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?!)

M&S have slim fit (not to be confused with slim leg) trousers in the boys section (not sure why they don't also make them for girls but they might work). My DS is older, but small for his age and very skinny and these have always worked with the waist adjusted as tight as it will go. Also, counter-intuitively, might be worth trying age 3-4 if you're currently trying age 2-3 as a lot of 2-3 clothes are cut to fit a nappy underneath.

Vertbaudet do slim fit trousers for girls - I get all my very skinny 8-year old’s leggings and jeans from there but I don’t know if they do school trousers.
Getting even joggers or leggings in normal uk shops is a no-go for us. They just fall down! At school I size down M&S and drop the adjustable hem if needed. In summer she wears gingham dress + cycling shorts for all the cartwheeling. She used to wear pinafores too in reception but decided last year it had to be trousers.
It’s a challenge!

Is she tall? If so H&M and Zara are good. If not then I think dresses might be the only option

Pretty much all Reception kids are active and nearly all the girls wear pinafores. I don't know how the boys manage but my DD is finishing Y1 and we've not yet got to the stage where she can wear a skirt or trousers without them falling down.

If she doesn't like tights, she can wear socks at least for September and October and you can see where you're up to in November.

Saying that it's not possible for your child to wear a dress and playsuits are "an abomination" makes it seem more like you're creating the difficulty for yourself.

Cycling shorts under dresses for the summer. I struggle with finding trousers that fit my DD because she's quite short but wider at the belly, so things are either too long or too tight. I've brought her these for the warmer months so she can still climb/cartwheel - Light Blue Girls Gingham Longer Length Shorts 2 Pack | School | George at ASDA

As an EYFS professional in a primary school...

Things that get on a primary school aged child's trousers:

Mud/sand (yes, the playground may be tarmacked, but reception may have a sandpit or mud kitchen, or sensory garden, sometimes KS1 will. Some primary schools have fields, even if they're only used in the warmer months)
Food - baked beans, yogurt, gravy. Depends on the day and what they're eating
Paint
Glue
Other craft supplies
The dreaded whiteboard markers (though that's usually tops)

Tenfold all of this for reception, and yes it's "not nursery" but disaster magnet children are always going to end up messy somehow. There's always the children who can stay neat as a pin all day every day, and the ones who always leave school looking like they've been rolling in paint, even on days the paints haven't even been out...

I haven’t been through the comments so this may have already been suggested. But have you thought about getting them made by a local business? I make school clothes for my son and school dungarees for a local lady. They will last well and if you’re needing a few they might give you a discount?

Skort or shorts.

I think it depends on the child. Mine still comes home covered in pasta sauce, snot (advantage/disadvantage of a pinafore is that it can also be used as a hanky 🤨) and general dirt. Plus our school lets the kids loose with whiteboard pens which do not wipe off clothes.

Either pay to have the best ones tailored or wear skirts with cycling shorts underneath, or culottes that look like skirts but are actually shorts. Tights under in winter, bare legs in summer.

this is what everyone else is doing with kids in uniform

It's tosh that a dress is the only solution or that OP is unreasonable to look for trousers. Skinny small boys manage to find trousers that work. Girls and boys are not such different shapes at 4 that the trousers aren't interchangeable.
Happened here by accident as DD borrowed her brother's so we just bought more of the same.

I'd go with the Asda ones, I get Asda as they're the best option youve got at the moment. Buy them now if they have stock as I've waiting weeks for Asda to restock and no signs of it!

I have a tall thin boy and Asda were the best fit for him, no issues with quality.

Also try boys trousers, there are so many more options and lots do super skinny options for boys.
M&S do super skinny and they start at size 2-3 years.

Skinny DD wore these throughout Primary. Shes tall so we needed to size up for length so I sewed the waistline in a bit each side. She hated the cottony/poly fabric ones.

TU jersey trousers

My very active dd has no problem catrwheeling in dresses (constantly!)
Like other have said, cycle shorts underneath?

I have a very skinny girl, got some trousers for her and they didn't get worn at all because, and this made me sad, "boys wear trousers" she said and she just refused. She is a very skinny, active, climbing up the walls, frill seeking kind of girl and skirts and dresses don't hold her back at all. I buy her short style knickers in grey to match her pinafore so looks like shorts underneath. The trousers I got were from next and they were like skinny fit ones though if that helps kind of leggings really but smarter.

Try Beat School Uniform (online and has a shop).

I'd be inclined to try a pack of these. I know they have said no to leggings, but I would argue these are stretchy, flared trousers, not leggings. Charcoal Ribbed Flared Leggings 2 Pack | Kids | George at ASDA

Skinny short boys can’t get trousers either. It’s so bad Indian expat communities based in the UK will buy made to measure trousers from India and bring them / get them shipped across.

Tie them up with baler twine if you live in the country or braces?

DD was built like a leggy stick insect as a child. School uniform was really tricky. I found that clothing companies set up for the non-UK market were better suited to her, so Zara, Vertbaudet, Jacadi, Polarn O Pyret etc. I used to search out those companies stuff on ebay too, as they didn't always have school colours I needed in their current collections

Dd always wore pinafores with think tights from Country Kids in winter, and gingham play suit in summer

until later in juniors when it switched to skirts/dress with shorts underneath

Because they aren't cotton?

I can provide another vote for EcoOutfitters, my kids lived in them and the boys trousers are available in a slim fit and classic fit, my petite DC actually preferred the classic fit though.

I will provide one note of caution, my DDs wore skirts and trousers in nursery but such is the social pressure that within a few weeks of starting school DD1 refused to wear trousers to school so she didn't look 'like a boy' . So I'd suggest having one pair of trousers, one pair of shorts, one skirt, one pinafore and one gingham dress until you see what she prefers rather than five of one thing. And maybe a mix of cardigans and jumpers. And always size up tights, makes them more comfortable.

And I didn't care if they went to school in clothes that had been previously worn and had stains. That is surely the point of primary school uniform, to give them clothes that they can get dirty in.

No my eldest child managed to get everything dirty, every day. The youngest one could have worn theirs for days.

My DD was always long and skinny compared to the fit of a lot of clothes. I generally got on ok at Tu and Mango. I always found the alterable waist things just bunched up and looked silly on her, but we did that if we had to. Sometimes H&M leggings were too wide for how long her legs were too. Maybe embrace a cropped length trousers for a bit?

Now she’s older, the fit at New Look is really good for her as it’s generally a bit closer fitting (so it’s not really wide) and works really well for her. She’s tall for her age so has been able to go into 9-10 clothes early. It won’t be forever, this stage!

That’s really good advice - I wonder if that’s why mango worked for us too (Spanish). We did have some good stuff from Vertbaudet now you mention it. I never thought to specifically look for non-uk brands!