To think clothes become chavvy after age 2.

[Piggiesinblankets]

I loved looking for clothes for the children up to 18-24 months. After this, instead of the nice pastels, flowers, bears etc it becomes tracksuit bottoms for boys with slogans or garish patterns. It all looks cheap and nasty. Even a lot of the Next stuff is particularly bad for little boys.

I love the Boden/ Frugi / Blade & Rose stuff but most of that is not an affordable day to day option with 3 under 3 ( Vinted and sale shopping aside).

I like my children to be nicely dressed, not in awful tracksuit type outfits. I don't understand why at least up to 5 they don't have more of the baby / toddler designs. More pretty pinafore and soft colours for girls and dungarees, bears, blues, browns and burnt oranges for boys etc.

Some of these are pretty expensive though!

It might have changed but I used to like Tu (Sainsburys) and H&M for cheap but nice kids clothes (less slogans and superheroes).

I agree, it's definitely harder to find and they sell out in sizes quickly. I have found H&M and Sainsburys both have good option but need to order online.

My kids lived in frugi and similar brands when they were little, but even my youngest at 3 likes to choose his own clothes and those styles aren't something they'd really pick. Agree some of the clothes you see, especially for boys, are awful, but you can get so nice joggers (my 5 year old has gone out today in polka dot joggers from morrisons, they look a more quirky than chavvy.) Agree with PPs that practicality is a large part of it with kids over 2 - toilet training and dress themselves is a lot easier if dungarees aren't involved!

I don't have a boy but I've not had any issues finding clothes I like for my daughter. She wears dresses, usually with cycling shorts underneath, never joggers. I'm not sure where the idea that they are restrictive or difficult to move in comes from. She can climb, jump, swing from the monkey bars and down the fireman's pole on the playground in a dress just as well as any kid in trousers- in fact, she's more confident than most others her own age.

I've found now that my ds is 3 it's all spiderman and othersuper hero tracksuits. He's 3 and not in to any of that yet. I agree with you op, it just seems all very samey. With my dd I found there was a lot more variety.

What would you like instead of joggers? Jeans, leggings, chinos? All available from most shops in full length or short variations.

Next has cute shirts and polo shirts if you want a collar. Fat face have a sale on now you could advance buy for next year and hope you get the sizes right to keep it affordable.

Trackies are comfortable and practical for both little boys and girls though. They can move easily in them and the fabric is soft. Plus, if they go to nursery/childminder then their clothes routinely get trashed, so you may as well go with cheap trackies?!

I think clothes that age start to cater for what children themselves might like. By this age they might especially like certain cartoon characters for example. They like wacky patterns and colours rather than muted and tasteful stuff. Some parents like to let their children wear what the child likes, rather than what they like.
(Not me btw. Mine will be in JoJo dungarees until he’s 15)

European brands are your solution - Vertbaudet in particular, la Redoute, Mango, Zara

Chavy? Some might be more practical if playing in a forest than a Boden dress.

Definitely check Sainsbury’s and Asda.

My daughter is 6 and from about 3 she really started to have her own personal taste in clothes and is very definite about it. She loves tracksuits with graffiti type writing, baggy jeans, combats, big hoodies and superheroes plus baseball caps and high tops. She won’t wear dresses/ leggings at all. I know you don’t have to go along with it, I choose to let her pick her own clothes because it’s important to her, but you might be surprised how young kids have their own ideas about what they want to wear and that might be very different from your taste. I think it’s good to allow them to have their own style if they want to. They grow up fast, some more than others. By the time mine was four, mine was telling me which things were “uncool” and that Peppa Pig is for babies.

However, I don't think clothes are chavvy for 2yo - rather adults hanging around in ill fitting joggers and slogan T-shirts are wearing toddler clothes!

I actually find it worse for my 8 year old. A lot of stuff is slogans, PlayStation, Minecraft etc that he is not interested in. He wants to wear similar things to his younger brother and can’t as he is too old! I wish children were encouraged to be children when they still are!

I think that you need to shop around more. In my experience you can’t get a whole wardrobe’s worth at one shop but you can buy plain tops without patterns or slogans very easily.

Joggers become popular from age 2 because of potty training- boys need to be able to get their clothes off to go to the toilet so dungarees aren’t practical.

Totally agree from what I've seen OP! One thing I would say is I've noticed a HUGE difference in types of clothes you get based on the location of the same shops so city centre primark near me has gorgeous babies/ kids stuff, primark in my town and a nearby large shopping centre was absolutely foul... same shop, same season but a huge difference in what you'd get so maybe plan a trip to your nearest larger city? Mama loves high street on instagram is great for signposting to nicer kids stuff :)

Agree with other comments re practicality. Dungarees are a no no from when they start potty training at 2ish until 5ish when they can do them up themselves. Needs to be leggings, t shirts,zip up hoodie etc, with fancy dresses kept for parties.

I have had no issues getting nice practical clothing which isn't logos or brands up to about 7, Sainsbury's have a great selection. After then though, the clothes do become a bit too grown up for my taste with garish colours and crop tops. My 7 year old is extremely tall and slim and wears age 9 clothes, and it's really hard to find clothes which she feels aren't too girly/babyish, but also age appropriate. We just came back from Ireland where Dunnes stores do lovely clothes for her age/height and got loads of things which were very reasonably priced, so if you are going over there anytime soon, take a look.

H&M and Uniqlo

Do people really dress older kids in that stuff? It's not practical gives an oh no Tarquin no messy play for you vibe.

At this age I primarily dressed mine in second hand Scandi/Frugi/Boden stuff from ebay (Vinted wasn't a thing yet) or the FB selling groups (might still be worth it for Scandi as they can be very few and far between and/or exorbitant on Ebay and Vinted).

But why? Dresses are way easier for potty training, they only have one layer to pull down rather than two. I've never understood what is impractical about a dress. It seems way more comfortable and practical to me, with the added bonus that it's an all in one outfit so you don't end up with mismatched leggings and t-shirt combos.

H&M or M&S here. DS doesn’t want to wear anything “nice” I’ve bought, now he’s 4. He picks the bright / character stuff himself.

This is going to sound odd, but look in the school uniform pe section for plain t-shirt. They're 100% cotton with no labels or slogans and come in a range of primary colours

The clothing market is absolutely saturated and there’s an enormous amount of pre-owned naice labels out there too — perfectly possible to find decent kids’ clothes (though admittedly there’s a lot of crap to wade through).

What on earth is wrong with joggers though? Children’s clothes need to be one thing: comfortable. I know a few kids who are always dressed in little pinafores, who aren’t allowed trainers, etc, and it always strikes me as rather odd.