Do you send you kid to nursery in dirty clothes?

[Ohcordelia]

By dirty clothes I don’t mean actually dirty, more stained say with some paint that won’t come off or a food stain that won’t come off but they are washed and clean albeit stained.

I do, and i get mine cheap clothes to wear from supermarkets or vinted to wear to nursery because I know they’ll get ruined, and ruined they do, but in the pictures we get sent home, it doesn’t look like anyone else does. All the other kids clothes are sweet little coordinating outfits (next, jojo maman, marks etc, yes Ive spotted a few things that I’ve seen online).

don’t tell me I’m the only one and that makes me really scutty?

Will I be shamed if I admit all our clothes are used for all purposes, stained or not stained?! I figure they're toddlers, anyone who judges it can bugger off. She only wears each set of clothes for 3 months or so if we're lucky, once you factor in growing and the seasons - I'm going to get as much wear out of it all as possible! Couldn't care less if it has a few stains. She's always washed and clean, hair and teeth brushed, who cares if her clothes have a few marks. We usually try and keep one set 'better' for smarter occasions, the rest just gets used as we/she chooses.

Definitely. There’s a nursery uniform and it’s £20 for the sweatshirt, £20 for the joggers and £15 for the polo so can’t be replacing that everytime something gets stained with paint or pasta sauce!

Yes!! Clean/washed, but paint marked no problem. Food stained is a bit different and those clothes tend to get recycled if I can't get the stain down to a minimum level. But anything with paint, pen or glue marks on it is absolutely fair game..I don't want the nursery staff worrying about keeping clothes nice, they've got enough to do!

Just curious as I am in Northern Ireland and am assuming you’re in England (apologies if not correct) - do your nurseries not have uniforms? Here the kids all wear matching jogging bottoms, sweatshirts and polo tops to most nurseries I’ve seen

Our nursery has an optional uniform that they do push slightly more for the pre-school children. But it's optional the whole way through.

She does have a specific (secondhand and distinctive) coat for nursery and certain clothes that she only wears on non-nursery days, I should have said as well.

I'm NI too and I call daycare "nursery" and the year before primary is "preschool" and that's the one that has a uniform.

@veeolay ah thank you for explaining. Yes I call it all nursery but probably not technically correct!

I treated nursery like I did home, so yes, send in clean, stained or worn play clothes, not going out clothes.

Yes, absolutely. DC3 has separate nursery clothes, so any stains will have came directly from there!

I received a message on the nursery app a couple of weeks ago asking if anyone found a Ralph Lauren jumper in their kid's bag as a parent was looking for it!! If any of DD's clothes go missing I don't think I'd even realise, nor would I care (as long as it was infrequent).

As long as they've been washed and just have the odd stain then yes. Nursery workers don't want to worry about having to keep your children pristine!

Yes I always did. Mine are late primary and one regularly wrecks light coloured sweatshirt with mud early in the school year and it stains, they keep those clothes til they grow out of them, no one cares. I have friends who go through 4 sets of white shirts and sweatshirts a year when this happens but I feel that's horrible wasteful so I just won't do it.

I send mine in stained stuff (stained at nursery!) And mostly vinted sets etc. But agree with you that the other kids in the photos look to be wearing much more coordinated and expensive sets than I personally would waste on nursery!

You're not alone. My DS always comes home from nursery with paint, pasta sauce, etc. On his clothes. There's no chance I'm buying a new wardrobe every month. Those clothes get washed and put back on for nursery.

I feel like we've reached this point with the staff at DD's nursery. The first time she got paint on her clothes they were obviously worried until I said that the most important thing was that she had fun! They still apologise, but don't look quite so worried about it now. I was mortified they might think I'd be cross, but I guess they've probably had that experience before, which is sad.

We used to do that as well with dd - I'd buy lots of primark joggers/jeans and tops, pick up similar in the Next sales, and if we had something good that got stained that could join the Creche/nursery/school rotation (non uniform primary).

Stains were expected, clean and fitting were the criteria for us and we never had an eyebrow raised. Most others did the same.

And in fact, "labels" were discouraged by primary school- very strongly.

Yes nursery stained clothes are washed and reused. I have a drawer of nursery clothes for DC. They never ever mix with good clothes or weekend wear.
if I sent everything in that was good everything they have would be stained and destroyed.

Mine often went in scruffs - clean but stained is fine.
Incidentally, tomato stains should come out if you leave said item on the washing line for a few days, even in winter. Sunlight works wonders

It’s getting the sun that’s the problem 😜

We regularly send DS in stained clothes. Sometimes in dirty clothes too, if he's just going to nursery for the afternoon and we've had e.g. spag bol for lunch. I'll wipe off any loose bits of spaghetti from his top but I'm not changing him just so that he can get a second set of clothes dirty 15 minutes after I drop him off! I have enough washing to do as it is!

@Ohcordelia doesn't need blazing sunshine, honest! So long as it's daylight, it will bleach the tomato stains out. My children were absolute scruffy eaters when they were little so I ended up doing this regularly

DDs had pre-school "uniform" (non-compulsory) of a t-shirt and jumper which they wore and were clean but with a bit paint or PVA glue on.

Yes, because the vast majority of the stains have come from nursery in the first place. They don't bother putting bibs/aprons on and just let them dive into their food and get absolutely covered in bolognaise sauce. If something is really badly stained then no, probably not, but if it is something that just won't completely wash out then yep, they'll wear it again. They grow out of clothes that fast it isn't really an issue for too long. Until the next size up stuff gets stained!

Paint stain - yes
Food stain - no

DS went to 3 different nurseries and never really got that stained (doesn't really wear white) but he has enough clothes so I wouldn't have sent him in stained clothes. He's in school now and the uniform is a white shirt annoyingly, which often gets food and dirt and pen marks on them during Summer when it's too hot for a sweater, so if it doesn't wash out and doesn't look too bad then he still wears it to school or it gets kept for the colder months to be hidden under his sweater.