To think MIL is being unreasonable and there's nothing wrong with hand-me-downs?

[Ladyofeternalleisure]

I have DS1 (almost 5y) and DS2 (3y). Once the eldest has outgrown his stuff it goes straight into younger sons wardrobe. I keep pretty much everything, from coats and jackets to t shirts and pyjamas. I get rid of bobbly stuff and anything with rips and tears or stains that won't come out. That doesn't mean DS2 never gets anything new. I occasionally pick bits up for him in the sales, or if he needed something like pjs or trainers. But he doesn't usually need anything as I already have it saved from ds1.
Recently mil and fil saw the boys in their winter coats which I just took out from storage. Ds1 had a brand new one on and ds2 was wearing ds1's old coat from last year. Still in fantastic condition and was only worn for a few months. They've been making comments to DH asking why we're always dressing him in old clothes. I mean he's a 3 year old he literally couldn't care less what he's wearing? He wouldn't even know or remember that it's his brothers old coat. And it's not like he never has new stuff just for him as I'm regularly going sales shopping. So were they being unreasonable??

My two year old son is excited to wear his five year old brother's old clothes.

If/when he gets to an age where he wants to wear 'new' clothes, we'll buy new or vinted.

Agreed, I grew up poor and buy second hand designer because those items are easy to sell if you need the money back. Shein clothes etc is unsalvageable money.

I think this probably nails it!!!

I’d probably buy a few new bits for your youngest son, but hand me downs are great. Wish my 3 year old didn’t have an opinion on what he wears though, he’s shown strong preferences since he was 2!!!

DD4 loves second hand clothes, they are 'new' to her.

DS8 would never wear a hand me down for some reason but has me patch and darn his old clothes long after they are totally falling apart and slightly too small for him as he doesn't like to get rid of them.

(DD gets most of her second hand clothes from a friend and from kid2kid store as DS clothes are seldom wearable by the time he is done with them, I do keep DS coats for her though).

So is your oldest kid's new stuff also from sales?

At that age when they grew out of stuff quickly I bought a lot of 2nd hand for both.

My mum was brought up that you got one new outfit at Whit. For me growing up shop new clothes were for birthdays and Christmas. I remember when a neighbour had a clear out I'd get all her daughter's stuff to look through, keep what I wanted and the rest would go to the charity shop. Great!
When mine were small I'd try to buy unisex stuff then later ebay bundles. If there was something they didn't like I'd pass it on, it still worked out as about a pound an item. I preferred to work part time and do things cheaply than work full time and spend more. I'm not making anyone wear stuff they hate.
It's normal OP!

Everyone hands clothes down between kids. What are you supposed to do? Say oh I have a coat that will fit DS2, but it'll be best for me to put that in the bin and go and buy another? I'd just ignore the comments. I wouldn't even engage with someone so thick.

I think previous generations have more hang ups about second hand clothes...

I remember in the 1980s my mum was absolutely horrified at the idea of second hand clothes...she saw it as something incredibly embarrassing.

Nowadays I buy loads of stuff second hand...there's no stigma.

She is being unreasonable. Most people do this! My 4 y o daughter has an extensive wardrobe of hand me downs from her older brother amd hand me downs from my older neices. Kids love that it's new to them, they don't care if it's not brand new.
Most things I buy come from vinted with very limited exceptions of shoes and pants.
When its outgrown entirely, it either goes on vinted, given away in a bundle on our local waste nothing page, or in the fabric recycling bank if its truly ditched I.e. stained/out of shape completely.
Fast fashion is drowning the planet.

Can you explain why you don't buy 2nd hand for your oldest son. My friend always had his brothers cast offs and he hated it.

Yes your MIL is being unreasonable.

My mum's best best friend was a nanny for the daughters of an exceedingly rich family, both older than my two older sisters and me. I was at least the fifth girl to benefit from some exquisite and timeless dresses and was very impatient to grow into them! My niece who was only six years younger than I am was next in line, then her younger sister, then my other sister's girls, then they might have worn out!

She could be thinking ahead to what happened with ours, we stopped buying anything for the younger ones and also their clothes weren’t always well filtered because we got so used to just grabbing the next size! After a while we realised when one of my sons thanked me over and over for getting him a new jumper and told everyone about it. Realised we’d gotten carried away!! Fine if you buy them the odd bit!

Its completely normal. My DD also has to use old stuff from DS. To this day shes never had girlie pjs and shes 8. Its getting harder now of course because she wants to pick her own stuff. But i make sure expensive things like ski wear etc is always neutral, so they can both wear it.

Also when they are young they are usually really excited about this. My kids are the oldest in the family. My sister has girls and my cousin has boys at age 2-5. Everytime they get to come over to select their “new” outfits they are really proud. When they wear the stuff they tell everyone that it used to be DDs or DSs.

Surely your eldest son doesn’t wear things long enough or get enough use out of them to need so many new clothes? Can’t you just buy his secondhand to get more use before passing them on after your youngest has outgrown them?

We are similar with our two (4 & 2), our 2 year old will wear hand me downs that aren't stained or worn out. We could afford to buy new but we don't because its a massive waste and bad for the environment. The only thing we don't hand down are shoes. I also make a point to buy a couple new pieces for our 2 year old (a couple nice shirts, etc), and they will each get a new outfit for the holidays as well as a new pair of pjs + a new outfit as a Christmas gift (we give each child a new toy, something they need, something to wear and something to read each Christmas).

Nothing wrong with hand me downs and if your PIL have issue they can buy your little one a few new pieces.

I do think they're being ridiculous as everyone I know uses hand me downs for their kids, it would be wasteful to have gone and bought a new coat for him when I had a perfectly fine one already. But they're acting like we're depriving ds2 and it's unfair on him and I never really thought of it like that. The way I see it is ds2 is too young to care about his clothing right now. Sure in the future when he expresses a desire to have something new then fine. Mil and fil are not even the snobby type that look down their nose at second hand or anything like that. They're extremely cautious with how they spend their money which is why I don't get why they suddenly think it's awful that we reuse all the clothes. Mil has also never spent a penny on my kids in all these years 🤷‍♀️

Have they literally nothing going on in their own lives? How can they remember who's wearing what and why would they give a 💩 🙄

Nicely worn stuff is more comfortable than new stuff. I don't get much to hand down between my 2 as older one has probably destroyed stuff before outgrowing. I have higher standards for passing on than allowing continued use

Your MIL is bonkers. My DS is an only but lived in hand me downs from a friend and my sister in law. Even now at 18 he still gets stuff from my friends DS!

I then passed stuff down to another friend and it then went onto her sister. Some of our stuff has been through 7 boys and still been ok to give to charity when the smallest one grew out of it!

Yanbu. Some of my second childa favourite stuff is stuff her bigger sibling has outgrown. She doesn't care whether it's new or previously been worn. She couldn't even tell. The other good thing is they have different tastes so she tends to like the things my eldest didn't like and hardly wore.

What's it to do with her? She don't like it, she can buy new stuff for the youngest. I'm all about second hand clothes, having slimmed out of my entire wardrobe. Couldn't care less about new stuff. At his age, ds2 has no idea.

No ptesents/outings?! Even weirder that she's got a derogatory opinion on hand me down clothes, then!

I agree with you 100%! MIL seems to be neither "old-fashioned thrifty" nor "environmentally conscious young".

I would suggest to her: well, how about we clothe DS1 and you clothe DS2? Except that, as you say, there is just no need at all to buy anything new to a three-year-old, who will not remember what he was wearing anyway.

I'd make the most of it while your younger son isn't bothered by what he wears!

I passed everything down through 3 kids and my youngest is a girl after 2 boys lol She loved getting (in particular) tshirt and pjs that were Star Wars themed from her brothers.