff might notice or comment but there's nothing wrong with it. DH was the youngest of about 8 cousins so the clothes were over a decade out of date by the time they got to him.

I've passed clothes from older to younger DS until they got to teens and diverged in style, perhaps they were trying to make a point!

I put in an earlier post that the clothes should fit the younger child reasonably well and I think more of neutral colour clothes and coats that will not go out of fashion.

I don’t think they care, I definitely still did pass things on. Some things were passed on to my oldest from his cousin too so he got second hand things too. I guess because of my husbands experience I was more conscious of making sure I did buy ds2 new things as well - plus ds1 was a grub so often his clothes were ruined anyway.

in my husbands case though his brother was very obviously the favourite and I think the clothes were just another factor in that. Both him and his sister had bad teeth but only she got braces. Apparently doesn’t matter for boys. His brother didn’t need them but he said if he did he would have got them for sure.

with my boys I now spend a fortune on clothes for my middle son as he likes nice clothes and dressing up in shirts and ties ect. My oldest is ASD and likes soft gray clothes 😂.

Us out of touch oldies have been using and passing on second hand clothes for decades. Hardly the preserve of the progressive new generation, mate.🙄

We have a game in our family, trying to work out if old photos are me or my cousin! There was a 5 year difference, so only coats and party dresses were kept.

I would never pass on shoes.

Was she the youngest in her family and always had the hand me downs?
I'm the younger of 3 so always had things third.
Could be annoying although I didn't actually mind until I got a little older - teens.
I buy lots of things off Vinted for my kids now.

YANBU

My mother is the same way about clothes as your MIL ignoring the fact that autistic DS1 is usually running around in his underpants at home. We do go out for a few hours during the week but not enough to warrant a need for 5+ pairs of trousers. DS2 has more clothes than his brother due to passing them down to him once DS1 outgrew them and 95% of what she bought still had tags on or barely worn.

I’m selling stuff on Vinted now with tags still on it because DS2 doesn’t wear certain clothing and/or it will be at least 3 years before he is able to wear many items that I rather get rid of it than hold onto it knowing it could be worn by someone else. Plus, if he doesn’t like it, I would end up selling it anyway.

My mother loves to shop sales at different stores. Since my sister and I both had girls, she is in heaven buying new stuff for them. She was aghast that I was using some of our sons’s hand me downs for DD1. I put a little coordinating turban or hat and some cute socks and she looked adorable imo.

I buy most of their things on Vinted unless it is something they need right away.

This☝️

3 DDs why would I waste money on new clothes when I have perfectly good clothes already.

Even my oldest had her clothes handed down from older cousins which my youngest even wore if they lasted.

They reach a point where they want their own things, different tastes, sizes, which is fine but when little it’s ridiculous to just buy new for the sake of it.

I only have one DD, but 80%+ of her wardrobe is hand me downs from her older cousins or my friends who have slightly older kids.

She genuinely loves it, every time we’re getting her dressed she’ll ask ‘who gave me that’ and is far more likely to choose it if she knows it was either her cousin’s or one of the older friends’ she looks up to first. Not sure how long that will last but for now I’m making the most.

I think on an instinctive level it does feel a bit ‘not fair’ that one of them gets majority new stuff and the other not so much, but when you stop to think about it your way makes far more sense.

Think my post was hidden as I mentioned a notorious cheap Chinese brand starting with T which my in-laws love, they would rather slaves make their clothes than buy second hand. Even hand me downs, it’s all about showing that you can afford to buy new. It’s a weird mindset which I can’t understand really.

My husband had issues with this actually, with our 2 boys. His older brother always got new things, and his sister got new things but he only got hand me downs. As he was significantly smaller that his brother even though only 2 years younger, the hand me downs from the previous year were too big so he either had too big clothes or hand me downs from 2 or 3 years ago. So he never had clothes that were ‘cool’ at the time. By the time they fit him, they were daggy.

his older brother was the golden child (still is) so it kind of makes sense.

my 2 boys were the same size by the time they were 10 and 12 anyway.