To hate some of DS gifts?

[Mamaofaboy]

I know.

I feel awful even typing this but DS was gifted some god awful clothes for Christmas. Mixture of shops - M&S, Next etc but really garish, character heavy items that I’d never put him in.

For some reason the gift givers in many cases haven’t included gift receipts - so can I return and switch for items I’ll actually put him in at these shops? All unworn obviously, with tags.

I know he’s just little and I shouldn’t be ungrateful but it seems so wasteful to have these clothes that just won’t be worn?

I don't like seeing babies as adverts for various cartoons either OP and I stopped DS watching pawpatrol after it became apparent you can't even go to the supermarket without being bombarded with branded merchandise, even cheese! There's something that feels unethical about marketing targeted directly at small children, DH and I watched a documentary about cartoons from our own childhoods and how some were simply written to sell toys (it's also why the paw patrol never use one rescue vehicle when they can use six, that are also all available to buy.....). If you know where they are from exchange them, if you can't do that give them to a charity shop. At least there will be a worthwhile beneficiary when they're bought again.

Just sell them on ebay as a bundle.

I returned a lot of next and m&s stuff bought for mt DD. She was 8 weeks prem and I had relatives who kept buying her clothes and couldn't get their head around tje fact she was a lot smaller than a normal baby her age which meant by the time she grew into the outfits it was the wrong season lol.

Anyway, for both shops I found you can exchange if not receipt but only at the store value of the item at the time. Example - I had a dungaree set from m&s which had £22 on the label, but by the time I went to exchange the item had been reduced to £11 so I could only exchange for that value

@VintageCookbook

What is so 'god awful' about these clothes?

We got some really hideous things as gifts - bizarre sexist slogans, twee phrases, weird cartoon characters. Think we can all admit that some baby clothes are tacky or just ugly!

When you're on maternity leave you've got not much else to do but look at the baby all day - might as well make the kid look appealing 🤣

Absolutely no harm in exchanging anything that's not suitable for your lifestyle/ to your taste. Eg. I was kindly gifted lots of beautiful outfits, but only used babygros. Although it was the opposite way round with my dc1.

I had a very puke-y baby so saved all the gorgeous White Company etc outfits for regifting and he lived in secondhand babygros. I know the givers would probably be upset but I couldn't stand the thought of all these adorable things being destroyed and wasted by his bolognese barf. I was very grateful and touched by the sentiment but didn't feel obliged to use everything.

Anything that was a bit too twee, that I couldn't regift, was given to Homestart and baby box charities who give new and nearly new clothes packages to expectant mums in need.

So, in short - I'd try to exchange everything I could, but anything I couldn't swap over I'd keep in a present cupboard or donate to a charity that gives clothing straight to new mums.

The suggestions of how to basically ruin these clothes just ooze privilege. Just hand them in to a Baby Bank /Family Centre /Home Start Hub. Some mum would be grateful for them for her baby. Threads like these really reinforce the horrible things said about mumsnet.

Op I don’t think you sound ungrateful, you like what you like and there’s nothing wrong with that. Hopefully you can exchange for something else or as pp’s have said use these clothes for messy play when you’re at home?

I'd be interested to see what you're talking about OP. I've never seen anything in M&S I'd describe as 'god awful'. Perhaps not entirely to your taste, naturally, but is the descriptor you've used really accurate?

Donate them to a refuge.

Some of the uptight replies on the thread sound like right idiots - you don’t have to put your baby in stuff you don’t like just to be somehow morally worthy and grateful!

I’d exchange where you can and just donate to charity/give away where you can’t. I got given quite a few things that weren’t to my taste so either passed them on or exchanged them. Baby clothes are cheap, so the idea that not using ones you don’t like is somehow being an ingrate or a snob is just yet another way to shame mothers into some kind of socially approved ideal behaviour. Just ignore.

@BazWazzycantdance

Being very precious and they will get dirty anyway or outgrow them in within weeks. You sound very ungrateful. Maybe next year you won’t be gifted anything.

Amazing - as I said above - how quick women are to jump to shaming other women, particularly new mothers, for their apparent moral failings - “ungrateful”, “precious”. Anything else you want to tell us about how you think women should behave?

@Wanlight22

The suggestions of how to basically ruin these clothes just ooze privilege. Just hand them in to a Baby Bank /Family Centre /Home Start Hub. Some mum would be grateful for them for her baby. Threads like these really reinforce the horrible things said about mumsnet.

Right? Why are people talking about deliberately ruining good clothes? Just donate them if you don't want them. Someone else will.

I never get why people are so precious about this stuff, as someone who now has a teen who insists on looking like a chavvy hobo I honestly have no fight left to care as long as its clean.

I think I only ever received 1 item so utterly hilariously garish I thought 'why?' but even then I kept it as a Halloween costume (it made a really high-quality clown outfit lol) but I never for one second considered complaining or attempting to get rid of anything.

Even if it's not your taste who honestly cares?
90% of the time no one is paying the slightest attention and honestly, even you won't remember down the line.

I guarantee no one will notice enough to make a mental note that on Wednesday your kid wore yellow Winnie the pooh dungarees with a strippy green and brown Micky mouse t-shirt instead of that white and gray minimalist 'pinterest' hand-knitted outfit - he's 7 months it literally couldn't matter less.

@foxgoosefinch

Some of the uptight replies on the thread sound like right idiots - you don’t have to put your baby in stuff you don’t like just to be somehow morally worthy and grateful!

I’d exchange where you can and just donate to charity/give away where you can’t. I got given quite a few things that weren’t to my taste so either passed them on or exchanged them. Baby clothes are cheap, so the idea that not using ones you don’t like is somehow being an ingrate or a snob is just yet another way to shame mothers into some kind of socially approved ideal behaviour. Just ignore.

Baby clothes are not cheap especially when you take into account how quickly they grow and how many outfits can easily be ruined. Some outfits may not even be used. OP doesn’t need to dress baby in any of the outfits but she should at least be grateful that people have cared enough to buy her baby a gift and it looks very grabby to exchange clothes for a baby. Just say thank you and give them away to charity if clothes are cheap or a women’s refuge where baby clothes could be needed.

It just sounds so spoilt and entitled. "WAAH, I don't like my presents". What are you, five?

I guarantee no one will notice enough to make a mental note that on Wednesday your kid wore yellow Winnie the pooh dungarees with a strippy green and brown Micky mouse t-shirt instead of that white and gray minimalist 'pinterest' hand-knitted outfit - he's 7 months it literally couldn't matter less.

100% this

Just swap them.

I’ve been in your position and just take them back. Nice found Next, and M&S to be fine with an exchange. I did once take back a couple of sets to Boots when DS was only a baby and despite having £10 tags on they’d been reduced down to £1.75 each and were ‘very old stock’.

I won’t dress my son (he’s 3) in a tracksuit or branded sports clothes, or tops with slogans like ‘Here comes trouble’ or ‘Mummy’s little monster’ but I don’t receive gifts like that now because I think family have realised.

Most shops will let you exchange if the tags are still on the items, I would have thought M&S and Next will.

I was gifted a lot of things that I woudl not use, or didn't fit, or where impractical (hoodies on babies who are lying down)

The shops were amazing at returning stuff. As long as it was unworn and had tags, they swapped/refunded everything.

I was extremely grateful for the gifts, and by swapping I had enough stuff for my dc almost without havign to buy stuff, so their gift was not in any way wasted.

One item I took back and it was last seasons stock, so had obviously been bought in sale/off ebay. That was fine. I didn't mind, that's life.

Tbh I’d probably just put him in them

But if you really don’t want to, M and S will likely exchange for something of the current value of the clothes. So depends if they are Christmas specific as those are probably greatly reduced now, and possibly not worth returning.

Baby clothes are not cheap especially when you take into account how quickly they grow and how many outfits can easily be ruined.

Are you from 1970? Baby clothes are cheap. People buy them as presents for new mums precisely because they’re cheap - pop into M&S and they’re three or four pounds on the sale rail. I bought massive bundles of them with tags from eBay and nearly new sales for pennies, often just the 99p plus postage for big lots of branded clothes. Supermarket and high street shop sales of baby clothes are super cheap - tons of outfits for a pound or so. There are free clothes being given away all over Facebook - we even have a free community clothes exchange where I live, where they are overwhelmed with hardly worn castoffs. I’m actually on the organising committee of a local charity for low income new parents and we regularly have to turn them down for lack of storage space! They are donated to women’s refuges in great bundles. The one thing you probably won’t want for if you are a low income new mum is baby clothes. But you carry on saying what you think regardless.

Your HV will possibly know of how to get them to people who'd be able to make use of them. You're entitled not to like things.

I got jeans and daft outfits for my two with press-studs down the back. I wouldn't let them wear uncomfortable clothes to lie down in. And I really, really dislike Disney clothes too.

My HV was based in the same place as the children's centre at the time. It also had the contact centre for children in care etc. She knew how to get them to people who could use. I'd have not used them. They'd be shoved in a wardrobe otherwise.

There's enough time to tolerate clothes you don't like when they have a say in it!

I received 4 pairs of jeans for a newborn baby boy! Jeans! They went back and the shops were fine exchanging.