Worried about dressing my daughter!

[Zitouna]

Realise this is basically lunacy, but here goes...

I have a just 3yo DS and a six month old DD. With my son, it was easy and I quite enjoyed finding nice, practical clothes for him, and I was totally confident in my choices.

With my daughter I’m really struggling! (I know, she’s six months, can just wear a babygrow, this is ridiculous). I feel a lot of pressure for her clothes to be ‘right’.

I always had the ‘wrong’ clothes as a child (dressed in hand me down Laura Ashley smocks my mum thought were lovely - vividly remember being asked by kid at school why I was dressed like Little House On the Prairie...) and don’t want her to have that feeling. We also have close friends with a baby girl of the same age, who she will grow up with - and her parents are v focussed on clothes and the right look, and I don’t want my DD to be the odd one out.

Obviously the answer is for her to develop the confidence to wear her own choice of clothing and not worry what others think - but for now she has to be dressed by me and I’m sort of paralysed by anxiety about it. She’s therefore mostly wearing her brother’s hand me downs!

I don’t really like the bright shouty coloured stuff like fruugi, definitely don’t like girly pink unicorns and stuff, yet also weirdly resentful of Instagramable greige outfits. I have therefore bought nothing! I then veer to thinking she should just wear her brother’s cast offs forever and it will be character forming - but then realise I’ve turned into my mother!

Help! Either with ideas for where to get clothes or how to manage these feelings (I know this is silly - probs a bit of post-natal anxiety in there tho, so don’t be too brutal with me!)

I sort of get you, I’ve got an 8 month old daughter and she has 4 older brothers so it’s all very new and I’m naturally drawn to boys stuff and find the girls sections quite overwhelming.

I find online shops such as lindex and some H&M stuff works well for me, feminine unisex sort of stuff is what I try to buy. She wears lots of duck egg blue with yellow or some of the pale terracotta type colour that is around at the moment.

www.lindex.com/uk/baby/view-all

I know this is in the style and beauty section. But really?

There is a middle ground between unicorns and greige :)
It has been a while since I dressed a baby and I'm sure many people would hate the way I did dress her, but people don't normally comment on such things. When she was up to toddler age, she lived in leggings and dungarees, as they are easier to move around in.
I have an enormous dislike of the leggings/slogan tshirt/crap socks beloved by many 5-10 yr olds, so was keen to avoid that. However, once children are able, most of them want to choose their own clothes anyway, so put her in whatever you like, because she will get to 18 months and refuse to leave Tesco without the unicorn monstrosity she spotted and will wear it every day for 3 months.

Ok so now I’ve started looking at clothes and want these for DD
www2.hm.com/en_gb/productpage.0935947001.html
With theses
www2.hm.com/en_gb/productpage.0931728001.html
Not sure if they’re your style or not but these are the type of things I like with a nice cardigan on the top.

Why not just buy a couple of outfits from somewhere like Next that are for a girl but obviously not the unicorn etc that you dislike but are perhaps just a little out of your comfort zone such as colour or perhaps more girly than your used to. Put her in them and see how it goes.Yours feelings / thoughts are probably just due to it being new .

Morrison's and Sainsburys do some lovely baby stuff in muted pallets of burgundy and green, that sort of thing, if you don't want brights or pink? It's quite autumnal but we wore it year round!

OK so I dressed my DD in her brothers clothes until 3.

Basically neutrals with giraffes and things. Anything with animals. Lots of red and white and blue and yellow. Lots of yellow! I loved anything cheerful.

BUT then she developed opinions. Oh my god. She turned into a little madam and flat out refused any of her brothers (perfect) hand me downs. To this day has never worn blue again. She was in creche and only wanted to wear what the other little girls wore.

Now she is 4 and has a drawer full of unicorns and rainbows and PINK. And so help me, its what I buy for her because there's no point buying something she won't wear.

And yes I also had a childhood wearing terrible clothes and I don't want that embarresment for her. So if it means I have to buy Frozen merchandise then I'll do it.

I was the one swearing blind my daughter was never gonna wear pink rubbish. I was all FUCK THE PATRIARCHY! BAN GENDERED CLOTHES!

But little girls are a law unto themselves and I've totally rolled over now. I just buy her what she actually likes.

I don't spend much money though. Its all tat really. They grow so fast anyway.

So my advice is go bright and cheerful whilst you can, because before you know it, you'll be drowned in an avalanche of pink glitter just like the rest of us.

I had a similar sort of experience - always wearing something strange as a child, and thus unsure of how to dress my daughter. Not keen on bright colours, or sparkles. When I was little, though, there weren't really any decent High St options: clothes tended just to be scaled-down versions of adult clothes, or replica Edwardian weirdnesses, at least round where I was from (helloooo, Laura Ashley smock-front dress).

So I just found a shop I liked the look of (JoJo Maman Bebe in my case, but I think think this strategy would work with anything) and bought her a child's version of a capsule wardrobe from there. Sort of mix and match, so that any top would go with any dress or skirt or trousers, plus jumper or cardigan. I decided to be confident in their taste while I developed my own.

More or less worked - except for the time DH mistook a frill-bottom T-shirt for a dress and sent her to pre-school with just that and a pair of tights on. Good luck OP!

And yes H&M is really good. Also you get some lovely neutral bits in Zara kids (definitely not tacky enough for DD though ) .

I don't really do flashy graphics or bright prints. My little girl has a few bits of her brothers hand me downs but I like H&M, Tu at Sainsbury's, Zara, a few bits from Next and some M&S. I tend to go for plain muted tones, and she is a hell of a lot better dressed then I am!

My daughter had strong opinions about what she would or wouldn't wear at 18 months old. You haven't got all that long to wait until she can tell you herself.

It’s a bit disturbing that you’re paralysed with anxiety about dressing a baby just because she’s female. If you wouldn’t post a thread in S&B about a baby boy (and I’ll be honest here, I’ve never seen a thread about baby clothes in S&B in ten years on MN), I think you need to have a word with yourself about the different messages you’re going to send your children about clothing and appearance as they grow up.

I realising you’re projecting your issues about how you were dressed as a child, but this is madness. Please have a chat with someone about your anxiety because I feel like this isn’t really about clothes, and you’re just channeling your anxiety in this direction right now.

This is depressing.

So her brother gets practical clothes enabling him to play and explore and basically be whoever he wants, and she gets... styled. Because her appearance is the priority.

Seriously?

What about this kind of thing?

www.etsy.com/uk/market/lenas_yard?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Search_UK_DSA_GGL_Main_General_New&utm_ag=UK-EN_DSA-General&utm_custom1=k_Cj0KCQiA2uH-BRCCARIsAEeef3lIGKmSCjiKcauGOHJDBw4X6PJ9fJ126x9Jq4eNvI09yVg8PbIjCg4aAoeoEALw_wcB_k&utm_content=go_11120727342_112118310227_474876607394_dsa-19959388920_m_&utm_custom2=11120727342&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2uH-BRCCARIsAEeef3lIGKmSCjiKcauGOHJDBw4X6PJ9fJ126x9Jq4eNvI09yVg8PbIjCg4aAoeoEALw_wcB

All the girls i know from babies to teens wear leggings and tshirts which you can't really get wrong.

My daughter wore a lot of boys clothes as a 1-2 year old. She had the odd pretty dress/outfit but these were often gifts. I got the everyday clothes.
I found it was easier to dress her nicely/prettily I the summer with light dresses etc. Just buy what you like. Don't spend a fortune though, as they get trashed or outgrown quickly!

I agree with all the pp who say daughters soon decide for themselves.

I have lovingly selected locally produced, organic cotton dresses in beautiful prints and hues for ridiculous money... only to have these items rejected in favour of the polyester and sequinned tat the neighbour dumped on our doorstep.

Nonsense Eifhsg she's not saying that at all.

It's entirely customary for parents to want their kids to look appropriate to their peers.

It also doesn't preclude playing and exploring. My DD, wears leggings 365 days a year. Would I prefer her to wear jeans? Yep. But she won't, she finds them stiff and says leggings are easier to climb trees in.

Yes the leggings are the most hideous things you've ever seen but my point is that girls having their own very specific look doesn't stop rough and tumble play.

I think we are all in danger of turning into our mothers when w ehave anxieties like this, as they were before us. It is hard to break the cycle.

My mother, apparently was always dressed in green because she has red hair and it looked lovely and her sister was dressed in blue. As a consequence I had some awful things and wasn't allowed to choose completely alone until I got a job at 16. Maybe your mother always wanted to wear those yuckky smocks as a child. I am not defending though.

For your problem OP, I'd second H&M. I quite like brights, but there's lots of mustardy stuff about in primark of all places when you look beyond the slogans. I also think that when your DD shows preference, let her choose within reason. DD is six and likes LOL clothes, sequins and glitter. I just go with it and make sure she has some more traditional things for formality or going to see ancient relatives. Her clothes aren't to my taste you can tell from my username I'm into punk rock and as much as I'd like to have her in a teeny tiny band tee that she only likes because I like is just what my mother did to me with her love of brown duffel coats and calf length denim skirts.

I looked like a piece of walking shit in that coat. I am scarred 30 years on.

I think you need to detach yourself from your own experience and try and look it with another pair of eyes.

This is about her not you and I mean that kindly

I have 3 boys and they mainly wore dungarees because it was easier. If I had a girl I would have dressed her in dungarees.

Once my kids hit 3 it was irrelevant what I thought they should wear - they each started to choose their own and my style preferences were not relevant.

Oh and tracksuits, particularly Adidas ones, but I am a chav and to be fair, the kids still like/wear tracksuits so it was a good move.

I had the wrong clothes as a child and I totally get this. I loved frugi and boden for my dds though.

You might like jojo mamma Bebe I did.

Interestingly dd1 (11) actually wants little house on the prairie clothes.

Greige is so depressing. So are the ball pools that come in grey. Eff that

I’m currently scouting eBay and Etsy for Oshkosh dungarees and dresses for when DD gets a bit bigger. I am obsessed!

We got given a lot of secondhand stuff (pretty much all the clothes she’ll wear until 2) and a lot of it is very pink and girly which isn’t at all my style but I’m trying not to be wasteful about it so I’m just supplementing with more unisex type stuff to tone it down a bit. Today we’re rocking pink knitted trousers, a blue stripy vest, a green floral top, and a stripey colourful cardigan. It’s certainly a look!

You really don't need to be homing in on a particular style of clothing. It's fine for her to wear a bit of everything - some pink sparkly unicorns, some bright colours, some greige, some brother's hand-me-downs. It is also really not necessary for you (or her) to love every outfit she wears. They're just clothes.

She will eventually start expressing preferences, but placing so much importance on appearance is not a good thing imo. And what she wears now will have little influence on her taste later. My dd liked sparkly pink stuff at 4, bright colours at 7 and loathed pink, and now owns almost nothing but black jeans, emo band t-shirts and DMs. It's really not something to stress about.