Clothing

As I've mentioned before, balancing practical and stylish attire for new mothers isn't as easy as I thought. It's arguably harder than finding suitable clothing for my dear baby boy--I hate the junior adult look (ties, combat pants, sports t-shirts and logos) and what I've dubbed the junior thug look (baggy jeans, proto-adult shirts and jackets that aspire to a kind of gangsta image), which basically rules out most clothing for larger babies and toddlers. As Severin is a big boy (he was 17.1 lbs and 26.5 inches at his 4 1/2 month check up, putting him in the 90th percentile for boys his age, he''s already grown out of most infant clothing. While he still fits comfortably into most of his 3-6 month gap clothes, some of the nicer pieces I've bought on sale for 6-9 month olds were too small from the start. Most clothing lines refuse to make the nicer baby boy pieces for any child over 12 months and, in Severin's case, this means that he has already outgrown most of these lines at 5 months old. Even the gap, who offer a mixture of what I deem nice and stylish baby boy clothes (striped rompers, more traditional tops and soft jersey pants) and the crappy junior adult/junior thug pieces tend to produce the nice baby boy clothes only in their smaller sizes, topping out at 6-12 months (the other lines run to 24 mos), which seems foolish as the larger sizes sell out fast. I'd buy larger versions of many of his current favourites but I'm either in the biggest size already or find that others think alike and the only sizes left are for newborns or babes under 3 months.

To me, Severin is a baby and as such doesn't need to be branded as aggressively or markedly male. I love traditional baby clothes--I'm fortunate enough that kind relatives and friends knitted him some beautiful items, but I can't keep going back and begging for more. I'd love more soft, gentle pastel and bright items. I love him in a little cotton knit onesie or jersey romper and fill his drawers with as many stripes, gentle colours, teddy, kitten, duck and puppy appliques and prints as I can find. British stores are a touch better than many of their US counterparts, but what will I do when this baby gets a little bigger and our options dry up?

Girls are so much easier and maybe one day I'll be able to indulge in traditional dresses and candy striped leggings but the limitations of baby and young boy's clothing seems so obvious--and so clearly shared by other likeminded mums--that I wish someone would fill it. If I had time and money, maybe it would be me, but I'm bereft of the training and already caught on my own mothering-work treadmill.