How much of each item of clothing to buy?

[Worriedmumofone1]

As the title suggests just wanting to know how much of each item I should buy for my first child starting school in September?

We’ve got her two branded cardigans and the branded P.E shirt (just one). We need to buy her:

Pinafore dresses
Polo shirts

Not sure how many to have in rotation?

Thanks in advance

I have a boy and have always bought 4x polos, 4x trousers, 2x pe top and 2x pe bottoms. That’s partly because everything comes in a two pack! I’d probably by 4x polos and 3x pinafores? How many PE days do
they have and do they change at school or wear to school?

How organised are you as a household and how grubby does your child get? In year R I had one child who would go through 3 pairs of trousers a day and one shirt and jumper. He would be filthy.

My other child, even at that age could wear his trousers two days in a row and sometimes his t-shirt or jumper.

That said, we aren't an organised household so I like to have a good week or more of stuff.

I buy enough to have all new each day. Can be bothered with mid wk washing

It depends how quickly you can keep on top of your washing! Personally I like clean uniform every day, so 5 sets is what works for us. You probably could get by with less, but you'd be putting pressure on yourself to get it all clean and dry in time. They get filthy in Reception (as kids should when they're having fun playing with paint, sand, playdough, marker pens, water, mud etc and learning to feed themselves independently).

I always had a set of polo, trousers/shorts for each day with fleece/sweatshirt that could be worn for a couple of days. I had a very very mucky boy though and there was no way he’d get away with it. For my daughter….2 skirts a per week, daily clean polos and she could wear a sweatshirt for longer because she was a tidy child. So I had two of those on rotation.

Get more cardigans, unbranded if the school will allow it. Mine get hot then are constantly leaving them anywhere and everywhere. Other than that, at least five of each other everyday thing. Personally I don't bother with the dresses just go for skirts as they suit both summer and winter.

Oh and top tip is get a backpack to put the cardi and water bottle and whatever else in in rather than use those silly book bags.

I have at least two weeks of everything- then I’m not rushing to do a wash. For example we don’t have much white clothing so prefer to have a full load to wash.

Mine do PE twice a week and wear PE kit all day so 2 sets of that.
Then 3 jumpers or cardies, trousers/skirts for the remaining days.
Lots of polo shirts as they (particularly DS) absolutely destroys them! I seriously have no idea how they get so filthy.

I work long hours and have very messy DC so I buy 10 of everything. I don't buy more than 2 branded jumpers though. It means I only have to do a wash every other week at a push.

We had 2 days PE Kit and 3 days uniform after COVID. Spring/Summer uniform and Autumn/Winter uniform.

DD doesn’t like getting dirty and is a clean eater so since Year R she’s always worn the same clothes two days in a row (and she doesn’t have to wear uniform on Fridays), so I buy 2/3 polo shirts (depending on pack size); 2 cardigans and 2 pairs of trousers.

My DC were pretty tidy most of the time. For shirts I always had a week plus one day so the, typically weekly, washing cycle had a bit of flexibility in it. (Also works with the shirts being sold in pairs!) Sweatshirts were a mystery as they changed them around with other kids despite name tags, though I aimed at a minimum of 2 Trousers / skirts were 2 plus a spare. Typically one PE bottom but 2 tops.

I had 2 full sets plus 2 full sets of the next size up as guaranteed they need the next size around Halloween or January when there's none in the shop.

My DS used to go to my Mums after school and she had some kind of Granny magic washing, drying and ironing school clothes system if his clothes were grubby!

For yR Dts had a full set for every day. At the time the kids were in wrap around, no tumble drier and literally no time to be fannying about with washing.

They were both filth magnets which didn’t help!

One full PE kit.

Three sets of shirts, two of everything else and I’d wash over the week as necessary

Shirts came in a pack of 3 so I've got 6 - I keep one out of rotation for school photo day so that one was at least clean.
4 trousers
3 jumpers (2 new and 1 from the second hand sale)
1 pe kit

I have at least 4 trousers (nowadays about 10, he has hand me downs and new); 5 shirts as I don't white wash more than once a week, 3 jumpers but sometimes he's lost all but 1!

I have 2 joggers, about a million polo shirts and one PE sweatshirts

Try the school for second hand uniform sale. Honestly it's a crying shame how much spare uniform there is, much better to recycle ♻️

I had three of everything. My DC were pretty good at keeping their stuff clean and could wear the same clothes for a few days in a row.

I always bought the minimum uniform (but appreciate I had time to wash in week if necessary). I usually had a spare of everything in the next size up - it was going to be needed eventually and was there in case of emergency (washing machine breaking/child leaving jumper at school/swimming pool etc) Def agree with second hand for anything branded if you can - at my kids school the pta ran a great system where you could just order it by email

We bought far too much. Might be worth finding out when gym kits are brought home as I bought plenty of winter and summer kit only to find out that the kit is only sent home at the end of term. So for my DD who wears tights, she’s putting on the same socks for gym all term as they won’t let her bring anything home 😱

we also bought far too many shirts, not enough summer dresses and too many pinafores.

we try to do clean shirt every day and pinafore/skirt/trousers every couple of days. When she’s in a dress it’s clean on every couple of days unless she drops her dinner down it. Cardigans are usually changed daily as she will either get food on it or snot sleeve 🤢

I am generally on top of the washing and my dc are not hard on clothes so we run on a fairly minimal set.

One branded set for trips.

Mine wear PE kit all day on PE days (two days a week) but also on snow days, sports trip days, school play days, etc etc so 3 sets of that

Then 3 sets of "normal" uniform which honestly hardly gets worn. Could manage with 2.

We have 6 polo shirts (2 branded), four jumpers (2 branded), three pairs of trousers but four shorts because they came in packs of 2. Currently DS is needing a new top each day. His uniform changes to shirts for yr1 so probably will get six short sleeved

I’d buy the minimum you can get away with at the moment. You can top up (new or second-hand) when you get into a routine.

I'm a one a day Mom. Each kid has minimum (because of pack sizes) 5 of polo top, jumper and trousers. 2 branded polo and jumper, the rest supermarket. One set of PE kit cos we do it once a week and get changed in / out at school.