Tales From the Laundry Basket
I used to think having a wardrobe full of clothes meant having plenty of choice. My child had other ideas.
There is a particular T-shirt in our house that has achieved celebrity status.
You probably know the type.
The one that gets worn to school, comes home slightly grubby, goes into the washing machine and is immediately requested again before it has even made it onto the clothesline.
“Can I wear my soft one tomorrow?”
Sometimes tomorrow isn't soon enough.
There have been mornings when I've discovered a small person standing beside the drying rack, checking whether it might possibly be dry already.
For a while, I found this slightly ridiculous.
There was an entire drawer of perfectly good clothes upstairs.
Different colours. Different styles. Things I'd bought because I thought they'd look lovely.
Yet somehow we kept coming back to the same few pieces.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I started wondering:
Why does my child want to wear the same clothes every day?
It turns out, I was probably asking the wrong question.
I Thought It Was About the Clothes
My first assumption was simply that children have favourites.
And of course they do.
Favourite toys. Favourite cups. Favourite bedtime stories we've somehow read 400 times without being permitted to skip a single page.
Why wouldn't they have favourite clothes too?
But gradually, I realised there was something else going on.
It wasn't necessarily about how the clothes looked.
In fact, some of the most enthusiastically rejected items in the wardrobe were the ones I liked best.
It was about how predictable certain clothes felt.
That favourite T-shirt?
They already knew what the neckline would feel like.
They knew there wasn't a tag waiting at the back of their neck.
They knew how the fabric would feel against their skin.
They knew the seams wouldn't suddenly become annoying halfway through the day.
They knew it wouldn't feel stiff when they moved.
They knew they wouldn't get too hot.
There were no surprises.
And I'd completely underestimated how important that was.
The Drawer Wasn't Full of Choices
This was probably my biggest realisation.
I'd open the drawer and see fifteen possible outfits.
My child apparently saw something very different.
There were the clothes that were okay.
The clothes that were sometimes okay.
The clothes that had once been itchy and therefore might as well have been permanently blacklisted.
The pants with the waistband that “feels funny”.
The top with the seam they suddenly notice after wearing it for twenty minutes.
The jumper that's comfortable until they get warm.
And then there were the favourites.
The safe choices.
Suddenly that drawer containing fifteen options might actually contain only three.
And those three were always the ones disappearing into the laundry basket.
I Started Watching the Laundry
Funny how much you can learn from washing.
I'd already started noticing which clothes were constantly in the laundry because they were being worn so often.
Now I started noticing something else.
When the favourites weren't available, getting dressed became harder.
There was more negotiation.
More:
“No, not that one.”
“That's uncomfortable.”
“Where's my other shirt?”
Occasionally there were tears.
But when the familiar clothes were clean and waiting in the drawer?
They got dressed.
That was it.
No discussion.
No negotiation.
No trying three tops before deciding none of them felt right.
Just clothes on and on with the day.
And suddenly the obsession with wearing the same clothes didn't seem quite so unreasonable.
Familiar Can Feel Safe
As adults, I think we sometimes underestimate the comfort of predictability.
We have it too.
The jeans we always reach for.
The old T-shirt that's somehow better than every newer T-shirt we've bought since.
The jumper we put on when we're at home.
The shoes we choose when we know we're going to be walking all day.
We don't necessarily choose them because they're the most fashionable things we own.
We choose them because we know how they'll feel.
For children who are particularly sensitive to clothing, that predictability can matter even more.
A familiar piece of clothing removes one unknown from the day.
No scratchy label.
No unfamiliar seam.
No tight waistband.
No fabric that feels different after five minutes.
No wondering whether something will become uncomfortable later.
They've worn it before.
Their body knows it.
And that can make getting dressed feel much easier.
So I Stopped Fighting the Repeats
This might have been the biggest change for me.
I stopped thinking:
You can't wear that again.
And started thinking:
What is it about that piece of clothing that works so well?
That question was far more useful.
Was it softer?
Stretchier?
Was there no tag?
Did the waistband sit differently?
Was the fabric lighter and more breathable?
Did it move more easily?
Was there anything inside the garment rubbing against their skin?
Once I started comparing the favourites with the clothes being rejected, patterns began appearing.
And those patterns started changing the way I bought clothes.
I Started Buying More of What Worked
This sounds embarrassingly obvious now.
If my child happily wears something over and over again, perhaps I don't need to keep searching for something completely different.
Maybe I just need more versions of what already works.
That's how a few Baby Todd & Co. pieces gradually became considerably more than the “basics” I'd originally bought.
The tagless T-shirts were worn on their own.
Then under jumpers.
Then under jackets.
Sometimes to bed.
The soft shorts became warm-weather favourites.
And when something was inevitably in the wash, having another familiar option suddenly seemed much more valuable than having a drawer full of variety.
I'd spent years thinking a good children's wardrobe needed lots of different choices.
Now I'm not so sure.
Maybe it just needs enough of the right choices.
It Changed the Way I Shop
I still buy clothes I think my children will like.
Colours matter.
Style matters.
They should enjoy what they're wearing.
But now there's another question I find myself asking before I buy something:
Will they actually want to wear this?
Not once.
Not because I've persuaded them.
Not because we need a nice outfit for something.
Will they reach for it themselves?
For a child who is sensitive to clothing, that question changes things.
I pay more attention to fabric.
I look inside garments.
I think about seams.
I check waistbands.
And tags — something I barely thought about before — have become one of the first things I notice.
Because I've learned that the smallest detail can be the difference between clothing sitting beautifully folded in a drawer and clothing being worn so often I struggle to keep it clean.
Maybe Wearing the Same Clothes Isn't the Problem
I used to worry that my child wanting to wear the same clothes every day was a habit I needed to break.
Now I see it differently.
Sometimes children are telling us something long before they have the words to explain it.
“This is my favourite” might also mean:
This feels comfortable.
I know what to expect.
Nothing about this bothers me.
I can forget about my clothes and get on with being me.
And really, isn't that exactly what comfortable clothing should do?
So these days, when I see that familiar T-shirt heading towards the laundry basket yet again, I don't roll my eyes.
Well...
Maybe occasionally.
Mostly, though, I understand.
And I've learned to make sure we own more than one.
A Little Note From Baby Todd & Co.
Children can have strong clothing preferences for many different reasons. Some simply have favourite clothes, while others may be particularly sensitive to certain fabrics, tags, seams, waistbands, fit or temperature.
At Baby Todd & Co., we design clothing with those little details in mind — including 100% tagless construction, ultra-soft fabrics, gentle seams, breathable materials and comfortable stretch.
Because sometimes the best clothes aren't the ones that spend the most time in the wardrobe.
They're the ones you can barely keep out of the laundry basket.
They're simply the ones that feel the best.
Tales From the Laundry Basket is our series of fictionalised parent stories inspired by the everyday experiences, questions and clothing challenges shared by families.