Tales From the Laundry Basket
There appears to be a stage of childhood where clothes fit perfectly on Tuesday and are apparently two sizes too small by Friday.
I swear those trousers reached their ankles last week.
That T-shirt definitely covered their stomach.
And those pyjamas?
I'm almost certain I didn't buy them as three-quarter length.
Yet suddenly, nothing fits.
I Didn't See the Growth Spurt Coming
Obviously, I know children grow.
I've witnessed the evidence.
The shoes that need replacing approximately eleven minutes after buying them.
The marks creeping up the wall.
The increasingly suspicious amount of food disappearing from the fridge.
But children's growth spurts still seem to catch me completely by surprise.
One morning you're getting them dressed without thinking about it.
The next, you're looking at a pair of trousers wondering whether they've shrunk in the wash.
They haven't.
Your child has grown. Again.
Then Comes the Wardrobe Audit
This usually begins innocently.
I'll pull out one T-shirt that's clearly too small.
Then another.
And another.
Twenty minutes later, the entire wardrobe is on the floor.
There are now three piles.
Definitely too small.
Probably too small.
And:
I know this doesn't fit anymore, but I'm not quite ready to get rid of it.
That last pile is always bigger than it should be.
Because children's clothes have a strange habit of becoming little timestamps.
The top they wore constantly last summer.
The pyjamas from that holiday.
The shorts they practically lived in.
Suddenly I'm not sorting clothes.
I'm sorting memories.
Some Clothes Seem to Grow With Them
I've also started noticing which clothes survive these growth spurts better than others.
Anything rigid seems to have a very definite expiry date.
But the softer, stretchier things?
They seem to have a little more patience.
A T-shirt with some give still fits comfortably when another has already become too snug.
Stretchy shorts somehow make it through another season.
And clothes that aren't restrictive seem to accommodate all that running, climbing, sprawling and growing for a little longer.
I've stopped expecting children's clothes to fit forever.
I'd just quite like them to fit for more than five minutes.
Buying the Next Size Isn't Quite as Simple as It Sounds
Of course, the obvious solution is to buy everything bigger.
I've tried that.
Sometimes it works beautifully.
Sometimes your child spends six months looking like they've borrowed their clothes from an older cousin.
So now I look for something slightly different.
Room to grow.
Soft fabrics.
A bit of stretch.
Clothes that fit properly now, but aren't immediately defeated by another centimetre of child.
Because kids don't grow according to clothing size charts.
They just grow.
Usually immediately after you've bought them an entirely new wardrobe.
The Bit I Wasn't Expecting
There's something else I've realised during these wardrobe clear-outs.
For all the complaining I do about how quickly children outgrow their clothes, there's always a moment when I wish they hadn't.
I'll hold up a favourite little T-shirt and remember when it looked enormous on them.
Now I can't imagine how they ever fitted into it.
And that's when it gets you.
I spend so much time watching my children grow that sometimes I forget to notice that they've grown.
The clothes notice for me.
Until the Next Growth Spurt
So the too-small clothes get packed away.
The wardrobe gets reorganised.
The next size moves in.
And for a brief, glorious period, everything fits again.
I've learned to appreciate clothes that give children a little room to grow, stretch with the way they move and survive long enough to become genuine favourites.
Because eventually every piece of children's clothing becomes too small.
That's inevitable.
But if it's been worn, washed, played in, cuddled in and pulled from the laundry basket countless times before that happens?
I'd say it fitted their childhood rather well.
And somehow, that feels like much better value.
A Little Note From Baby Todd & Co.
Children grow quickly — and sometimes their clothes seem to get left behind almost overnight.
At Baby Todd & Co., we design clothing to move and grow with them, with ultra-soft fabrics, comfortable four-way stretch, gentle seams and durable construction made for all the wearing, washing and playing that childhood brings.
Because children's clothes won't fit forever.
But the right clothes can give them a little more room to grow, move and be themselves along the way.
And when they finally are outgrown, we hope they've spent far more time in the laundry basket than they ever did in the wardrobe.
Tales From the Laundry Basket is our series of fictionalised parent stories inspired by the everyday experiences, questions and clothing challenges shared by families.