To keep stained/heavily worn clothes for next child?

[Bbqnights]

Did you keep everything, or just things in decent condition? I'm thinking it makes no sense to buy new clothes for nursery when they're just going to get destroyed again.

I'm hoping my kids will be less partial to destroying their clothes once they get to school age!

Like a pp, i dont like subsequent children being treated as less worth new items than the precious first born. It contributes to a lesser sense of self worth. Their sibling is always nicely turned out in new items, chosen to their taste, their favourite colours or style that suit their colouring, while the second born 'gets what they are given'.

Im not saying id buy every item new but no i wouldnt dress my next in all heavily stained stuff, id ensure there was a mix of newer items in there that weren't all stained!

My “system” is I go through and say okay
how many leggings, joggers, shorts, t shirts, long sleeved t shirts etc do I actually need?

Then I pick out the best 7/10/14 and the rest go…

I def kept high quality stained stuff… I have a stained but amazingly high quality hot pink snowsuit that my son will wear next winter 😅

my DS has a mix of hand me down and new. I think it’s fine and his self esteem won’t suffer as a result… under 3 I don’t think they care

I agree. No wonder 2 million tonnes of clothing ends up in landfill every year!
I'd be far more likely to notice things like overgrown fingernails, or seasonally inappropriate clothing than a slightly grubby toddler, whom I would assume had had a fun day!

Again, we're talking about toddlers here... my PFB dresses in what I give her. More often than not, second hand. Can't say I ever give much thought to what clothes suit her colouring...

DD has a whole drawer of nursery only clothing that is stained. I learnt after the first couple of weeks absolutely not to send her in anything I didn’t mind getting stained. It’s clean, she’s clean, she doesn’t care her jumper has a stain on it and she has some other gorgeous outfits to look ‘pristine’ in outside of nursery! Not to mention…better for my wallet, better for the planet. Things worn out/holes are gone.

*and yes many of these were handed down from older child.

I also find that by 3-4 when children are exclusively dressed in stained clothes they don't learn that sense of pride in keeping their clothes clean, because they were never clean to start with. Nobody cares that they drip food down etc, its just another stain to add to many already there.
Whereas when a child does sometimes get a new item its easier to teach them to them keep it nice, pointing out its new and unmarked and 'lets try and keep it that way'.
And no this does not 'restrict their play' 🤔 they just learn to wear a painting apron, eat a bit more tidily, not just smear their hands down their clothes but go and wash them!

Gosh, what an unfriendly tone.
It doesn’t sound like you’re interested in trying it, but in case someone else is: it works great with prints and character t-shirts. Obviously the printed part doesn’t take up the colour so if you choose the colour wisely it makes the print look really vibrant.
Regarding school shirts, the OP was specifically asking about clothes for children who don’t go to school. Anyway, I don’t see a reason to not save the environmental costs of ten to fifteen items of clothing per year just because it doesn’t work for every single item, but perhaps I’m missing something.

An interesting point, and one I'll keep in mind as my kids get older.

Just to be clear, they get new clothes for presents, if I see something I love in the supermarket/on Vinted, etc. So it's not exclusively stained clothes!

Why us there this constant association on here that dirty clothes = fun? A cleanly dressed child could easily have had a lovely day playing with lego, doing stickers, baking with a parent while wearing an apron.
Meanwhile a child in soiled clothes might have spent the day poorly supervised and having fallen in some mud and hurt themselves.
Dirty does not automatically = fun, sometimes it just means they've been let run wild poorly supervised.

Dirty clothes doesn't automatically mean a child has had a fun day.

Clothes are not presents for such a young child! More of a necessity

I mean from relatives for birthday and Christmas. And my mum will buy things she sees on sale from time to time.

It depends on what you are using them for, it’s its day to day wear then any clothes that are heavily stained, ill-fitting or damaged may raise safeguarding concerns, a nursery/school might reach out to check if you need any extra support.

If you’ve got items with very light/small stains that aren’t noticeable and no damage etc then that’s not an issue, I have always saved clothes for my children but only items that look clean/in good condition and not heavily worn, the only item of clothing I’ve ever kept that has been heavily stained are the ones they’ve worn at forest school and then I bin them at the end of the school year.

Clothes are cheap as anything, Vinted eBay, or even supermarket brands.

We are talking about reusing stained clothes for nursery here, not for general wear out in cafes or libraries where clothes are much less likely to get stains on.

As a CM honestly just send them, your kids will get mucky most days & save any decent stuff for home/granny's etc.

Doesn't strong sunlight get out most stains? I'd throw away milk or poo stains cause they are gross, but keep paint and mud etc

Agree. My daughter loved nursery, had great fun painting, playing outside, eating all sorts of snacks but normally she came out spotless.

I wouldn’t wear a stained top myself so it’s a no for my kids too. I’d try my hardest to get any stain out (bleach is your friend for anything white) and stitch little holes or tears though if they weren’t very noticeable.

I didn't mind my kids wearing their own stains but I refuse to put them in someone else's stains.

I keep everything from ds4. Dd1 has worn all of his old baby clothes and as he grows out of stuff I bag it up. She has just started nursery. Week 1 she wore some of her own clothes which predictably all got ruined. It’s week 2 and she’s in his dinosaur hand me downs and that’s how it’s going to be for the next year or so. It’s really only been the last 6 months or so that the kids in DSs nursery class have worn nicer clothes to nursery and got home with them still being semi presentable.

No, I wouldn’t wear stained clothes so I don’t put them on my children either. Lightly worn clothes for play, sure, but stained ones become rags for cleaning.

The only items I could never get stains out of, after nursery or school, were a couple of dresses that had practically been buried in mud, and some black paint on the sleeve of the Beaver uniform jumper ( the second time it was worn... and there it stayed until both children finished Beavers!!)

I had them come home literally covered head to toe in paint after falling in it... but the stains came out.

No I would throw it out.

Tell me your magic tricks!