Comments on: Vanity sizing: generational edition pt.2

By: ginevra

ginevra — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:57:13 +0000

I think I agree with /anne, Australian doctors are ever so much happier to report your kid’s 50th percentile. My (unscientific) experience is that cheap clothes are ginormous, but I buy median priced, not real expensive clothes, either. Bonds ( http://www.bonds.com.au/bumpsandbaby/# ) appear to fit my kids well, but some friend mothers reckoned they were a bit small.

I agree most Mums don’t buy newborn, knowing kids will grow fast, but there’s a big gift-clothes market that’s newborn size

By: sahara

sahara — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:53:08 +0000

I have a lot of respect for my friends who are patternmaker’s for infants and children. As a knitter, I NEVER do NB, always starting at 1 year to compensate for growth spurts.

The variables in knitting pattern books for infants, toddlers and children are interesting. American patterns are larger than their European and Australian counterparts, as we’re bigger. African-Americans are generally taller, with longer arms up to pre-teen. And let’s not even talk about infant head sizes. I always feel like my neck openings are WAY too big; but they work. (I guess you can figure I have no children).

When I now have an assignment to design a sweater for a baby or toddler book, I have them send me their specs, as it’s easier. And weight never works for me; length is much better.

By: Penny

Penny — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:54:09 +0000

No one should ever buy children’s clothing based on age. The best way to find the correct size is by height. Weight can play a factor as well, but height is the most important by far.

Also, many children’s manufactures do not pre-wash their apparel so it is a very common complaint to have a pant fit when purchased, but for it to shrink after a couple of washings to where it no longer will fit.

By: teijo

teijo — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:46:37 +0000

Another report from Japan… The infants’ and toddlers’ sizes here indicate the wearer’s height (and weight) with approximate ages marked for reference. (A somewhat garbled Babelfish translation may help decipher the size chart.) This allows mean sizes within the target market to change without affecting the size labels.

After all, a child 70cm tall remains 70cm tall whether it is in the tenth or ninetieth percentile for its age group.

By: marya

marya — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:05:51 +0000

I think its just that babies are so variable; my daughter wore nb for months, got a growth spurt and skipped to 3-6, and now is taller than average for weight so i make her dresses to get them long enough.

By: /anne...

/anne... — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:57:52 +0000

I’m surprised that with babies, wealthy=larger. I don’t think that’s the way it works here in Australia; larger babies are often a result of gestational diabetes, which tends to hit poorer women with less medical support and too much junk food. Taller babies here don’t really have a correlation with money; there are plenty of rich short people :-).

DD was below the 3 percentile line (with a 50 percentile-sized head); I didn’t expect her to fit in with standard age-related sizing. My problem was finding age-appropriate clothing, particularly once she started crawling at four months (two-piece newborn stuff just wriggles right off), and when she was toilet-trained, it was very hard to find nice clothing that didn’t have poppers in the crotch. Good thing I can sew!

By: Alison Cummins

Alison Cummins — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:27:02 +0000

Another problem is that parents don’t like to buy actual newborn-sized things because babies grow out of them so quickly. If a sleeper is sized for a 5.5 to 9.5 lb newborn (5th to 95th percentile for infants at birth) then half the babies who could wear it when they were born will not be wearing it a month later; a significant number will have outgrown it within a week.

Parents know this, so many just skip the newborn size and go straight to 3 mos. (This is assuming that your sizing is correct, remember!)

A manufacturer then has some choices:
- Accepting that they will not sell very many Newborns at all.
- Dropping the Newborn size.
- Sizing the Newborn not to fit newborns correctly but to be a first size that most babies can wear for their first two to three months. This will be significantly bigger, and the following sizes will need to be made bigger as well to minimise overlap.

By: AV

AV — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:10:03 +0000

Infant sizing is truly more difficult than adult clothing. I think they should get away from the age thing and go with weight (or length) only.

My babies were out of NB at 6 weeks. Mainly because both were 21″ long when born instead of 20″. And both were long waisted (still are). So the sleepers were a nightmare, too short in the crotch and next size up was too long in the legs.

Each baby has its own set of issues. Here is a short list of clothing complaints (not always about my designs, clothing in general) I hear from parents I sell to: too small in the neck, short to the crotch, too long/short in the arms/legs, chest width too tight, my baby was a preemie, at 1 year she wears 3/6M, big head, small head, etc…. I just had a mom call me to buy an 18M dress because at 9M her daughter grew out of my 6/12M. I was very surprised because I usually get the opposite response since I size larger. Well the baby’s mom is full Samoan and babies run large in their family.

The next part, to complicate matters, is how fast babies grow out of outfits. I think that issue is why boy and girl babies in the old days wore gowns or dresses. You could make quick alterations to adjust for their growth. Then an outfit lasted a year rather than weeks.

If any creature completely varies in sizing, it is babies.