Was ziehe ich meinem baby an? A very tired mom's clothing guide

It was 3:17 AM, and I was standing in front of the hallway thermostat wearing Dave’s stained Ohio State college hoodie, holding a screaming seven-week-old Maya. The digital display said 71 degrees. I was sweating. Maya was sweating, mostly because I had her zipped into a fleece onesie over a cotton bodysuit and wrapped in a thick polyester swaddle, because I was utterly terrified she was going to freeze to death in our drafty apartment.

I was crying, my third cup of lukewarm, day-old French roast sitting on the banister, and I was frantically typing was ziehe ich meinem baby an into my cracked iPhone with one thumb. Why German? Because my sister-in-law lives in Zurich and had just spent an hour on FaceTime telling me that the Swiss actually understand how to dress infants using something called the "onion principle" and natural fibers, and in my sleep-deprived delirium, I decided that translating my panic into another language would yield better Google results.

Spoiler: it did, actually. But man, the things I believed before I actually had a baby compared to what I know now, seven years and two kids later, is honestly embarrassing. I used to think babies were these fragile little icicles that needed to be bundled up like they were summiting Everest just to go to Target. Anyway, the point is, dressing a baby is a massive source of anxiety because they can't just tell you they're hot, so they just scream, and then you panic.

My doctor laughed at me about the cold hands thing

So the very next morning after my 3 AM breakdown, I dragged Maya to Dr. Aris. I was literally holding her tiny, icy little hands and shoving them in his face going, "Look! She's freezing! Her circulation is failing!" And he just gave me this deeply pitying look that I've come to know very well.

He told me—and I guess this is supposedly a medical thing but I’m just repeating it how I understood it through a fog of sleep deprivation—that a baby's hands and feet are completely useless for telling if they're cold. Their little circulatory systems are super new and basically suck at pumping blood all the way to their extremities. So their hands feel like ice cubes even if they're internally boiling.

He told me to do the "neck test." You just stick two fingers down the back of their neck. If it's warm and dry, they're perfect. If it's sweaty or hot, you're overdressing them, which is seriously kind of scary because Dr. Aris mentioned that overheating is apparently linked to SIDS, which sent me into an entirely new spiral of anxiety for the next six months. If you just check their neck instead of freaking out over cold toes and layering them in three blankets, you'll save yourself so much grief.

The plus-one rule involves math and I hate it

Every blog tells you to use the "plus-one" rule, which means your baby should wear one more layer than you're wearing to be comfortable. Like, if I'm wearing a t-shirt, Maya should wear a t-shirt and a light sweater.

Except, Dave wears basketball shorts in January. I wear a parka inside if the AC drops below 70. Whose baseline are we using? Dave would literally just look at Leo when he was a newborn and go, "Is he cold?" and I'd want to throw my coffee mug at his head. So I just started using my own baseline, mostly because I was the one doing all the dressing anyway.

Let's talk about fabrics because I bought so much cheap plastic crap

With Maya, I bought everything based on how cute the pattern was. I had a drawer full of these adorable, stiff, polyester-blend rompers with giant plastic buttons on the back. It was a disaster. Her skin broke out in these furious red eczema patches, and she was constantly sweaty but somehow also shivering?

It turns out babies have incredibly thin, useless skin that absorbs everything and can't keep stable temperature. By the time Leo came along four years later, I had aggressively purged the nursery. I only do natural fibers now. Mostly organic cotton, sometimes wool-silk blends if I'm feeling fancy and want to do laundry by hand (which is never, so mostly cotton).

If you're looking for a holy grail item, I'm completely obsessed with the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao. I'm not exaggerating when I say Leo basically lived in these. They're 95% organic cotton and they've just enough stretch that you don't feel like you're going to snap your baby's collarbone trying to yank it over their giant wobbly head. Plus, there are no scratchy tags, which means I didn't have to sit there with tiny nail scissors trying to cut the labels out while Leo screamed. It breathes so well, his eczema completely cleared up when we switched. Honestly, just buy six of these and burn the polyester.

Winter dressing is a literal marathon of sweat and tears

Getting a baby dressed to go outside in November takes approximately 45 minutes, by which time everyone is crying and you don't even want to go to the grocery store anymore.

This is where that "onion principle" the Swiss are so obsessed with comes in. You dress them in multiple thin layers because it traps air, or whatever, and then you can rip a layer off when you go into a coffee shop so they don't spontaneously combust. A cotton bodysuit, then some tights (yes, even for boys, tights are amazing), a pair of soft pants, a sweater, and then a winter overall. Oh, and a hat that covers their ears, because heat escapes out of their giant heads so fast.

And strollers? God, don't even get me started on trying to shove a baby in a puffy snowsuit into a five-point stroller harness. It's wildly unsafe anyway because the straps can't get tight enough. You're supposed to use a footmuff. I bought this insanely expensive lambskin-lined one for Leo and it was the best thing I ever did. I could just throw him in there in his indoor clothes, zip it up, and he was basically in a sleeping bag on wheels.

Speaking of things that genuinely make your life easier, if you're trying to build a wardrobe that doesn't make your baby break out in a rash, browsing high-quality organic baby essentials is the only way to stay sane.

Oh right, summer dressing

Just leave them in a diaper and a light muslin swaddle in the shade and pray.

Sleeping bags and my complete inability to do measurements

Okay, sleepwear. Blankets are a massive no-no in the crib. Every doctor on earth will tell you that loose blankets are a suffocation hazard, so we all use sleep sacks now. But finding the right size sleeping bag feels like trying to pass the SATs.

There's this formula: Body Length minus Head Length plus 10 cm. Like, I was an English major. Math makes me sweat. Am I supposed to take a tape measure to my squirming infant's skull? I just guessed most of the time. But the point is, if the neck hole is too big, the baby can slip down inside the bag, which is terrifying.

I usually just put Leo in a long-sleeved cotton bodysuit and a 2.5 TOG sleeping bag, keeping his room at around 68 degrees. For naps, or just hanging out on the floor, I'm deeply attached to our Whale Organic Cotton Blanket. It’s double-layered but super breathable, so I never felt like he was overheating when I had it draped over his legs in the bouncy seat. Also, the gray whales hid the spit-up stains really well, which is the actual metric by which I judge all baby products.

Shoes on babies are kind of ridiculous but also whatever

Look, babies don't need shoes. Their feet are basically just squishy little dinner rolls. Putting rigid shoes on them seriously messes up their foot development, or so I read on some terrifying mom forum at 2 AM.

That being said, Dave bought these Baby Sneakers for Leo when he was like six months old. They're those cute little boat-style ones with the soft, non-slip soles. Are they medically necessary? Absolutely not. Did Leo immediately try to chew on the laces? Yes. But they're completely soft-soled, so they didn't crush his toes, and they honestly stayed on his feet better than socks did when he started trying to pull himself up on the coffee table. They’re fine. They’re cute for pictures, but don't stress if your baby is barefoot 99% of the time.

Dressing a baby is just an endless cycle of second-guessing yourself while doing an excessive amount of laundry. If you stick to natural materials, learn to feel the back of their neck instead of their hands, and accept that they'll inevitably have a blowout in whatever the most expensive outfit they own is, you'll be fine.

Before you go panic-buy a bunch of synthetic fleece that will make your baby sweat through their crib sheets, take a breath, pour some more coffee, and read through these answers to the questions you're probably freaking out about right now.

Questions I frantically googled at 3 AM about dressing my baby

Should I put a hat on my baby indoors?
Oh god, no. I used to do this with Maya because the hospital put one on her right after she was born, so I just assumed it was the law. But Dr. Aris told me babies keep stable their temperature through their heads. If you keep a hat on them indoors, they can't cool down and they just overheat. Take the hat off the second you walk through the front door, even if they look really cute in it.

How do I dress my baby for the transition seasons like spring and fall?
It's a nightmare, honestly. The weather changes every twelve minutes. This is why you've to use layers. I usually do a short-sleeved bodysuit, a long-sleeved shirt over it, and some stretchy pants. Always keep a thin cotton beanie and a light cardigan shoved in the diaper bag because the wind will randomly pick up and suddenly your baby is shivering while you're trying to drink an iced coffee.

Are footie pajamas bad for babies learning to walk?
Kind of, yeah. When Leo started trying to stand, he kept face-planting on our hardwood floors because the built-in feet on his pajamas had zero traction. Even the ones with the little rubber dots on the bottom get twisted around so the dots are on the top of their foot. Once they start pulling up, you really need to switch to footless rompers and just use anti-slip socks or let them go barefoot.

Do I really have to wash all the new clothes before they wear them?
I'm the laziest person alive and I hate doing laundry, but yes, you seriously do. New clothes are covered in weird sizing chemicals and dyes from the factory, and baby skin is basically tissue paper. I skipped this once with a cheap pair of pants for Maya and she got a massive red rash all over her thighs. Just throw them all in the wash with some unscented detergent before they wear them, I promise it's worth it.

How tight should a baby's clothes be?
They shouldn't be tight at all, except maybe pajamas which are supposed to be snug for fire safety reasons (which is terrifying to think about). But daytime clothes should be loose enough that you can easily slip your hand inside. If the elastic waistband leaves red marks on their little chubby tummy, it's too tight. Stick to wrap bodysuits and rompers without waistbands when they're newborns, their poor little umbilical cord stumps will thank you.