Do you worry about how your kids look?

[TruffleMonkey]

My daughter is 3.5 and always chooses her own outfits which usually results in some odd choices, but I don't really worry about it (as I'm no fashionista myself 😂)

I'm lucky if I can persuade her to let me brush her hair let alone do anything fancy with it.

Was speaking to a newish friend today who told me they don't like their child wearing certain colours, so they spend quite a bit on outfits for them. They also have designated clothes for 'play'. E.g they wouldn't let them go to Grandma's or out for lunch in those clothes, or something mismatched or mucky.

Just wondering people's thoughts really as I'm bored on a Sunday night and want to know if I'm being secretly judged for not minding how my kid is turned out😂

I'm not organised enough to have different grades of clothing for different occasions.

They are lucky if they have a clean one of everything some days.

When mine were little I loved Boden... mostly second hand, and liked to coordinate my kids...so matching colours ( three of them each a year apart!) but we were handed down a lot of it so not expensive.
Matching meant I could spot them in a park or soft play!!
However as they grew, eldest would only wear soft joggers or leggings and fabrics due to having ASD, no 2 was a mud magnet and my dreams of coordinated children rapidly fell apart Clean was as good as it got!
Now I'm granny... and love buying clothes again. DD2 and I both like soft stripey leggings and long sleeved Ts for comfort so love Frugi and similar... Vinted is our friend! DGS is 3 now and likes clothes (his Dad is very stylish) and we can see he will probably have his own style soon. Absolutely no football shirts though as anything manmade irritates his eczema.

No 2 baby is due any day and I'm looking forward to buying for him or her , though most stuff will be passed down... more stripey leggings :)

DD was, luckily, generally not that bothered what she wore, though there were a few things she didn’t like wearing (eg. she didn’t like the stiff feel of jeans or trousers in heavy materials like corduroy for a long time). I am a bit fussy about things being clean and reasonably matching, and also about materials, and kids’ clothes being comfortable and natural fibres wherever possible. I have so many memories of scratchy, uncomfortable seventies and eighties synthetic clothes as a child!

With DD I always liked to get a balance between comfy and age-appropriate (and not too trendy, fussy or expensive), and cute, attractive clothes that were well-coordinated. Not too girly, not too dull either. When DD was very little I liked cotton basics from M&S, Gap and John Lewis, but also bits and pieces from Little Bird, Mini Boden, Polarn o Pyret, White Company and JoJoMamanBebe. But I definitely didn’t buy them full price - only on eBay/Facebook second hand and occasionally in the sale! DD’s go to outfits as a little girl were usually a skirt, top and tights, or a jersey dress with leggings under, or leggings/joggers for nursery. Cute tops/blouses in plain colours and shorts/jersey dresses for summer, with ankle socks and sneakers/sandals. And I was (and still am) a real sucker for a cute cardigan…

DD liked looking pretty but didn’t like to fuss with clothes, so she let me buy almost everything for her until very recently, and she used to say “I like everything you buy, mummy”. Sob - how that’s changed in the last year! She’s now 12 and will only wear what she perceives as cool/“preppy”/whatever preteens are into these days. Thankfully it seems mostly to be wide leg jeans and T-shirts/jumpers/hoodies, and nothing too outlandish as yet. But oh how I mourn the days of picking up some gorgeous yellow cardigan with cute ducks on in the JojoMamanBebe sale 😭😭😭

As you are buying all the clothes for her you do choose her clothes to some extent.
I would say to my DD 'would you like this skirt or that dress'? Or if nursery day or going to the park make sure she's got leggings on but she could choose which ones. I guess I did choose the colours I liked on her when I bought the clothes. Her hair was pretty wild so did attempt to brush it daily!
I liked bright colours for my son and tried to stay clear of the usual khaki/navy/dull clothes on offer and pick reds and more colourful outfits.
I didn't mind them getting messy or dirty.

I do try and make sure they're not wearing stripes and polka dots, for example

Most of the time they're in joggers and T-shirts

Most of the time, no - as long as they’re clean and sufficiently protected from the elements I wouldn’t care if they picked something mad.

For certain events, like holiday celebrations or parties / weddings etc where there will be photos I want them to look nice and smart and I would insist on a proper outfit.

My son is generally very chilled about what he wears so it’s rarely a battle. My daughter is a baby, we will see how she feels when she’s older!

I worry about my 5yo. He’d love unicorn rainbow sparkle, pink purple and gold half the time, and wears lots of skeleton clothes and a pin stripe suit. I know he’s been made fun of for the skeletons in November. And I know he’s been hearing pink and purple for girls. I steer to neutral purples but I want him to have some of what makes him happy.

also he’s always covered in food stains and messy hair

I buy most of our clothes from charity shops and Vinted. I love colours and prints. I don't like clashing prints though. I also couldn't bring myself to put them in anything that's stained or holey, even if we were just at home. So I guess I went for a Boden catalogue look.

When they wanted to pick their own (mismatched) clothes, that was fine with me, as long as it was weather/occasion appropriate.

Now DS is 11 he lives in joggers. For an actual event (wedding etc) I insist on something smarter.

DD is 9, loves fashion and has a natural sense of style and good judgement, so I leave her to it.

Its because they don’t see themselves as having a child, they just have a dolly to dress up.

I avoid buying the things that annoy me: tight hard jeans, uncomfortable shoes, extreme "junior hooker" and "gangster" stuff. So they can choose from what they have as they wish.
The one thing that REALLY irritates me is the gamer console icon which seems to be plastered all over clothes intended for boys aged 6-12. It's as if once dinosaurs and tractors are left behind, they are supposed to graduate to an X Box and wear that. But not in my house!

I have boys (6 and 4) that would live in pants and vest if they could. I generally choose what they wear and I do like it to 'go together'. So no clashing prints l, clashing colours etc if they relay have a preference for a certain top I'd help them find the joggers that would look nice with it. I like them to be clean and their clothes to be ironed. Weather appropriate clothibg always. They do have a few things i wouldn't use for nursery but may save for parties or meals out etc. They have started choosing tops with their fave characters on when shopping so I take note of that as a preference.

It's easy to tell the difference between a child who is grubby and crumpled because they've been having a lot of fun playing, and a child who is actually neglected.

I judge the parents who are more interested in their child's everyday appearance than their child being able to enjoy play, activities, having fun with their outfits. Children are not dress up dollies.

It's not even this, I just don't seem to know the "rules" of clothing that other people have expressed on this thread which matter to them.

Like polka dots and stripes is apparently an outlandish combination, and so is leopard print and rainbow. These sound like totally normal toddler outfits to me. But perhaps I am the one people look at and assume that the toddler chose their own clothes. Oh well! I don't mind TBH most of the time they do anyway.

Yes, I always make sure my 3 year old DD has brushed & styled hair and matching clean clothes. However I'm wearing the same bra I had 3 years ago and leggings every day 🤦🏼‍♀️🤣

I don’t think it’s that @Simonjt

Obviously there are extremes: baby girls with huge bows and children (of both sexes) in mini adult clothes (and I include sports brands in that) but caring about how your child looks doesn’t mean it’s a doll or you see them as such.

I know when my children have been dressed in clothes i wouldn’t personally have chosen (for gifts and so on) they have felt a bit strange.

I suppose we choose our own clothes as part of our identity and our children are part of that. I have always liked buying clothes for mine, similar to how I shop myself where if I see something I like I’ll buy it. Of course as they get older they’ll have their own tastes which is also fine.

I'd worry about the 5 year old who bullies your child about clothes. Imagine what a shit home life they have....

Comfy and weather appropriate are my main concerns. I enjoy dressing my boys but tend to buy things that I know they'll like and that reflect their interests (eg Paw Patrol). I like him to look well turned out and cared for but the reality is he is muddy in about 5 secs at the moment (my oldest) to which I shrug my shoulders. The most important thing is he is able to explore the world, although I encourage him to take care of his things, he also needs to be allowed to do children things, which often involve messy clothes.

I don't keep her away from any colours/styles etc but i've always made sure what she wears matches, so matched tights or socks/cardigan colour to her dress, top to her trousers etc.
She does have separate clothes for the park/holiday club that she can get messy.
She's always been good and not fussing over what clothes i put her in thankfully even as a toddler, she's 8 now so picks her own outfit and has input into anything i buy for her.

I let my three year old choose what she wears for the most part, and she's pretty good at it! Sometimes I have to decide for her- for ballet or nursery maybe, but otherwise I encourage her to make her own choice and just celebrate her being dressed

Any woman who’s gone through the hard slog of bringing a child into the world (or indeed adopting) plus keeping the child safe, fed and looked after exhaustively for 24 hours a day every day is under no illusions that the child is a “dolly”. Parenting is bloody hard and exhausting, having kids is not an aesthetically pleasing time of life (eg. when you’re out changing nappies somewhere in a park where they’ve vomited/had a runny poo/tipped juice all over themselves or picked up half a dead slug, etc); and if a tiny bit of that is getting a small extra bit of joy from your kid looking cute as hell wearing a Little Bird cardigan and matching wellies, then I’m all for it to be honest.

Plus after having DD I got fat and old and skint and couldn’t afford to dress myself nicely (plus decent adult clothes are a fortune compared to buying some mini Boden off eBay) — so all the energy I’d previous spent on dressing myself nicely went into DD. And why not? I’ve never actually met any of these mythical parents who don’t let their child do messy play because their clothes are too nice. But dressing your cute toddler in equally cute stuff is a great pleasure of their childhood, even if they are about to roll in the leaves and get it all muddy!

I used to love styling DS when he was little, he looked like a baby GAP model. He’s now 3.5 and any attempt at fashion is batted away for his favourite Spider-Man hoodie, his sisters pink floral leggings and crocs. Sigh. I’m always very envious of beautiful dressed kids and wonder how the hell their parents achieved it.

I'm opposite to some in that I prefer to see young kids in funny outfits that they've obviously chosen, mismatched, brightly coloured, wrong for the occasion or a costume. I think it's adorable seeing kids in spiderman or a disney princess ball gown costume at day care or the supermarket. Those types of costumes, tutus and brightly coloured clothes are usually cheap and they grown out of them so quickly it doesn't matter if it gets muddy or ripped.

I let my child pick her own outfits based on fairly neutral stuff she has in her wardrobe. I avoid buying red just because I'm not keen on red. If she liked it I'd buy it for her though.

Humm, I do care to an extent.

Clothes have to be clean and fit, and weather appropriate.

I also make sur they don't wear stripes with a dotty t-shirt, for example.

I try to buy clothes that suit their skin tones too.

I took great pride in my DS having lovely clothes but by the time he was 2 he was choosing his own things. I just didn't have the fight in me as I had to get to work and I wanted him to be an individual.

I wouldn't let him wear dirty or damaged things. I settled for him looking clean and half decent at the start of the day. As the children came out of school mostly looking nice, there he would be! If I was lucky he had most of his clothes on although one time he only had one shoe!

Being a sweetheart, being kind, doing his very best at school and eating well were the things I concentrated on.