Unwanted baby clothes

[Justanothernameonthepage]

We're lucky enough to have some very generous friends and family. We had DD earlier this year and When asked, we would say we preferred gender neutral bits and bright colours. Some people bought some amazing bits and some bought items we would never use and were really impractical for a newborn. At least one person announced they didn't believe in gender neutral and bought really unusable items. (Fair enough if they want to waste their money).
A couple of the least worst outfits were used for a couple of minutes and photographed as thank yous but most were donated or exchanged. (Annoyingly, nearly all were given with no gift receipt and as I wasn't able to get to the shop til after sales ended I exchanged £80 worth for a single bodysuit). We kept some girly bits as emergency outfits, but tend to use DS old bits as they are much better designed for a baby.
A friend just found out I did this and got upset (didn't mean for her to find out, but she insisted on hunting for all the 'lovely girly dresses' DD doesn't wear when I was changing a nappy)

AIBU? I thought exchanging meant the person's money went towards something needed and that would be used so is better than just storing things and then having to buy useable bits.
Or should I have stored dresses, knowing that I'd never use them when they could have made another mum really happy?

Update! DF texted an apology! Turns out she's suffering from early pregnancy hormones and got a bit tearful at the idea of unwanted baby clothes. (No judgement, I once cried in pregnancy at a dropped baby sock). Hooray! Off to buy the most hideous baby outfit I can find for her to pretend to love (as well as chocolate).

she insisted on hunting for all the lovely girly dresses DD never wears

She set herself up a bit there didn't she? Maybe I'm a wimp but if I wouldn't put myself in a position to confront someone in these circumstances bu instead make a mental note to steer clear of buying clothes for their child again and stick to books/vouchers/whatever.

YANBU to not dress your child in something you don't like. My DD got a lot of ghastly dresses and things and at 10 still does on occasion. Luckily now most people know her better and know not to get her girly stuff to wear.

Buying most hideous baby outfit from charity shop - don't want to encourage rouge baby designers

*Rogue designers (damn designers and their blushers)

She quickly got the message that her job was to keep her clothes clean.

See, this is why a mostly clothe my DD in charity shop stuff#. It's not that we can't afford new, but I want my DD to be able to jump gleefully in the biggest, muddiest puddle, and if her clothes get trashed then at £1 for trousers we can just compost them.

#Before anyone says anything about embarrassment--she's not yet 2. Having grown up poor myself, yes of course I'll no longer be doing this when she's older.

Re babies learning to crawl, my biggest nuisance was DP trying to keep dressing DD in babygros as she got over 6 mo, on the grounds that it was "easier"--he'd probably still be trying to dress her in them now if he got his way.

Ridiculous side of the hill to die on...what a charmer you are BewareOfDragons. No need for such aggression. Clearly we disagree, I wouldn't be happy if I spent money on an item and it was returned or swapped for something of much lesser value. I would think that was a waste of cash.

Summer- thats the genius of gift receipts! But surely less than a waste of simply not using it or only putting it on for one photo before donating it?

@ijustwannadance this drove me a bit loopy too. I really did appreciate the fact that people went out & bought gifts for our baby but it was such a shame that they went and bought shorts and short sleeve arm/leg rompers in 3/6 & 6/9 months, which are only just fitting him now and the 6/9 Just before Christmas! He was a fairly small baby born in may so why did people think he had a chance of fitting in these for summer

Jonsnowswhore - yes! She was bought some really cute summer dresses...that she'll probably fit next month and outgrow by February....

If someone spends time choosing something for your child, it's their choice what they buy and I would try to use it.

My parents thought the same, and not only about baby clothes. We had to live with the most hideous, HUGE painting in the middle of the living room, as it was a gift and would be rude not to display.

No thanks. If the gift is not my taste, I'm not going to suffer because someone else bought it for me.

I did the same thing! And anyone who knew me well wouldn't buy pink! Mil bought some hideous monstrosities (in particular the pink velour diamonte encrusted sleepsuit with angel wings on the back!)

I also returned a whole load of toys from Mil to toys r us when she spent at least £100 more on dd2 at christmas (noticeable too as they were huge gifts (rocking horse etc) compared to dd1 and her hideous clothes selection box and single gift she asked for) they were 6 and 2 at the time.

Justanothername - agree gift receipts all the way. If outfits are dry clean, or totally impractical I personally would explain the reason for returning them, as I mentioned. If it was not to my taste but still comfy, one for the nappy change bag! Good all is well with friend, that's the main thing.

Katherina - not sure I could live with that either! Clothes don't bother me too much though.

Someone bought my newborn baby a lovely outfit of dungarees and t-shirt and then bought a matching base ball cap with it - it had a big hard bit of elastic on it and was thick and bulky - just what a newborn baby needs when they can't even lift their head

This person had their own (albeit grown up) children.

I think you maybe needed to be a bit more subtle about it but you aren't unreasonable for returning the items if they were impractical.

I once bout a couple of stretchy leggings and long sleeve tops for a neighbours new baby girl. She was so happy that she took most of her gifts back and bought similar, She'd been given a lot of frilly dresses, she was happy to keep and use a few but found the little leggings and tops so practical that she wanted more.

Nocuts like this one? www.mariechantal.co.uk/baby-girl/onesies/velour-gold-angel-wing/

justanother that's quite nice in comparison this one was pale pink and lots of diamonte on the front and within the wings. 😂

Smartiepants87 Wed 27-Sep-17 16:05:42
I don't get this gender neutral stuff either what is so bad about a girl wearing dresses. My dd always wore dresses and still do and it hasn't hindered her freedom moving when she was a baby. If anything she moved too much was into everything

I wonder how many of the people into gender neutral clothing dress their boys in skirts/dresses.

Isn't it oppressive of femininity or something to remove a girls choice to wear a skirt/dress?

Eliza - given the choice my 4month old would wear me as her only outfit. Once she's old enough to choose a dress, she can. I would prefer her learning to crawl in an impractical dress to be in around 17 years, 8months.
And btw, gender neutral for me means clothes that either gender can wear, not forcing one gender to dress as the opposite. When the army do training in puffy party dresses, then I'll accept they are as practical as trousers and a top.

I prefered buying gender neutral clothing from a environmental point of view. Used by several children and still good enough to pass on.

Receiving inappropriate clothing would annoy me too as waste of resources.

Won’t work so well with dresses but I thought with the rompers they can be worn underneath trousers/leggings and a little jumper or cardigan, so they act as a tshirt/vest. Saves them going to waste! No idea about the lovely gap shorts someone bought though. Shame as they’re really nice!

For me it's sod all to do with being gender neutral. I just prefer bright colours. People seem to thing if you have a girl you must need a variety of pastel pink, impractical dresses.

What's wrong with a pack of baby vests/grows or comfy, soft cotton seperates? People tend to buy their taste in gift, not things useful or needed.

Knowing she is pregnant, she was probably looking for the dresses in case she has a girl and hoped you'd pass them on.

Thankfully pretty much all my baby clothes gifts came with gift receipts so this wouldn't have been any issue, actually I liked the stuff I was given and even if I hadn't I had neither the time or energy to do anything about it. As long as they were in clean clothes I didn't get much further in my thinking.

I cannot stand clothes for babies and children with obnoxious slogans, plastic characters, or sequins. It looks completely crap and it all goes straight into a bag for charity. I don't ever dress my kids like that so I don't understand why people that know us would waste their money on it.

A dress does not hinder the movement of a newborn baby and I find it highly unlikely that you had mountains of the rare, impractical dresses that are for sale in 0-3 months. If you want to jump on the 'my daughter will not wear dresses' bandwagon just be honest. If you weren't going to use the gifts you should have made the effort to exchange them before the seasons changed and at least got more than one bodysuit in exchange for your mini mountain.