Best Baby Clothing Stores
There are so many places to buy baby clothes! From big-box stores, to boutiques, to handmade items on Etsy, and even specialty places just for bows. Which is the best to choose from?
Read on to get the low down on the best places to buy clothes for your baby girl or boy as well as get shop recommendations.
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Traditional Stores
There are plenty of traditional stores that sell cute baby clothes. Kohls and Carters are my favorites but Target and Walmart also have cute and affordable items for babies.
Personally I find the best deals at Kohls. When you shop their sales and collect (and remember to spend) your Kohls cash you can get some insanely good deals.
Buying from these tried and true stores will be easiest on your wallet and will make it easy to return/exchange items. However, you’re also likely to see lots of other babies wearing the very same outfits!
If you prefer more trendy and unique clothing then you’ll want to check out boutique stores or Etsy shops.
Baby Clothing Boutique Stores
A simple Google search will give you a wide range of baby clothing stores with cute catchy names. Some of these are small brand stores. The items are made and/or designed by the shop owner and their team.
Many are also what’s called drop shipping stores. Generally, the owners are buying clothes from overseas, most likely China. They often don’t even keep an inventory of these items, they simply list them on their site and the item ships from China to you. These items can take a long time to reach you and are of variable quality as the shop owner has often never seen the items in person.
Many VIP clothing groups on Facebook operate in a similar fashion.
Buyer Beware
Be careful buying from these small stores without first reading reviews or talking to other moms. Items could take 3+ weeks to arrive, never arrive at all, or be poor quality. The customer service is also hit and miss and you may not be able to exchange/return items or get money back if something doesn’t arrive. Pictures on the sites can be deceiving.
My mother recently bought my toddler some unicorn light up shoes off one of these sites. The shoes took almost a month to arrive, didn’t look as nice as in the photo, and one shoe stopped lighting up after one wear…
That being said there are plenty of reputable boutique children’s clothing stores and buying from them is a great way to support small businesses, and other moms as they run most of these small shops! Just make sure you get a recommendation from another mom or buy 1 item first and see how the transaction goes before you drop a large amount of money.
Know that boutique stores will be more expensive but you’ll be supporting a small business and buying clothes that are more trendy, cute, and unique. Many of these stores are also eco-friendly or offer organic clothing. Some will even share the back story about the production of their clothing and some are even handmade by the owner themselves!
I highly recommend paying with a credit card or PayPal account as you can often file a grievance through these financial institutions and get your money back if the transaction goes awry.
Here are 10 baby boutique stores that have been recommended to me by other moms.
Etsy Handmade items
I love Etsy! I love to shop there and also have a shop of my own! Etsy items are designed and/or made by the shop owners. Shops are not supposed to buy and simply re-sell clothing items, their shop can be shut down for doing this.
Bow Shops
As a girl mom I totally get the bow obsession! Although I’m not a fan of the giant ones myself. Many baby clothing stores sell bows and other accessories as well but there are also online boutiques and etsy stores that specialize
Unfortunately, the answer is definitely not! First, some stores list clothing simply by one size, 3M, 6M, 9M, 12M. Others will list a range 3-6M, 6-12M. A 6M is the same as a 3-6M. Basically, if it only as one number then that is the age at which the average baby will outgrow that clothing.
However, a 6M size at one store will not necessarily fit the same as a 6M at another store. Always check the size guide for different stores/brands. For instance, Gerber clothing runs very small and Carter’s tends to run a bit smaller than the Jumping Beans brand from Kohls in my opinion.
Also, remember that every baby is shaped different and grows at a different rate. When you buy new clothes always try one piece on your child before you de-tag and wash everything. It’s awful to fork out a bunch of money for new clothes only to find that they don’t fit your child right or are almost too small. Ask me how I know. Please don’t make the same mistake I did!
In the first year especially babies grow fast! Some will never wear newborn size clothes and they may only wear the 3 month size for a few weeks. Until you get to know your baby don’t go crazy buying up clothes or they may never buy them.
Buy one size ahead but not more than that. Otherwise, you may end up with clothes that are made for the wrong season.
Make sure to buy some solid colored pants. For some reason, you always end up with a ton of baby bodysuits but never enough pants! Get solid colored pants if you can or you’ll end up trying to match clashing patterns.
How many of each item to buy really depend on how often you like to do laundry. I suggest having at least 10 outfits. Babies can be messy so it’s not uncommon to go through 2 outfits in a day, sometimes 3 on a bad day!
I also recommend skipping the frills and fancy clothes until they are older. Babies are laying most of the time and those cute outfits will just get crumpled up, never seen, or get full of baby spit up! Save them for special occasions, picture days, or when they’re old enough to be seen more.
