Mums of very thin reception girls, pls help!

[kisaki333]

I have ordered (and mostly returned) at least £300 worth of school trousers in the last month I can't find a single one that looks ok and fits.
Some of the ones with adjustable waist can be adjusted to fit the waist but they look like she did a big poo in her nappy (she obviously doesn't wear one! )
To make it worse, all the adjustable waist ones are polyester. ALL the cotton pull ones I found don't have an adjustable waist. Whyyyyy???
So far we tried:
Next (best results so far but still bad)
M&S
ASDA found one slim fit that has really bad reviews saying it's much too slim lol. This one is ok, but feels poor quality.
Sainsbury's
Various Amazon brands with 0 success

Anyone managed to find something that actually looks ok on a slim petite 4.5yo and with good quaility? Preferably cotton?

And before you say about dresses, i don't want her in dresses, she is very active and a climber, she won't be able to do everything she wants in a dress.

In day to day she lives in leggings but the school won't accept those (how crazy is that, why not?!)

My very skinny girl wears dresses with cycling shirts underneath - knee length socks in winter. No trousers fit her and we gave up on them pretty quickly.

I also hand sew darts in her shorts (and pyjama bottoms) on either side of the waist band. For leggings, Frugi are the only brand that fits round the waist.

I teacher Reception. Half the girls are in trousers. It's really not that unusual these days! The suggestion that she'll be the odd one out of she wears trousers is ridiculous in 2026.

I'm not sure why you're talking about it being too hot for trousers. OP is buying uniform to last the school year, not just for September. I'm sure if it's too hot in September they'll send her in shorts or a gingham dress. When it gets too cold though, their child hates tights so they're on the look out for trousers. I'm baffled how so many think "just put her in a pinafore dress with long socks" is the answer. If OP is struggling to source cotton trousers which fit their daughter, clearly there's a gap in the market. Just telling them to get her to wear something else shouldn't be the solution. You wouldn't suggest a boy should wear a dress if his parents can't find trousers to fit him, so why should a girl? The children should be free to wear what they feel comfortable in, and if that's trousers for a little girl then that should absolutely be an option.

Have you ever had children go through Reception? It's totally not like that! Nursery and Reception follow the same EYFS curriculum. If children aren't coming home caked in mud, sand, paint, pen and their own dinner, the school aren't doing it right!

Reception children spend their day digging, climbing, running and creating. Most will absolutely need a clean uniform each day, and that uniform needs to be practical.

‘Playsuits are an abomination’ …. Please elaborate.
you have multiple options but it reads like you personally don’t like them. Playsuits are a great compromise in the summer, cool, practical, functional.
other than break time there’s not much climbing that happens in full uniform and when are they cycling around in school?

I am a mother whose skinny active high climbing cycling and sportsing daughter would have refused to attend school if I put her in a dress but we never struggled with the uniform options, gingham playsuits were a godsend.

millions of active kids manage in the suggestions already made and to say you have found trousers that do fit but you don’t like the quality is a ridiculous pantomime.

youre making problems that really don’t exist.

Personally I wouldn't put a reception aged child in a playsuit as I'd be worried about if they could get it off in time to use the toilet (mine weren't great at fastenings at that age), and if they did there'd be a high chance of it ending up on the floor of said toilet.

I have had 2 go through reception and both have adhd so running around and being active was the norm.

I also experienced the same trouser problem and ended up buying DS who was Summer born and quite tiny a very expensive pair

Where are reception children digging? Where are they climbing? Health and Safety would prohibit trees to be climbed and like my own school years before the playing fields were out of bounds from September to the summer term

They came home with a little paint and pen and a bit of dinner on occasion. But nothing like you seem to think.
Don’t think either had more than one pair of trousers. (DS definitely as I couldn’t afford more than 1 pair)

Uniform was taken off as soon as they got home and everything was thrown in the washing machine on the quick wash and then hung up to be worn the next day.
If anything it was the polo shirts that suffered more than the trousers.

The class did reading/writing and were sat at tables before lunch and then after lunch they had painting or colouring area, construction toys, a book corner and crafting area

Reception was nothing like nursery.

Afterall if you have only Reception and Year 1 to teach 30 x 4 year olds to read proficiently and write, you don’t waste a year playing in mud hoping for them to read by osmosis.

Year 2, if children couldn’t read then their education virtually stopped.

It might be different now and children in reception have climbing frames and trees and can dig up the school playing field and year 2 has children who cannot read but are still able to take part in the lessons. I can only go on the experience my dc had

Can you please just not post here if my thread bothers you so much?
What's wrong with me trying to find better options for my child even if I have a not-so-great option?
And why am I not allowed to have opinions? Other posters have already explained the problem with playsuits, hope it's clear now...

To all the posters that challenge if the child will be active in reception: sorry if your child didn't attend a school that encourages learning through movement. The one we will attend does. There are no chairs or desks to sit at. Reception has climbing frames and bikes and crawling tunnels among others. All of which are - not impossible - but harder to do in a skirt/dress.

And also mamy thanks to all that added helpful suggestions and links. I've placed an order for vertbaudet and h&m. Sainsbury and ecooutfitters to follow.
Might as well try them all and see which works.

You’re absolutely right on the active front. Dresses definitely don’t stop mine though. She finds trousers too restrictive as she spends most of her time upside down- hence cycling short requirement.
Lots of posters have said skirts for a reason - not just to argue with you. I’m sure they have kids just like yours…. They are less restrictive and easier to make work on a very slim child.

It's nonsense about dresses impeding movement, they don't. Unless you're choosing a floor length hoop skirt or a tightly fitted pencil skirt- that might make climbing hard. What people think the difference is between a skirt and trousers that makes one stop a child being active, I don't know.

I think it is less than you are not allowed opinions op than that people are saying what can work fine - many of us having had dc go through Reception - but you are convinced your dc has abnormal levels of activity at a school with abnormal classroom set-up and an abnormal waist measurement.

Then you are getting crabby anyone suggests anything that the rest of us found just fine.

You need to find a forum for schools that have a different style of reception for children who will be constantly active and don't have waist catered for by adjustable waistbands I guess.

You've asked for advice then spat on it.

I don’t want to derail the thread, but there are actually studies showing that wearing skirts and dresses reduces activity levels in primary age girls…. this is especially true for school uniforms

Thank you, yes, absolutely. I don't understand how someone thinks that crawling in a skirt or dress that goes under the knee is as easy as in trousers. Unless they've never done it themselves? It's such an odd thing to argue when it's clearly not true...

@Calliopespai asked for advice about which trousers to wear. Half the posters said to don't bother and just do dresses, skirts or any other option beyond trousers. Noted, but I still want advice about TROUSERS. I am not interested in a debate about why i want to buy trousers. I then got personal attacks , got told i am precious. And now you are calling my child abnormal. Yes, for your information, she is abnormal because she is under the 0.4 centile for size and weight. And we are under paediatric observation for it. Thanks for reminding me.

This thread is still about trousers recommendations. If you can't say anything on-topic, please refrain from posting.

There is a tradition, OP, of being grateful for contributions and picking the ones that work for you.

Plenty of pp were not intending the suggestion of a dress rudely.

I didn't take offence from the posts suggesting dresses. I took offence at rhe offensive posts that were attacking me and my child....

None of the other posters have explained why playsuits are an abomination and why you don’t allow them in your house actually.
The thread doesn’t bother me but your statement re playsuits and your general disdain for the ‘not so good options’ for such a rough and tumble school have piqued my curiosity .
youve written all this on the internet on an open webpage, anyone can read, comment or question.
I feel sorry for kids there who might have health or mobility issues and there’s nowhere to sit down or rest their food or rest their books to write etc, sitting on the ground or being constantly active for seven hours doesn’t sound very accessible , perhaps that’s part of the attraction?

Far from 'wasting time', allowing children to learn through play and develop their gross motor skills is hugely beneficial to their development.

I'm a very experienced Reception teacher and I can assure you that it is entirely possible to teach children to become competent readers and writers while still allowing them plenty of time to dig in the mud kitchen, ride bikes and play on the climbing frame etc. I'm just sorry to hear your own children weren't offered these same experiences, which are vital in order to deliver full coverage of the EYFS curriculum. Or maybe they were, and you just weren't aware of all the additional learning they did in addition to learning to read and write? I would definitely question your claims that they sat at tables all morning. Reception classes do not teach like that and children who do receive these statutory physical experiences certainly don't all get to Year 2 still unable to read and write, SEN aside. Why would you assume that full delivery of the EYFS curriculum would lead to this?

None of the other posters have explained why playsuits are an abomination and why you don’t allow them in your house actually.

Easy to lose in the thread, but yes they did - they're really impractical for going to the loo and tend to end up flopping on unhygienic toilet floors. Separates are much easier.

Don't remember DD's reception class doing any significant amount of sitting at tables. Just because they were outdoors or crawling around the classroom floor didn't mean they weren't doing a phonics or maths activity! Great setup.

Some people don’t like the look of gingham playsuits - I think she is putting this above what could be a good option for her daughter !

See my post right above yours. Putting a young school child in an outfit they're going to have to basically take completely off to go to the loo just isn't practical. They unzip it and drop it down and it goes on the floor in whatever the previous child has spilled there. Ick.

I was going to suggest Verbaudet. I even had one pair of trousers from there that were too small round my daughters waist!!!

that could happen with a skirt

My daughter has a Playsuit for school and keeps it up on her legs when she’s on the loo.

I think a lot of ick things probably happen in the school toilets which I’m not going to worry about.

that could happen with a skirt
Huh? Not unless you are teaching your girls to pull skirts down to pee. That's not normally how it's done. And certainly no requirement to remove top half clothing.

Edit: Unless a playsuit isn't what I think it is? One of those all in ones like a jump suit with short arms and legs? to use the loo they need to unzip and remove the whole top part, even if they keep the shorts round their knees the body and arm part needs to be got out of the way somewhere and that somewhere is likely to be hanging down on the floor.

DD preferred trousers/shorts so it's not a subject I'm expert on, but a PP definitely said this was the problem with them.