To wonder about the plus size clothing in next

[MumNWLondon]

Following on from all the threads about taxing fizzy drinks.

I took 4 YO DS to next to buy him some jeans. We picked up almost all the ones they had in an age 4 and headed to the changing room.

I'd describe DS as having normal build for 4 YO, definately not skinny but probably very slightly on thin side of average. Basically normal for 4 YO.

Anyway, noticed once we got to changing room some of the jeans were labelled as being 4+ for pus size kids so we didn't try them on. But even the normal ones were HUGE on the waist and legs, would have required me to really pull the elastic in the waist in and honestly could have fitted both his legs in one of the legs, looked ridicolous. Anyway we did find a skinny fit pair which were fine.

Now I am wondering - how fat would a child have to be to wear the normal fit ones and even more so the plus size one. FInd it quite worrying. AIBU to wonder about the demand for these trousers? There are 20 boys in his class and none of them look fat at all.

CB
google "children BMI" to get the nhs's online calculator for children.

I found it very useful to get a clear picture. My boys were 'overweight' until about age 4 and then lengthened out.
We have to monitor their intake pretty carefully.

Yes, I realise she would be classed as overweight for her age.

There were a few stories in the news a few months ago where children were weighed at school and told they were obese - they didn't have an ounce of fat on them.

I'm not underestimating her size, I see it, it's evident in the fact that I have to buy bigger clothes for her etc

And btw don't assume that school dinners are healthy. Ours have far too many calories in the puddings for my liking. DS only has them 3 days a week and that is more than I'd like.

and I ration fruit .

I choose her dinners from a menu, so I know what she's getting! Quite often she have the veggie option.

Cheers muddleduck, just did the nhs bmi calculator and it came back that she is a healthy weight, albeit right at the very end of the healthy weight section! 89.1 centile being 112 cm tall and 3 stone 8 pounds.

According to the NHS BMI calculator CB, your DD is right in shaded area between a healthy weight and overweight, certainly nowhere near obese.

And there is a footnote at the bottom saying interpretation of bmi varies between people depending on their ethnic origin.

Sorry CB cross posts.

sounds like your perception of her is quite accurate then.

she is tall

I've had a moan in Next about their trousers - DD2 is skinny and with the elastic pulled in far enough round the waist to keep them up they look hideous. The assistant just looked her up and down with amusement.

DD1 is a tall 13 year-old: lean, but is developing hips a bit, so not straight-up-and down like DD2; I find size 8 trousers are a better fit (if I can get them cheaply enough) than 13-14, which are a similar length but too roomy. Her ankles have just emerged from the 13-14 trousers; I don't think there's a hope of getting her the next children's size up without them being huge.

So it seems to me that children of a certain height are expected to be bigger round the middle than adults of the same height.

A proviso here is that neither of my girls likes skinny jeans; it may be that the non-skinnies are designed with the less skinny child in mind?

cordon bleugh - "IME children's clothes in the UK are made for skinny children"

I don't agree with this. DS1 is on thin side of average, but DD (7) is perhaps on slightly bigger than average (ie she has tummy) but even for her need to tighten next/m&S waistbands. Same with supermarket clothes or H&M.

I wouldn't have thought 4 YO clothes made with space for nappies - DS1 is in reception!

Fair enough if a 4 YO wears 5-6 clothes and the trouser legs are right in length - but alarm bell should be ringing if 7-8 clothes are necessary and the child isn't the height of a 7 YO, esp as waist sizes are so big.

re: comments about portion sizes being appropriate, saw a programme on TV last year and they asked 100 mums to estimate how much pizza a 7 year old needed and all seriously over estimated, some even by 3 or 4 times. Programme also showed that if more food put on plates the kids ate it.

Cordonbleugh she's a poppet. I suppose the problem is that in adult clothes, you may be able to get sizes 6-16 in the same length, but with children, they need to be what is perceived to be a standard height for their waist measurement. I'm not sure whether retailers use statistics to work this out, or guess.

cordonbleugh, I think your DD is probably on the chubby side but as you say she is at the upper end of "normal". She is also tall for her age, she is as tall as my 6 year old DS. My DD is also 4 and is at the lower end of "normal", she is 3'3" tall and weighs about 2st. If you look at her pics on my profile and compare them to your DD you can see how wide a range "normal" spans.

I have trouble with all 3 of my DC in getting trousers to fit. DS2 is slightly easier as he is a little bit more square and has shorter legs than the other two. But DD and DS1 are a nightmare. It would be so much easier if trousers came in waist and leg measurements, so that everyone could find ones which fitted their child properly without getting hung up on ages!

My comment that clothes are made for skinny children is out of my experience that waist sizes are way too small!

Alarm bells are not ringing, because yes, she is tall, but it's something I'm keeping my eye on, as I said before, there is a thin line between what she is now, and being seriously overweight.

Clothes are presumably made for the "average" child. So by definition there will be children like my DD who are swamped by age 4 clothes and children like cordonbleugh's DD who wouldn't fit into them.

As I say, getting rid of ages as clothes sizes and replacing them with measurements would make life far easier.

Nothing ever fits 2yo DS properly as he is built like Spongebob Squarepants.

Trousers do tend to fall off him unless he's wearing a real nappy though as he's got a perfectly square torso, no arse and little stumpy legs.

Next clothes are pointless imo as they just aren't made for my family!

So where do I buy fat baby trousers? DS is 9 months old and average length/height, but has monstrously huge thighs, and quite a tummy on him. He's currently wearing 18-24 month Frugi trousers which are way too long (but in disposable nappy - he needs the extra room for his big bum!)

In my/his defence he's always had this build, he was exclusively breast fed til 7 months and has only been on solids for 2 months!

Sorry of someone's already answred, I just scanned the thread, will read properly later.

My comment that clothes are made for skinny children is out of my experience that waist sizes are way too small!

But your child is unusually large! Not necessarily fat, although obviously chubby, but she is large and she is very tall. My DD is also four, weighs far less than two stone and is less than a metre tall so she's right at the other end of the scale from yours. I do get sick of trying to find stuff that will fit her but I tend to attribute that to her being unusually little and slim.

It's quite reassuring to find that other people with more normal-sized kids also find sizing pretty large.

totally agree with ds about sizing.

I took all the boys trousers out of the cupboard on sunday to sort out which ones actually fit them. I put them in order of actual length and found that this has very ittle relation to the age they are labelled.

For example, I bought a batch of 3-4 trousers from the same shop a few months ago. There is a good 5 inches difference betwen them. Some fit ds1 (5) and some fit ds2 (3).

domesticsluttery you're right. All this silly sizing just lends itself to us obsessing over our DC, whether it be they're underweight or overweight.

It's really just laziness on behalf of manufacturers. They can produce something of any size and stick an age on it, it really doesn't have to measure up to anything.

BubsMaw - H&M and supermarkets sell generously sized clothes.

An average sized child looks skinny.

My DS is nearly 7 and skinny. He has some trousers in age 6 which need adjustable waist and are a little on the short side but OK. No way could he ever have trousers in age 7 as they would be much too long (he is average height) and even when adjusted would bag at the waist. Tops he has mainly 6-7. He does have some 2-3 or possily 3-4 shorts that fit fine. And the largest of his underwear is 5-6.

DD is 5 and of a more average build. She fits 5-6 clothes fine. It feels weird that she fits clothes of the right age IYSWIM

So what should a 3.2yr old weigh according to the averages?

as I say DS2 is 3ft 5" tall and weighs 3st 9lb.

He eats a very healthy diet. I cook everything from scratch - lots of hotpots and casseroles in this weather, bake my own bread etc he doesn't have any fat on him to see. But is in 5-6yr old clothes. He is also in an 11e fitting shoe

Now according to dr's he is classed as medically obese....

You wouldn't expect to buy shoes in age sizes, would you? DS1 was a size 12 shoe at 6, DS2 is a 10. Much the same they are different heights/waist sizes at the same age. I hand down school uniform from DS1 to DS2, they don't necessarily fit DS2 at the same age that they fitted DS1.

I am the same age as Katie Holmes. We are (unfortunately) not the same size.

apologuises for not reading the whole thread.

a couple of years ago dd1 got chunky, she was upper weight of average for her height, but stopped growing upwards for about 2years. it was just puppy fat, but meant that we had to buy the 8+ trousers for her. She has just outgrown them heightwise and passed them down to dd2 who is superskinny so i took the waist in for her. dd2 is a similar height to dd1 but because she is skinny the trousers hang lower iyswim.

iots not a case of dd1 was obese or even overweight, because she wasnt, she was just going through a chunky pre-pubescent stage.

I don't mind about not buying the "right" age at all. I do mind that it is impossible to buy trousers for DS that will fit him at the waist that fit him in the leg as well.