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?!)

I've always used the Asda slim fit adjustable waist ones and DD is almost 12 now. Not sure why they have bad reviews.

I would echo this.

Try Sainsburys TU for dresses.

My school don't allow leggings on their own but are fine with them under a pinafore dress instead of tights so my daughter does that on very cold days. Rest of year just cycling shorts underneath pinafore dress.

I think you’ll find school is different from nursery.

My very skinny kids (male and female) wore black jeans from H&M and when they were old enough River Island do good skinny fit trousers.
I totally feel your pain. One of my sons was in age 5-6 underpants when he went to high school so I know how hard it is!

My DS not DD but we had to settle for Asda Slim Fit. These were the only ones that looked ok and fitted well. They surprisingly lasted the whole year, I though they would wear out before that as they felt super thin. No holes and for a boy playing football that is a plus! We still use these every year now. I found it impossible to find cotton ones that fitted. The polyester are fine and 99% of the time he lives out of shorts anyway (even in winter).

DD we are going for dresses with cycle shorts or tights. She is very active too and copes with dresses and cycle shorts for nursery. She'd rather that than trousers over leggings.

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.

Thick black tights in winter, cycle shorts in summer.

I found reception to be very similar to nursery in that regard. They spend most of the day playing outdoors in the mud, painting etc. Plus they spill food down their front and get their sleeves in their dinner. Year 1 calms down a bit on the messiness front.

Agreed! I think you are just giving yourself issues tbh. Both mine been fine in pinafore and then the summer dresses.

I mean you sound a bit precious about how active she is. 1000s of little girls manage to be active in their dresses. Can you not say ‘DD none of the trousers fit so let’s try a pinafore’ mine didn’t like tights so she wore either long socks or grey leggings (look like thick tights).

Oh good, i was wondering when the insulting would start.
All I did was ask for the help of other mums with thin daughters. I want advice on what cotton trousers they found that fit.
Opinions on whether she should wear dresses or not are offtopic and useless to me.
And personal insults are also unwelcome.
Cheers

We ended up buying age 3 slim adjustable trousers in a longer length from M&S to avoid the nappy effect.

Just thread elastic through the non- adjustable waist ones - to make your own elastic waist.

Sainsburys do an age 3 as well as normal school age so they might be worth a go?

Would you say that to a slim boy?

It is actually a known concern that girls become less active than their male peers over the course of their school careers. Maybe what clothes they are put in plays a subtle role in that. On average, not something you'd notice at an individual level, obviously plenty of girls are still very active.

I have to say that, as a teacher in eyfs, I have never noticed that skirts or dresses stop the girls from doing exactly as they please! They climb, run, ride… whether your child will
wear them or not is another matter.
I would advocate dresses with long socks and cycling shorts under.
Sadly when something has a smaller market there is less choice. My 2 were tiny and just had to make do with the smallest things we could find. I shortened stuff and put in elastic waists myself!

I could tell what DS had done and eaten by his uniform every day in reception. Schools tend to let reception children spend lots of time outside playing and climbing because it’s good for their core strength, which is important for writing.

DS also used to play various games involving exploring in most dusty and dirtiest areas of the school well into KS2, so even then he needed clean uniform every day

Which bit?

I don’t think that I would send my son to school in a dress, no, but I also don’t think my daughter’s school pinafore would have prevented her from being as active as any little boy in a pair of (cotton) trousers.

This is what we did too. I bought age 2-3 in reception.

She’s 17 now but I did find jersey trousers for DD at one point. I don’t know why they aren’t more of a thing. Bridged the gap between trousers and leggings, as I don’t like leggings at school.
dresses and leggings sounds okay when it gets colder.

My DD was very petite at that age. I only did dresses and skirts for school and then she wore cycling shorts underneath. I feel for you but as you can see finding trousers that work will be challenging.

Edit: just saw your note re: tights. My DD also wouldn’t wear tights so knee socks worked.

@kisaki333 there 100% is a market for jersey school uniform. It's such a gap in the market. It is needed desperately for neuro diverse children (textures) as well as exceptionally small/slim/large/bigger built children.

The company that hits on this idea will make a fortune.

I think you have to accept that it is either dresses and shorts ( with long socks if needed) or you pay for tailoring for trousers or you alter them yourself. We have the same problem in our family. I have sewn elastic in the inside of my granddaughters school trousers. Yes they look bunched up but so be it.

The advice is get a dress.

Not too sure how at school she is going to be “active”. It isn’t a nursery setting
She will be sat down for hours of the day and not sure what sort of thing she is going to get up to to ruin her trousers in a tarmaced play ground. She won’t be anywhere near mud or trees or anything that is dirty.
There are rules to follow

Take uniform off as soon as she gets home. You certainly don’t need 4 pairs of trousers

Do not understand how some people have wee kids that manage to keep things clean all day! My 3 year old comes out of nursery filthy yet some kids are fine, when he's with me he doesn't seem to be doing anything majorly different than the others but there's no way he could wear his trousers to nursery for a couple of days in a row!