To ask why people have clothes “for nursery”?

I tend to have my son’s ’nice clothes’ that I make more of an effort to keep nice, but the majority is stuff I don’t worry about. When my son was a newborn I used to get everything brand new, and would fret about not being able to get blowouts and stains out and it’d be really depressing feeling like I was wasting money as even supermarket stuff isn’t super cheap. I now get almost everything on Vinted, and get mostly ‘nice’ brands I could not afford new.

My son isn’t in nursery but we tend to just put him in whatever clothes, I find my life is a lot happier now I don’t stress about getting a chocolate or berry stain on something because even the nicer stuff probably only cost a couple of pound secondhand. We spend a lot of time getting grubby in the garden so I can’t really be fussy or he won’t have as much fun if I’m constantly dabbing at him and fretting. Life is too short to be stressing about stained toddler clothes!

However, if my son was dressed in brand new extortionately-priced stuff head to toe I imagine I’d hesitate sending my son off to get mucky and potentially ruin them. The few brand new/nice stuff tends to come out for visiting family/days out.

I absolutely had nursery clothes for my kids. If I sent them in wearing their slightly nicer clothes, they would get lost, covered in paint, food, mud.

Yep this.

mine are teens now so well past that stage, but they definitely went to nursery in, and with spares of, older, more worn clothes. We were lucky with both to be given lots of hand me downs, which were ideal for nursery.

If you have one 2yo child at home, and decide to do some painting, you're probably sat right next to them while they do it offering 1-2-1 supervision. At a nursery the ratio of staff to children for 2yos is 1 to 5! Even if you organise the activity and have the five children sat around the table next to you, you'd need to be an octopus to be able to swoop in and stop little Jimmy from suddenly dolloping a big splodge of paint onto his new football top. And while you did that, Emily will be rubbing a handful of paint into her hair and Pedro will start chewing on the brush.

Nurseries and pre-schools often do more "messy play" activities than people do at home, they have mud kitchens, there are freely accessible craft activities, and there are other children - a bunch of pre-schoolers playing together tend to get messier than one child playing alone. That combined with the less 1-2-1 supervision means clothes will probably get messier.

And the staff don't buy or wash the clothes, so perhaps some have less urgency in wanting to prioritise keeping a new t-shirt clean versus letting the children have messy fun.

Also Nursery staff really don't care about their clothes being messed up.
Once they gave the babies (under a year) tomato soup for tea and the light grey leggings my DD was wearing never looked quite right again after that!

We definitely have nursery clothes! I don't know what they do but everything ends up covered in paint or food and the stains don't come out once they've sat in it for 6-10 hours!

Also some things get lost, and my MIL and mum hand sew/knit quite a few things for the kids, so I tend not to send those in either! Once sent my son in a brand new hat I'd knitted for him and it got lost that first day never to be seen again!

My kids probably do look like Orphan Annie!
My daughter seems to make less mess now (aged 4) so for a while now she's just worn pretty much any clothes to nursery, but there are some nice things that now have a felt tip mark on them, or the knees are still a bit grey-ish.

There’s a difference between sending your child into nursery in raggedy clothes and having non-raggedy clothes that they might wear for nursery.

We have ‘nursery’ clothes, they tend to be cheaper from Morrisons or Tesco and a darker colour so that they can muck it up and it is easier to clean. I wouldn’t want to send DC off to nursery in the nice clothes he got for Christmas/Birthday as they’ll get covered in paint/mud.

That’s not to say DC doesn’t get to play outside or paint at home but nursery staff are looking after multiple kids all at once so they’re not going to be as good at popping an apron on properly or checking that the kids aren’t smearing paint all over their hair/face/clothes. DS definitely comes back from nursery way dirtier than he would doing the same activities at home one on one with us

Like @Jessica5678 I've got a nursery 'uniform' for my DD - 5 identical long sleeve jersey dresses (Vinted) and basic leggings (Primark). She really likes wearing dresses so it's just easier to buy a bundle from Vinted and then I don't mind if they get stained. She still wears them on the weekend, but she also has some things that don't go to nursery, like party dresses/fancy dress. When she outgrows clothes if it's in good condition it gets donated/sold, and if it's stained it goes to nursery for their spares box.

I have 'nursery' clothes for my son who just started preschool. They are probably what you'd call rags. We are a very relaxed family who talk about sustainability and reusing a lot with our children, they absolutely go to nursery and play in the garden in rags. I model this too, I wear clothes with small rips and tears. It's more important to me to be sustainable and we have smart work clothes for when it's crucial from a social perspective that we look perfect, events etc. I'm happy they they are clean, hygienic, vibrant and happy children and no less cute for having a stained t shirt. We also do lots and lots of muddy and messy play at home, just like at preschool, expect I am with them 1:1 and the mess is generally more contained, or I am able to remove clothes immediately after play to soak etc. Nursery damage is just on another level!

Where do I start with this......

So we have nursery clothes. They aren't threadbare infact they are pretty decent quality but they are stained beyond belief!

I buy pretty much everything for nursery from Next. It's decent quality and it washes/tumble dries well. It doesn't fall apart - so it's more cost effective. They are all completely stained on first day of use - with honestly stuff that doesn't come out. I wash everything on a 40 degree wash but my DC clothes are still a mess. But they don't have holes or are threadbare. They are perfectly wearable/warm/protective etc.

On weekends, when my DC is out and about in public (and not just with his little friends in the confines of a classroom) then I'm not ok with him wearing a top with green paint all down the arms.

His weekend clothes aren't stained. If we're doing something particularly messy then I have overalls at home. If he's out doing something muddy - I have puddlesuits or over the top trousers (or I simply change him into nursery stuff). I have the time to change him in a way that a preschool teacher doesn't when dealing with 30 odd kids. You send them in, in clothes you're ok with being wrecked/stained and coming home with pasta sauce all down - things we don't do at home.

I don't see why that's at all difficult to understand?

If you're doing some DIY in the house - do you get changed into your messy clothes or are you perfectly prepared to get paint all down your nice jeans and then wear them for brunch the next day? Didn't think so.....

It's just common sense. It's not rocket science.

We all have clothing for different occasions though, dont we? You don't know what they're going to be doing at nursery on any given day. At home, if you decide to do painting or messy stuff, you deliberately dress your child for it.

I never sent DD in with holey or scruffy clothing but I always sent her in wearing things I wouldn't mind getting trashed, which was the majority of her wardrobe, so I do take your point. I was never particialy precious about how she looked though, other than clean, tidy (at least at the beginning of the day) and happy. No sad beige childhood here!

Nursery clothes just ended up looking like shit. There was always paint/stains that didn't wash out and tbh it was easier for me having nursery stuff that it didn't matter how it looked, as well as other clothes which I knew were okay for general use and wear.

This for us. If DD is not at nursery, we’re:

• at the park/local gardens
• swimming
• soft play
• shops
• and yeah, chilling at home with TV, Sylvanians, Magnatiles.

Messy play is a big reason I send her to nursery! So sue me. She needs quiet days at home after 3 full on days at nursery. Her nursery clothes are mainly her 2 brothers’ hand me downs, so if you’re offended by people buying extra clothes for nursery (?) then don’t worry. Can’t see what else could be the problem - you’re offended on nursery’s behalf, that people don’t dress up to attend?

Nursery was where DC wore all the awful, garish, character clothing from primark that they loved. No cares if it gets ruined.

Our nursery didn’t send kids home too dirty though.

Bit of a mixture. I had clothes that didn’t go to nursery but I didn’t go out and buy ‘nursery clothes’.

At DS' nursery 8 years ago he wore the same clothes he wore at home. They used washable paint and nothing got ruined. Everything sent into DDs nursery is stained with paint on the first visit, including coat and shoes. So she has a small separate nursery wardrobe, from vinted. If I am planning to take her out somewhere after nursery pick up, I take a change of clothes to change her into in the car.

My 3yo has an actual uniform for nursery so I don't mind the state that gets in. When her big sister went in 2019 it wasn't a uniform and I was fed up of her clothes being ruined.

Because clothes at nursery get lost, taken by other children, chucked in the bin if they have a poo accident, and stuffed in a bag for 3 months as spares.

I don't want to lose my favourite clothes to that. So I buy old cheap faded ones that I care nothing about.

My kids are still allowed to get messy at home in their normal clothes.

I buy my 2 year old DD cheap clothes for nursery. Sometimes paints, or tomato based sauce stains from the hot lunch etc won't come out in the wash, also the garden area has black padding which hasn't come out even when using stain removers. I go into Penny's (Primark in the UK) buy 6 outfits in their 2/3 euro range of clothes so then it doesn't bother me that they get stained/destroyed.

Surely anybody can understand why people may send their kids to nursery in different clothes than the ones they otherwise wear?

Our daughter has an item of clothing ruined at nursery at least once a week - they don’t put them in overalls and the clothes get stained by paint, food, mud etc etc. She therefore goes to nursery in leggings and t-shirts from Sainsbury’s for example. Cheap and cheerful so they can be used as rags once ruined. Her wider clothes are more expensive.

Yes we have clothes for nursery/clothes for best…. But (shoot me down in flames if you wish) I wouldn’t dream of trying to sell/hand over filthy holey clothes. I’m all for hand me downs and vinted etc but in reasonable condition. Manky stuff goes in the car cleaning/decorating box as rag. Only your own stains are ok- no one wants someone else’s stains!

Because if I buy nice clothes from John Lewis for Sunday lunch with the in laws I don’t want these to be the same supermarket clothes my child comes back with paint on or purple food stains. The paint does not wash out.

i thought this was quite a simple obvious concept

Is this an April Fools ?

this was never a thing when my DC went to nursery. They just wore their normal clothes and an apron at nursery when doing messy stuff.

Mine were in nursery 5 days a week so tbh they did most of their messy play there rather than at home.

But the big thing for me was we had a fair few clothes go missing (even with name labels on) so you wouldn't want to send anything too decent or that DC were sentimentally attached to in case you didn't get it back.

Although my DC wore all second hand stuff for nursery, I never sent them in stuff with holes in though.

I agree with the posters about nursery (somehow) being dirtier than home. Even though they wear overalls there always seems to be some kind of random paint or food stain.

That for me is not the main reason though! I don’t want to put my child’s name in lovely quality Next or Zara clothes I could then sell on Vinted, and I don’t want to lose any expensive clothes. So I buy cheaper clothes I wouldn’t mind losing. I’ve had other children’s clothes come home in plastic bags, inevitable in a busy nursery class!