To ask why people have clothes “for nursery”?

[Enthusiasticcarrotgrower]

Both in local social media groups and with friends, people try to give away clothes “for nursery” that in my opinion are really only suitable as dish rags. Holes, stretched completely out of shape, faded to colourless.

Now, I’m all for preloved clothes and reusing things but there has to be a limit? And I don’t see why it’s ok if these things are “for nursery”?

Surely your child is doing the same things at nursery as they do at home: playing outside getting muddy, painting, climbing, learning to eat nicely, learning to wipe their nose, learning to dress themselves etc. If the clothes aren’t good enough for home, why are they good enough for nursery?

I understand setting aside a few nice, maybe new items for “smart” eg special occasions, but surely either clothes are good enough as day to day play clothes or they’re not? Does everyone send their kids to nursery looking like orphan Annie?!

Like @Jessica5678 I've got a nursery 'uniform' for my DD - 5 identical long sleeve jersey dresses (Vinted) and basic leggings (Primark). She really likes wearing dresses so it's just easier to buy a bundle from Vinted and then I don't mind if they get stained. She still wears them on the weekend, but she also has some things that don't go to nursery, like party dresses/fancy dress. When she outgrows clothes if it's in good condition it gets donated/sold, and if it's stained it goes to nursery for their spares box.

There’s a difference between sending your child into nursery in raggedy clothes and having non-raggedy clothes that they might wear for nursery.

We have ‘nursery’ clothes, they tend to be cheaper from Morrisons or Tesco and a darker colour so that they can muck it up and it is easier to clean. I wouldn’t want to send DC off to nursery in the nice clothes he got for Christmas/Birthday as they’ll get covered in paint/mud.

That’s not to say DC doesn’t get to play outside or paint at home but nursery staff are looking after multiple kids all at once so they’re not going to be as good at popping an apron on properly or checking that the kids aren’t smearing paint all over their hair/face/clothes. DS definitely comes back from nursery way dirtier than he would doing the same activities at home one on one with us

We definitely have nursery clothes! I don't know what they do but everything ends up covered in paint or food and the stains don't come out once they've sat in it for 6-10 hours!

Also some things get lost, and my MIL and mum hand sew/knit quite a few things for the kids, so I tend not to send those in either! Once sent my son in a brand new hat I'd knitted for him and it got lost that first day never to be seen again!

My kids probably do look like Orphan Annie!
My daughter seems to make less mess now (aged 4) so for a while now she's just worn pretty much any clothes to nursery, but there are some nice things that now have a felt tip mark on them, or the knees are still a bit grey-ish.

Also Nursery staff really don't care about their clothes being messed up.
Once they gave the babies (under a year) tomato soup for tea and the light grey leggings my DD was wearing never looked quite right again after that!

If you have one 2yo child at home, and decide to do some painting, you're probably sat right next to them while they do it offering 1-2-1 supervision. At a nursery the ratio of staff to children for 2yos is 1 to 5! Even if you organise the activity and have the five children sat around the table next to you, you'd need to be an octopus to be able to swoop in and stop little Jimmy from suddenly dolloping a big splodge of paint onto his new football top. And while you did that, Emily will be rubbing a handful of paint into her hair and Pedro will start chewing on the brush.

Nurseries and pre-schools often do more "messy play" activities than people do at home, they have mud kitchens, there are freely accessible craft activities, and there are other children - a bunch of pre-schoolers playing together tend to get messier than one child playing alone. That combined with the less 1-2-1 supervision means clothes will probably get messier.

And the staff don't buy or wash the clothes, so perhaps some have less urgency in wanting to prioritise keeping a new t-shirt clean versus letting the children have messy fun.

Yep this.

mine are teens now so well past that stage, but they definitely went to nursery in, and with spares of, older, more worn clothes. We were lucky with both to be given lots of hand me downs, which were ideal for nursery.

I absolutely had nursery clothes for my kids. If I sent them in wearing their slightly nicer clothes, they would get lost, covered in paint, food, mud.

I tend to have my son’s ’nice clothes’ that I make more of an effort to keep nice, but the majority is stuff I don’t worry about. When my son was a newborn I used to get everything brand new, and would fret about not being able to get blowouts and stains out and it’d be really depressing feeling like I was wasting money as even supermarket stuff isn’t super cheap. I now get almost everything on Vinted, and get mostly ‘nice’ brands I could not afford new.

My son isn’t in nursery but we tend to just put him in whatever clothes, I find my life is a lot happier now I don’t stress about getting a chocolate or berry stain on something because even the nicer stuff probably only cost a couple of pound secondhand. We spend a lot of time getting grubby in the garden so I can’t really be fussy or he won’t have as much fun if I’m constantly dabbing at him and fretting. Life is too short to be stressing about stained toddler clothes!

However, if my son was dressed in brand new extortionately-priced stuff head to toe I imagine I’d hesitate sending my son off to get mucky and potentially ruin them. The few brand new/nice stuff tends to come out for visiting family/days out.

My DS once came home from nursery with his jacket pockets full of worms.

I put my son in clothes I don't like for nursery. He's only 18m, so it's the weird slogans, odd seasonal stuff and a spare vest that has an odd stain on it but is otherwise functional.

It's no different than knowing he's going to a party in the afternoon but doing muddy play in the garden in the morning and dressing him accordingly.

DD2 has nursery clothes (all cheap from Primark) that I don’t mind if the paint doesn’t wash out of in case the nursery workers don’t/can’t remind her to wear an apron before doing something messy because they’ve got however many children to look after. Then we have home clothes for normal activities and “nice” clotthes for if we go somewhere for dinner etc. Same as I have my work clothes, normal clothes and nice clothes.

Nursery clothes get trashed so I always buy second hand. They end up stained instantly. Keep the normal/nicer stuff for at home

Because nowadays at home parents don't let there kids get messy!! Most keep there homes and children immaculate sad really!!

We have nice clothes for weekends and outings, and then we have a uniform for nursery (private). For weekdays after school we have cheap basics from Sainsbury’s or Primark.

Or maybe at home parents put aprons on their kids for painting, or strip them down to their nappy so you can bath them when they are messy instead of ruining clothes

We don't have "nursery" clothes, but we do have clothes that are not for nursery because she drops food, there is paint, glitter, glue, water, mud, she might drag herself around the floor outside etc.

These are all things that I can "limit" at home if she's in clothes not suited to it. Or make sure she's in clothes suited to what the activities are.

My kids have only ever been to school nursery, so they had school uniforms and I never had to think about it l but if I did, it woukd definitely be the faded hand me downs or cheap primark stuff. It would always be clean, it might be faded/bobbles, have a stubborn stain on or tiny holes. If they're at home, they change into those for messy play or playing out in.

My daughter is in year one now and her school polo shorts and sweatshirts have a few paint stains and pen stains on. They're clean, but I'm not buying a pack of new polo shirts or jumpers every week when these are still fine, just have stains that won't come out. I keep one spare pristine sweatshirt and tshirt for the primary aged kids back every year (only buy the supermarket branded ones, not expensive logo ones) for photos, trips etc.

My son wrecked his nursery clothing. 🤣
He'd be in the paints and mud and would get food everywhere.

At home, I'd be able to whip off his eg bean covered top and throw it in the washing machine before it stained, obviously nursery can't. I'd also be more careful about eg buying paints that are less likely to stain. Nursery aren't(which is fine).

He was at nursery to have fun and in his case at 15, fun still = mess.

I would only send him with (clean) clothes that had gotten stained at nursery though. I didn't want them to think all his clothes were stained! 🤣 Also, only stuff that fitted and didn't have holes etc.

Nursery actually said to me once that they loved that I didn't care if his clothes got dirty.

I wouldn't have tried to pass on his stained nursery clothes though. It's one thing sending him in, in clothes that you know where the stains come from but another thing wearing clothes stained by another child (unless its a sibling maybe).

People try and get rid of raggy clothes all the time- on FB, to charity shops etc - and trying to “sell” them as something useful is perfectly normal. It’s related to hoarding behaviour, they don’t want to throw it away.

its also perfectly normal to have nursery only clothes, usually cheap clothes you don’t care about getting ruined.

there is a difference between the 3 year olds who attend nursery 3 hours a day and the children who are in 10 hours a day from 12 months. My daughters were the latter and aprons etc are less effective in those environments

Clothes my kids went to nursery in often ended up stained and sometimes lost, despite being named.

I'm not complaining about nursery (though losing stuff was a bit annoying) as I'm glad they had fun doing messy activities that were not messing up my own house!

So I didn't usually send them in wearing anything "nice". They didn't wear rags though! Just plain supermarket or primark tops/ leggings that were cheap to buy and easy to wash. If they got stained or raggy they went in the bin.

The one time my youngest begged to wear her favourite dress she spilt her drink on it and had to be changed. Dress must have been put in wrong bag as didn't come home. 6 months later I saw another little girl in nursery wearing it. Didn't say anything as it would have been too small for daughter by then.

I don’t send them in rags, but they get soooo filthy at nursery. Paint, food, don’t talk to me about the pumpkin soup!! So if they didn’t go in stained clothes I’d need to buy several new outfits a week. Every. Single. Time. I’ve thought oh well they can wear that even though it’s quite nice, it’s been destroyed. I am very good at washing stained clothes but it’s not my life’s passion.

I always had clothes for nursery for DD - plain tops and leggings from Primark / supermarkets that I wouldn’t mind getting paint stains on / slime that doesn’t wash out etc. Same with shoes - cheap and cheerful, ones you don’t mind getting wee on. “Nicer” clothes (Zara etc) were more for going places / out in public as I can put a bib on and clean DD as she’s eating and be more attentive so they don’t get ruined.

Your first point though about giving clothes away that have holes in them etc is a bit cheeky - I used to give away things without stains or even the “nicer” clothes she grew out of for nursery as parents typically buy their own nice things and hand-me-downs are usually ones you don’t have a monetary attachment to so you don’t mind getting messy.

I did this as well.
Not exactly rags, but ones I didn’t mind getting trashed or going awol.

i use to donate clothes to the nursery for spares and sometimes mine would come back home in them.

I'd send DC back to nursery in clothes that had been spoiled there or in second hand clothes, but I wouldn't buy spoiled clothes specifically for that purpose. TBH I don't think I've ever seen ads like that.

I used to work in a nursery and some of the kids got so upset if their clothes got a little dirty because their parents would be mad. One girl, about 2 years old, was sent in full school uniform, tights, shirt and tie, pinifore and cardigan; because her mum didn’t want her proper clothes ruining. But she wasn’t allowed to get the uniform dirty either. She would barely move off her chair as she was so afraid of dirt! My kids always wear nice clothes, but I don’t care if they get dirty at all. I used to think the dirtier my eldest came home from school or nursery, the better time she’d had!