Dress the unimpressed
- John DeSantis
- Jan 9, 2020
- 3 min read
Clothes are a tricky thing for both infants and toddlers. Both ages grow at rates that seem to fit the mutated calculations of Bruce Banner's gamma radiation turning him into the Incredible Hulk. 2 year old pants are too short for a 2&1/2 year old, but 3 year old pants hang down low like he's ready to sit poolside in the music video for Tupac's "I Get Around." So you end up with a lot of mismatched outfits, patch working combos like a tailor fitting a group of prospectors with ragged clothes on the Oregon Trail.
As tricky as toddlers are, infants pose similar issues, only theirs can be more a matter of horizontal growth not occurring at the same rate as their vertical growth. A 9 month old may need the length of a 6-9 month outfit, while sporting the waistline of an 18 month old. This is the result of a growing appetite that isn't accompanied with any strenuous physical activity or calorie burning aside from flopping around on the floor like a seal or chewing on their hands with the ferocity of a dog on a T-bone. Crawling is not quite there yet, food intake is exponentially greater, swollen looking feet and chubby extremities are abundant in this period of growth. People might ask if your baby has a shellfish allergy or if he’s preparing for the role of the the Michelin Man.
The various stages of growth from one child to the next is an incredible thing to witness, seeing the differences how one fit into certain clothes months beyond the other at this age. It can cause great expense, or you can get creative and mix what fits in the moment. A helpful nuance of young kids, while growing into an opinionated individual, they don't care much for public image. They've yet to experience that side of the world, comfort over style is a mantra and they’ll let you know it.
In these infant/toddler fashionably challenging growth stages, the best kind of help is being able to dress a kid who doesn't care what they look like when they leave the house. The harder part to get over is your own self-consciousness or worrying about other people thinking you picked your kid’s outfit out at 2am with the lights off. One day they may have some superficial or self-respecting sense of their image. Until that day comes, I'll continue dressing them like they’ve spent a month on the island on “Survivor” as long as the clothes fit to some degree.
A challenge in these stages is an opinionated child, one who seems to not like anything you suggest for them. They don’t like wearing jackets which is a problem this time of year. They’ll only wear sweatpants which is fine until they’ll only wear a certain kind. Then the pair you put on them last Friday, they’re refusing to wear the following Tuesday. There’s a problem with the socks you’ve picked out for them. Am I dressing a 3 year old or Marc Jacobs?
This doesn’t always work because toddlers’ moods change like the weather, but sometimes giving them the illusion of control can help. If you know they won’t wear something just because it’s what you told them to wear, give them an option to pick between two things you think they might be okay with wearing. You can do this with the shirts and pants, or dress, whatever it may be. Sometimes this works, sometimes no matter what you try they’re foaming at the mouth, you’re very own little Jack Nicholson telling you that you can’t handle the truth. Remember you’re out here herding cattle with a rapid-growing mind and it seems they live to tell you “no” to test the waters every chance they get. If they‘re doing what you’ve asked to a degree, even giving them the illusion of control allows you to maintain your self-control.
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