Help, I Can't Stop Acquiring Baby Clothes

The changing pad is a runway.

I haven't showered in three days. I smell like sour milk and postpartum armpit (iykyk). I am wearing sweatpants for the second time since Saturday and each of my toenails is a different length because I have been cutting them individually on an as-needed basis and have not had a pedicure in months. I am wearing makeup, but it's makeup from yesterday that has sort of half come off, which means I have an irregular dotted line on my top eyelids where eyeliner should be, which means that I look insane. If you saw me lumbering down your block, I would fully expect you to post warnings about me on NextDoor.

However, my 9-week-old daughter looks fly as hell.

She's wearing a pristine (for now) navy and white striped bodysuit with a peter pan collar with navy piping around the edges, and butter-yellow pants with tiny white polka dots. Her socks have bears wearing overalls on them, and the buttons on the bears' overalls match with the pants. Josh took her on a walk today, and on the walk she wore a wide-brimmed hat made of a light fabric with a strawberry print.

I, on the other hand, have looked like wet trash since she was born. And I've never looked good in hats.

I used to enjoy dressing myself up, in the before-before-before-- before I had a baby to worry about, before I was pregnant, before the pandemic. But now, the act of attempting to put on an outfit has become fraught. Do the clothes fit? Are the clothes outdated? Do I look like a sad deflated balloon? What's the deal with my boobs w/r/t shirts? Will my baby puke all over this outfit and will I have to take it to the dry cleaner? Should I even bother? I unpacked my pre-pregnancy clothes the other day and have been too nervous to try on my old favorite outfits, the ones that used to make me feel like I was expressing myself, the clothes that made me feel put-together, pretty, stylish.

Also in the before-before-before, I thought it was silly to spend money on baby clothes, since babies grow out of things so quickly and they don't care what they're wearing anyway. And I maintain that some baby clothes purchases are ridiculous; no baby needs a Gucci sweatshirt. A Gucci sweatshirt on a baby lets would-be kidnappers know that the baby's the parents could probably afford a pretty hefty ransom, because there's a good chance that the baby's parents are rich idiots.

I still believe that expensive baby shoes are unnecessary, since babies can't walk and have a tendency to kick them off. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" isn't a tragedy, it's the story of parents who learned the hard way that designer baby ballet flats are a waste of money. Embarrassing, yes. But not tragic (unless we're talking about the systemic inequality that brought us to a place where a select few parents can shell out $425 for baby shoes while many parents can't afford formula. But: another rant for another time.)

I now must amend my ignorant pre-baby stance that dressing a baby in "outfits" is a waste. Dressing a baby in cute outfits, in fact, rules. It is one of the best parts of having a baby, an overall pretty thankless endeavor before the baby develops a personality, which in some cases doesn't happen until the baby is 6 years old.

I am now obsessed with dressing the baby in outfits, and would encourage others to do the same. I love dressing her in little outfits so much that when she makes a mess of her original outfit of the day and it's my turn to change her or clean her up, I don't mind, because it means I get to pick out an entirely new outfit for her.

She doesn't have a passport, but she has more fashion-forward clothes than I do. Girly clothes, boyish clothes, dresses with little matching undies, jeggings, rompers, jumpers, footed pajamas, footless pajamas, sleep sacks with magnetic closures, cardigans, hoodies, buntings, bonnets, overalls.

It's easy to acquire baby clothes. Buying them new is often unnecessary, and, unless you're the first person in your friend group to have a kid, baby hand-me-downs are easy to come by. If you tell your friends with toddlers that you're in need of baby clothes, bales of secondhand outfits will show up on your doorstep unbidden, like trays of zucchini with a sign that reads FREE in a midwestern break room. But unlike the free zucchini, it's impossible to get sick of new-to-me baby outfits. The hand-me-downs we've received have gotten at least as much wear as the new stuff.

Another reason baby outfits rule: baby clothes are comparatively cheap. I can buy Juniper five outfits for the price of one pair of woman-sized Levi's that make my butt look like a sadder version of the butt I once had. The other week I found a bright pink baby bathing suit for $3 and a pair of tiny black baby "motorcycle pants" (lol) for $7. A cheap dopamine rush for less than the cost of a pizza? I'll take several.

People love buying babies little outfits as gifts almost as much as I love receiving little baby outfits as gifts. Josh's parents have gifted her multiple outfits that include tiny fleece vests--Vests! My parents bought her a pair of chicken pajamas. My friend Alyssa sent a baby-sized cardigan so adorable that when Juniper grows out of it I want to preserve it in a plastic sleeve like a mint condition Jackie Robinson rookie card.

Baby clothes are also a quick escape from the sameness of most days-- Change the baby, feed the baby, try to get the baby to nap. Play with the baby, try to get the baby to nap, when the baby won't nap, try a bunch of other things until the baby naps. During the precious minutes she's napping, do all of the things that have nothing to do with baby care. Respond to teh crying baby, change the baby, feed the baby, over and over again on a nonstop 24 hour cycle. The outfit is the one thing I can change.

God help me when she starts picking her own outfits.

Image via Shutterstock.