Infant clothing or baby clothing is clothing made for infants. 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.
Infant and toddler clothing size is typically based on age. [1] These are usually preemie for a preterm birth 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. [1] 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. [1]
In an article in the October 1945 issue of Ladies' Home Journal , B. F. Skinner stated that clothing and bedding "interfere with normal exercise and growth and keep the baby from taking comfortable postures or changing posture during sleep". [2] An infant may stretch, necessitating clothing that is sufficiently loose to allow movement. [3]
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 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.
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.
In cold weather, outerwear such as snowsuits can keep babies warm.
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 (also known as poppers) or zip fastenings have become more popular because they are easier to use than traditional buttons. 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.
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.
Excessive thermal insulation has been associated with an increased incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The primary causes are an excess of bedding or clothing, soft sleep surfaces, and stuffed animals. [4] The odds ratio of SIDS associated with thermal insulation at least two togs above the lower critical value (after adjusting for the season and confounding factors) was 1.35 in a New Zealand study, which also found that SIDS had some correlation with too little thermal insulation. [5] A 1984 study of 34 infant cot deaths found that for 2/3 excessive clothing and over-wrapping was a contributing cause. [6]
Clothing was responsible for an increased incidence of congenital hip dislocation (CDH) in Japanese infants. By custom, a diaper and clothing had been applied to the infants "with the legs in extension". [7] 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. [8]
Close-fitting nightwear is "invariably safer than long, loose nightwear". [9]
Canada prohibits the importation, sale, or advertising of classes of clothing and other consumer products that do not meet the minimum flammability standards. [10] Standards for infant and children's sleepwear were defined in 1971 and amended in 1987 as part of the Hazardous Products Act. [10] Any textile product must also satisfy textile labeling requirements specified in the Textile Labelling Act administered by the Competition Bureau of Industry Canada. [10]
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". [11] This led to the first flammability standard for infant and children's sleepwear. [11] On 30 April 1996, the Consumer Product Safety Commission 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. [12]
Infants may have allergic reactions to certain materials, especially synthetic fibres such as polyester, rayon, and nylon, and natural fibres such as wool. [13]
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sometimes known as cot 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 detailed death scene investigation. SIDS usually occurs during sleep. Typically death occurs between the hours of midnight and 9:00 a.m. There is usually no noise or evidence of struggle. SIDS remains the leading cause of infant mortality in Western countries, constituting half of all post-neonatal deaths.
Pajamas (US) or pyjamas (Commonwealth), sometimes colloquially shortened to PJs, jammies, jim-jams, or in South Asia, night suits, are several related types of clothing worn as nightwear or while lounging. Pajamas are soft garments derived from the Indian and Iranian bottom-wear, the pyjamas, which were adopted in the Western world as nightwear.
A sleeping bag is an insulated covering for a person, essentially a lightweight quilt that can be closed with a zipper or similar means to form a tube, which functions as lightweight, portable bedding in situations where a person is sleeping outdoors. It is also commonly used indoors for people who do not have beds or at sleepovers. Its primary purpose is to provide warmth and thermal insulation through its synthetic or down insulation. It also typically has a water-resistant or water-repellent cover that protects, to some extent, against wind chill and light precipitation, but a tent is usually used in addition to a sleeping bag, as it performs those functions better. The bottom surface also provides some cushioning, but a sleeping pad or camp cot is usually used in addition to that purpose. The bottom surface of a sleeping bag may be moderately water repellent, but a plastic tarp or groundsheet is often used to protect against moist ground.
Microfiber is synthetic fiber finer than one denier or decitex/thread, having a diameter of less than ten micrometers.
Nightwear – also called sleepwear, or nightclothes – is clothing designed to be worn while sleeping. The style of nightwear worn may vary with the seasons, with warmer styles being worn in colder conditions and vice versa. Some styles or materials are selected to be visually appealing or erotic in addition to their functional purposes.
The term flame retardant subsumes a diverse group of chemicals that are added to manufactured materials, such as plastics and textiles, and surface finishes and coatings. Flame retardants are activated by the presence of an ignition source and prevent or slow the further development of flames by a variety of different physical and chemical mechanisms. They may be added as a copolymer during the polymerisation process, or later added to the polymer at a moulding or extrusion process or applied as a topical finish. Mineral flame retardants are typically additive, while organohalogen and organophosphorus compounds can be either reactive or additive.
Bedding, also called bedclothes or bed linen, is the materials laid above the mattress of a bed for hygiene, warmth, protection of the mattress, and decorative effect. Bedding is the removable and washable portion of a human sleeping environment. Multiple sets of bedding for each bed are often washed in rotation and/or changed seasonally to improve sleep comfort at varying room temperatures. Most standardized measurements for bedding are rectangular, but there are also some square-shaped sizes, which allows the user to put on bedding without having to consider its lengthwise orientation.
The blanket sleeper is a type of especially warm sleeper or footie pajama worn primarily during the winter in the United States and Canada. The garment is worn especially by young children.
Coolmax is the brand name for a series of polyester fabrics developed and marketed by The Lycra Company.
An infant bed is a small bed especially for infants and very young children. Infant beds are a historically recent development intended to contain a child capable of standing. The cage-like design of infant beds restricts the child to the bed. Between one and two years of age, children are able to climb out and are moved to a toddler bed to prevent an injurious fall while escaping the bed.
Fast fashion is the business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail quickly while demand is at its highest. The term fast fashion is also used generically to describe the products of this business model. Retailers who employ the fast fashion strategy include Primark, H&M, Shein, and Zara, all of which have become large multinationals by driving high turnover of inexpensive seasonal and trendy clothing that appeals to fashion-conscious consumers.
Textile recycling is the process of recovering fiber, yarn, or fabric and reprocessing the material into new, useful products. Textile waste is split into pre-consumer and post-consumer waste and is sorted into five different categories derived from a pyramid model. Textiles can be either reused or mechanically/chemically recycled.
Sustainable fashion is a term describing efforts within the fashion industry to reduce its environmental impacts, protect workers producing garments, and uphold animal welfare. Sustainability in fashion encompasses a wide range of factors, including "cutting CO2 emissions, addressing overproduction, reducing pollution and waste, supporting biodiversity, and ensuring that garment workers are paid a fair wage and have safe working conditions".
Cotton On Group is an Australian retail company known for its fashion, clothing and stationery brands. As of 2020, it has over 1,500 stores in 18 countries employing 22,000 people across eight brands: Cotton On, Cotton On Kids, Cotton On Body, Factorie, Typo, Rubi, Supré, Ceres and Cotton On Foundation.
Cotton recycling is the process of converting cotton fabric into fibers that can be reused into other textile products.
Clothing insulation is the thermal insulation provided by clothing.
The U.S. Flammable Fabrics Act is an act that was passed in 1953 to regulate the manufacture of highly flammable clothing. It was enacted after years of rayon viscose fabrics being proven to be the primary cause of quick starting, high temperature fires as well as having the secondary effect of causing illnesses in factory workers. Viscose is the key word when describing the chemical dangers of rayon fabrics, because a chemical named carbon disulfide is used to convert cellulose into a viscose fabric capable of being threaded together for clothing. This is an important distinction to make for the sake of clarity as cellulose fabrics are still commonly advertised as "green" in the sense that the fabric is derived from the cellulose in plants, but the introduction of carbon disulfide in the manufacturing process creates a reaction that is remarkably toxic to the workers who are developing and working with the fabric. There was also a series of tragic deaths in the 1940s caused by the highly flammable nature of the fabric involving children who were wearing long rayon pile cowboy chaps or brushed rayon sweaters. The Federal Trade Commission was initially placed as the enforcement authority but this responsibility was later transferred over to the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1967 when the act was amended to include interior furnishings, paper, plastic, foam, and other materials used in wearing apparel and interior furnishings. A provision of the act makes willful violation a felony with maximum penalties of a $10,000 fine and 3 years in prison, which reflects how seriously the dangers of flammable fabrics were being taken. The Consumer Product Safety Commission was given the authority, under the U.S. Flammable Fabrics Act, to issue mandatory flammability standards. Flammability standards for clothing textiles, vinyl plastic film in clothing, carpets, rugs, children's sleepwear, mattresses, and mattress pads have all been established.
The maternity package, known internationally as the Finnish "baby box," is a kit granted by the Finnish social security institution Kela, to all expectant or adoptive parents who live in Finland or are covered by the Finnish social security system. The package contains children's clothes and other necessary items, such as nappies, bedding, cloth, gauze towels and child-care products. It was first issued in 1938 to parents with a low income, and contained a blanket, crib sheets, diapers, and fabric which parents could use to make clothing for the baby.
Kapok, or Kapok fibre, also known as ceiba and Java cotton, is the fine fibres from the fruit of the kapok tree Ceiba pentandra in the bombax family Bombacaceae.
Cool-jams is an American apparel company. It is the largest wicking sleepwear company in the United States
