A Letter to the Makers of Baby Clothes

To Whom It May Concern,

I want to thank you for making some seriously cute clothes for my little baby girl. It is one of my great joys to dress her in the variety of colors and styles that are available. She is my own little doll baby. I just have a few requests that I think might make life better for everyone involved.

First off, what's up with the sizes? I know that not all babies are the same size, but does that mean that you have to make clothes in various sizes for each age to accommodate all of them? My 10 month old daughter who is 26 inches tall and 16.5 pounds wears sizes ranging from 3 months to 12 months. If these were different brands, I might understand the discrepancy, but there is almost no consistency from one outfit to the next even within the same brand. This makes it very challenging for me to select outfits for her. I never know if they're going to fit, so I generally buy big so I know that, if not now, they'll fit someday. Can we work on some sort of standard for baby clothes? I don't mind putting my child in a size that doesn't correspond to her current age, as long as I know that a size 9 months, say, will always fit.

Moving along, can we talk about material? Getting babies into clothes requires no small amount of limb contortion. Any material that doesn't stretch, as least some, is darn near impossible to get onto their little bodies. I'm not saying I want outfits made out of spandex, but lets forget about any material that doesn't have a little give to it, 'kay?

Next, crotch snaps. As my daughter gets older and more agile, changing her the umpteen million times a day that she requires becomes more and more challenging. Every single changing session involves flipping, wriggling, rolling, standing, kicking, screaming and tears(those are generally mine, in frustration). When there are no snaps, I must pull her pants off, which isn't necessarily a problem. It's getting them back on. My little bean fights me with everything she has. It becomes a battle of the wills, not to mention a feat of Robin Hood-worthy aim to get her legs correctly into the pants legs. In order to preserve what little sanity I have left, please put crotch snaps in all diaper-aged children's clothes. I don't care if it's a skirt, find a way. While we're on the subject of snaps, less is definitely more. Any onesie or shorts outfit that requires more than 6 snaps at the crotch is going overboard. It is difficult enough just to hold her down for 3 or 4. If pants require a couple more, that's okay, let's just keep them down to no more than one every couple of inches. We're a pretty modest bunch around here, but I really don't mind if you can see a little diaper or leg in the gap between snaps.

Finally, buttons. Please refrain from using these miniature instruments of psychological torture in anything other than a decorative manner. As I think you might have surmised from the previous paragraphs, dressing a toddler is, shall we say, troublesome. I have a hard enough time lining up and buttoning those tiny little buttons when she's not even in the outfit, let alone when she's trying to make an escape. I don't think I'm alone in this, so let's just stick to snaps.

I think that about covers it. Thank you so much for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Befuddled Mother in Baltimore

PS - Can you tell the women's clothes makers that I'm coming for them next? Thanks!