Infant clothing or baby clothing is

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...

made for

infant In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...

s. Baby fashion is a social-cultural consumerist practice that encodes in children's fashion the representation of many social features and depicts a system characterized by differences in social class, richness, gender, or ethnicity.

Size

Infant and toddler clothing size is typically based on age. These are usually ''preemie'' for a

preterm birth Preterm birth, also known as premature birth, is the Childbirth, birth of a baby at fewer than 37 weeks Gestational age (obstetrics), gestational age, as opposed to full-term delivery at approximately 40 weeks. Extreme preterm is less than 28 ...

baby, 0 to 3 months, 3 to 6 months, 6 to 9 months, 9 to 12 months, 12 months, 18 months, and 24 months, though there is no industry standard definition for those sizes. Most retailers provide sizing charts based on a child's weight, height, or both, and the child's weight and height percentile may also be used for properly sizing clothing for the infant. In an article in the October 1945 issue of ''

Ladies' Home Journal ''Ladies' Home Journal'' was an American magazine that ran until 2016 and was last published by the Meredith Corporation. It was first published on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th centur ...

'',

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in ...

stated that clothing and bedding "interfere with normal exercise and growth and keep the baby from taking comfortable postures or changing posture during sleep". An infant may stretch, necessitating clothing that is sufficiently loose to allow movement.

Styles

Comfort, mobility and ease of access are major aspects of modern baby clothes. In Western countries babies typically wear bodysuits and babygrows (known in

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...

by various names such as sleepers or footies). If it is warm enough, these might be sufficient for both daytime and nightwear, supplemented by bibs for feeding time. For cooler weather and more formal occasions, they might become underwear beneath outfits more comparable to those worn by adults. While these outer clothes often feature child-friendly images such as cartoons, for especially formal occasions such as weddings infants might wear scaled down adult styles such as mini-

tuxedos Black tie is a semi-formal Western dress code for evening events, originating in British and North American conventions for attire in the 19th century. In British English, the dress code is often referred to synecdochically by its principal ...

. During warmer summer months rompers and 2-in-1 dresses (a dress top half with a romper under section) are very popular choices. These styles of clothing allow young babies to move around with ease and comfort. Smiling Baby

In cold weather,

outerwear Outerwear is clothing and accessories worn outdoors, or clothing designed to be worn as protective layers outside other garments, as opposed to underwear. It can be worn for formal or casual occasions, or as warm clothing during winter. List of ou ...

such as snowsuits can keep babies warm. Cute African Baby

For young babies garments will often have full leg and back openings to allow for easy nappy changing. Other helpful features also include fold over scratch mitts to the sleeves, to help prevent very young babies from accidentally scratching themselves.

Snaps In the Nordic countries, especially Denmark and Sweden, but not in Iceland, snaps ( , ), among many nicknames, is a small shot of a strong alcoholic beverage taken during the course of a meal. In Denmark, a snaps will always be akvavit, althou ...

(also known as poppers) or zip fastenings have become more popular because they are easier to use than traditional

buttons A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole. In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, o ...

. Due to babies' soft skin, one of the more important attributes to look for in infant and baby clothing is that the clothes are soft and not rough. Soft baby clothes made from organic cotton or eco-friendly materials are becoming more popular. There are even infant clothes now made with bamboo rayon fibres which are marketed as being breathable and soft to the touch.

Materials

Infant clothing comes in a variety of materials, such as bamboo or cotton. Bamboo is a popular style and is well liked because of its very soft feel, however it tends to pill easily with wear. In addition to regular cotton, infant cotton clothing comes in different varieties. Brushed cotton feels luxuriously smooth and cool thanks to a unique finishing technique called brushing. Pima cotton is a high-end type of cotton with longer fibers than conventional cotton. It has a reputation for producing a smooth fabric that’s soft to the touch, wrinkle-resistant, and ultra-durable.

Dangers

Excessive

thermal insulation Thermal insulation is the reduction of heat transfer (i.e., the transfer of thermal energy between objects of differing temperature) between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence. Thermal insulation can be achieved with s ...

has been associated with an increased incidence of

sudden infant death syndrome Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sometimes known as cot death or crib death, is the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age. Diagnosis requires that the death remain unexplained even after a thorough autopsy and ...

(SIDS). The primary causes are an excess of bedding or clothing, soft sleep surfaces, and

stuffed animal A stuffed toy is a toy with an outer fabric sewn from a textile and stuffed with flexible material. They are known by many names, such as plush toys, plushies, lovies and stuffies; in Britain and Australia, they may also be called soft toys ...

s. The

odds ratio An odds ratio (OR) is a statistic that quantifies the strength of the association between two events, A and B. The odds ratio is defined as the ratio of the odds of event A taking place in the presence of B, and the odds of A in the absence of B ...

of SIDS associated with thermal insulation at least two togs above the lower critical value (after adjusting for the season and

confounding In causal inference, a confounder is a variable that influences both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association. Confounding is a causal concept, and as such, cannot be described in terms of correlatio ...

factors) was 1.35 in a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

study, which also found that SIDS had some correlation with too little thermal insulation. A 1984 study of 34 infant cot deaths found that for 2/3 excessive clothing and over-wrapping was a contributing cause. Clothing was responsible for an increased incidence of congenital hip dislocation (CDH) in Japanese infants. By custom, a

diaper A diaper (, North American English) or a nappy (British English, Australian English, Hiberno-English) is a type of underwear that allows the wearer to urinate or defecate without using a toilet, by absorbing or containing waste products to p ...

and clothing had been applied to the infants "with the legs in extension". Before 1965, the incidence of CDH in infants was up to 3.5%, but a national campaign established in 1975 "to avoid prolonged extension of the hips and knees of infants during the early postnatal period" led to a reduction in the incidence of CDH in infants to 0.2% by the early 1980s.

Fire hazard

Close-fitting nightwear is "invariably safer than long, loose nightwear".

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

prohibits the importation, sale, or advertising of classes of clothing and other consumer products that do not meet the minimum flammability standards. Standards for infant and children's sleepwear were defined in 1971 and amended in 1987 as part of the Hazardous Products Act. Any textile product must also satisfy textile labeling requirements specified in the Textile Labelling Act administered by the

Competition Bureau The Competition Bureau () is the independent law enforcement agency in charge of regulating competition in Canada, responsible for ensuring that markets operate in a competitive manner. Headed by the Commissioner of Competition, the agency is ...

Industry Canada Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED; ; )''Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada'' is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Department of Industry (). is a department of the G ...

. In the United States, textile flammability is subject to the U.S. Flammable Fabrics Act. A study found that children less than five years old had a higher incidence of sleepwear fires than other age groups and that they had an "unreasonable risk of death or injury from fire accidents involving sleepwear". This led to the first flammability standard for infant and children's sleepwear. On 30 April 1996, the

Consumer Product Safety Commission The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC, CPSC, or commission) is an independent agency of the United States government. The CPSC seeks to promote the safety of consumer products by addressing "unreasonable risks" of injury ...

relaxed standards for children's sleepwear flammability, allowing retailers to sell "tight-fitting children's sleepwear and sleepwear for infants aged 9 months or younger" that does not meet the flammability criteria.

Hygiene and health

Infants may have

allergic Allergies, also known as allergic diseases, are various conditions caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment. These diseases include hay fever, food allergies, atopic dermatitis, alle ...

reactions to certain materials, especially

synthetic fibre Synthetic fibers or synthetic fibres (in British English; see spelling differences) are fibers made by humans through chemical synthesis, as opposed to natural fibers that are directly derived from living organisms, such as plants like cotton or ...

s such as

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain one or two ester linkages in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include some natura ...

rayon Rayon, also called viscose and commercialised in some countries as sabra silk or cactus silk, is a semi-synthetic fiber made from natural sources of regenerated cellulose fiber, cellulose, such as wood and related agricultural products. It has t ...

, and

nylon Nylon is a family of synthetic polymers characterised by amide linkages, typically connecting aliphatic or Polyamide#Classification, semi-aromatic groups. Nylons are generally brownish in color and can possess a soft texture, with some varieti ...

, and

natural fibre Natural fibers or natural fibres (see spelling differences) are fibers that are produced by geological processes, or from the bodies of plants or animals. They can be used as a component of composite materials, where the orientation of fibers ...

s such as

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

Notes

References

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Sources

*Bailey, Reg. Letting children be children. Report of an Independent Review of the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood. Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Education by Command of Her Majesty, June 2011; *Bogt & Rutger C. M. E. Engels & Sanne Bogers &Kloosterman. Shake It Baby, Shake It: Media Preferences, Sexual Attitudes and Gender Stereotypes Among Adolescents. Sex Roles; 63; pp. 844–859; 2010; *Bragg; Buckingham; Russel; Willet. Too much, too soon? Children, ‘sexualization’ and consumer culture. Sex Education, Sexuality, Society and Learning; *Callahan, Colleen, and Jo B. Paoletti. Is It a Girl or a Boy? Gender Identity and Children's Clothing. Richmond, Va.: The Valentine Museum, 1999; *Cherney; London. Gender-linked differences in the toys, television shows, computer games and outdoor activities of 5- to 13-year-old children. Sex Roles 54; pp. 717–726; 2006; *Connell, Raewyn. Quality of human resources: gender and indigenous – Quality Gender, men and masculinities. *Connell, Raewyn. Questioni di genere. Il Mulino; 2009; pp. 167–168 *Johnson, Charlotte. An infant's clothing-swaddle, gown, shirt and coif. Atlanta kingdom arts and science festival, March 2006; *Klepp; Storm-Mathisen. Reading Fashion as Age: Teenage Girls' and Grown Women's Accounts of Clothing as Body and Social Status. Fashion Theory, The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture; *Leinbach; Hort (University of Oregon); Fagot (University of Oregon and Oregon social learning center). Bears are for boys: metaphorical associations in young children's gender stereotypes. Cognitive development; 12; pp. 107–130; 1997; *Twigg. Clothing, identity and the embodiment of age. In Powell and Gilbert “Aging and identity: a postmodern dialogue”, Nova Science publisher, New York, 2009; *Wright, revised by Constance Kratzer. Clothing hints for young children. Mexico State University, department of agriculture operating;