At what age do they wear 3-6 months?

[grelli2]

I have bought several summery outfits for my baby that will be born around May 30. I bought 3-6 months because I heard that was the best size to get. Now I'm wondering if it might be to cold by the time the baby wears that size. The clothes also say 12 pounds. At what age do they usually weigh that much?

[egoldber]

This will really depend on your baby. If I were you, I wouldn't buy very many clothes. EVERYBODY gives you clothes as baby gifts so you will probably get a TON after the baby is born and you will get them in assorted sizes.

My baby was born average (7 lbs, 5 oz.) but was slow to gain. No one gave us newborn size clothes (0-3 months) so we had to buy a bunch of clothes in that size. And she wore them for 3 months! She wore 3-6 month clothes until she was 6 months. At 6 1/2 months, she is still wearing some of them, but is now mostly in 6-9 months clothes. But many babies in my mommy group (all about her age) are now in 12 month clothes. So it really does depend on your baby.

You will also find that the different brands vary widely in how they fit. I have found that Children's Place clothes run a little small, Gap and Gymboree about average. Carter's clothes can very all over the map in terms of shrinkage and how they fit.

So I would really wait until after you have the baby to get most of your clothes. Have a few basics on hand and fill in the gaps later once you see what you get in gifts. And believe me, there is nothing more fun (at least to me :-) ) than shopping for baby clothes!!!

HTH,

[stinkerpie]

I think Beth is absolutely right. Haven't had any first-hand experience (baby's due in three weeks) but I've talked to other parents who've had some interesting experiences. A co-worker's baby is 6 mos. old and wearing clothes in 18 mos. sizes, and my younger brother went straight into 6 mos. sizes from birth. It really just depends on your baby, and you won't know how big/small he is until he's born and until you see the rate at which he gains weight.

[suzska]

Yep, everybody else is right.

My son was 7 pounds 1 ounce at birth, and followed the sizes pretty closely (was in 3-6 months from 3-6 months). But then I've known women who gave birth to 10 pound babies and they hit 12 pounds pretty quickly.

Unfortunately people gave us clothes as gifts that were the wrong size for the wrong season, so some things my son never even got to wear.

--Sue B.
SAHM to Evan Jeffrey 03-11-01

[Melanie]

My son was 7lb 8oz at birth and is around 14 pounds at 4 months. If your baby is formula fed, they will most likely run quite ahead of sizes. My son is breastfed and he only runs a couple of weeks ahead of sizes, and that is because of length. I think I read to expect them to be double their birth weight around 5 months. Of course there are always exceptions to this.

Ignore the part of the label which says the age and look straight to the height/weight. Every brand has a different opinion (and even different items in the same brand run differently). My son still has some 0-3 outfits which fit, and some 3-6 which are too short.

I also went crazy shopping for clothes. My advice is to keep the receipts and leave the tags on. If you are having a baby shower then you will most likely want to exchange some things to make up for gaps (i.e. you have 10 newborn sleepers and 1 size 3-6). I was expecting a big baby due to a gestational diabetes diagnosis, so I returned any of the newborn outfits which were under 8 pounds. Oops! Everything was just huge on my son and I had to send my husband out for a few items.

I recommend looking at you and your husbands birth weights, and figure your baby will be in there. It's all a guess anyway! Besides that, don't forget the weather can be wacky! It's been warm where I live and my son doesn't have any summer clothes for this size!






Mommy to Little Jonah born 11-6-2001

[Eliz]

Since you've already heard it depends on your baby, I'll tell you about my experience.
My son was 7 lbs when we brought him home. Since the 0-3 month sleepers were so big on him I just kept him in gowns for the first three weeks unless we went out. I LOVED these for changing at night, they were so easy. He grew out of 0-3 month clothes by 8 weeks old. And now he's 3 months old today and 16 pounds, and just starting in 6-9 month clothes. So he got to wear all his 3-6 month stuff a couple of times each. (We received so many clothes that size as gifts).

I do wish I had been better about exchanging some of the 3-6 month stuff right when I received it. By the time I figured out he'd never wear all his outfits I couldn't return some things. (No receipts and the stuff was now on clearance).

From talking to all my mommy friends it seems most babies are outgrowing the clothes well before the ages listed on the tags.

[gdota]

I agree with everyone else: it depends upon the size of your baby, how fast they grow, and what brand they're wearing.

My experience: My ds was 9lbs, 21 inches at birth. He wore the 0-3 month size and then the 3-6 for 3 weeks each. We used to joke about how the "months" rating really meant "weeks" for us! My son had doubled his weight by four months. He was a big baby and a fast grower!

-gabrielle

[caryn]

My dd#1 weighed 7#11oz and stayed fairly true to size. Dd#2, however, is a different story! She weighed 8#4oz, and now at 7 mos, is close to 19#!! She is wearing mostly 12 mo and some 18 mo clothes. It depends so much on the brand... I tend to stick with the ones that fit my kids the best and wear well. One of the most frustrating things is learning which brands shrink and which don't. I've had the best luck with Gap and Old Navy, and have found that most of the stuff from Target and Little Me, and some things from Gymboree shrink alot. It also takes some trial and error to figure out your baby's (or toddler's) body type. My older daughter has long legs and a skinny waist, so I have to be careful when buying her pants. She has some that literally fall down as she's walking!

-caryn

[m2tandk]

My 10lb DS was in NB only a couple of weeks and some brands of NB didn't fit! He started wearing 3-6mo at about 3-4 weeks and gre out of them by about 3 and a half months. BIG BOY!! He has since slowed down!

My DD was 8lb 5oz at birth and didn't wear 3-6 mo til just about 3 months, maybe a bit earlier, but stayed in them til about 6-7 months.

kelly

[Shirale]

It really does depend on the baby! I was expecting that (as most of my friends told me) my baby would really never wear 0-3, but she was 6 lbs 2 oz at birth and even though she has already doubled her birth weight at 4 1/2 months (she weighs 13 pounds), she is just starting to grow out of the 0-3 size...the onsies all still fit, and some outfits do as well. I also found that anything cotton (which is of course best) actually shrinks if you are not careful with the dryer! Also- besides for some dresses for weddings, holidays etc I have barely bought any clothes for her yet! Also- based on my experiances, it is best to return/exchange things as quickly as possible because GAP for ex. switches clothes quickly so gifts that were the wrong size (for the season) which I loved, I ended up not being able to use at all and unless you have a gift receipt you can't really do much!