What do to about the clothes?? - Page 2

[Ceinwen]

Eek, some of these stories are making me even more nervous for blended living. Honestly though - do some people really cram four to six year olds into size twenty-four month clothing? Maybe my kids are just tanks, but my SIXTEEN month old is outgrowing 2T already...

[GoBecGo]

My just-turned 3 year old is comfortably in age 4 clothes. Last week she came back from her dads in a 18-24 month vest which, to be fair, he had cut the poppers off (it had been a button-under when new!)! I *just* covered her bellybutton. She survived fine of course, but where is the nice long cotton vest i sent her in....?

[pinksprklybarefoot]

Originally Posted by Ceinwen

Eek, some of these stories are making me even more nervous for blended living. Honestly though - do some people really cram four to six year olds into size twenty-four month clothing? Maybe my kids are just tanks, but my SIXTEEN month old is outgrowing 2T already...

I think that my DSD's mom just doesn't ever purge her closet of older clothing. DSD is very thin, so she *can* cram herself into an 18-24 mo skort because there is usually room for a diaper, but it is obscenely short on her. Her mom might even look on this as being a source of pride (my daughter is so thin, she can fit into toddler clothes! ). Same thing with shirts - sure, she can get into a 2T shirt, but her belly is hanging out.

[tynme]

Wow, thank you guys so much for all the responses! I thought this thread would go un-noticed, because it is so...petty? in the grand scheme of things. You are all great

I think we came up with a decent solution. I will gather up a few articles of clothing, a few pairs of pants, shirts, socks and underwear to send over there. As long as it is clean and different, it's okay. That way BD has the option of sending DS back in something of "his" our "ours".

I'm also going to tell BD when DS outgrows something that came from his house, I will give it back to him if he wants to save it, or pass it on to one of his nephews. I know I save everything. Hopefully that works!!

*Note: He wasn't changing his socks or underwear, but he DID was them.

[betterparent]

glad you have a solution!

My daughter is at the age where she picks her own clothes now, so I can't chose the "cheap" clothes anymore. she does not even spend the night with her dad, but somehow her outfit gets changed, "my" clothes get lost and she gets sent back in stained outfits that are too small or too big. I always have to return these, but I never see the clothes she went in again!

it frustrates me!!!

[julesdsm]

Originally Posted by Ceinwen

Eek, some of these stories are making me even more nervous for blended living. Honestly though - do some people really cram four to six year olds into size twenty-four month clothing? Maybe my kids are just tanks, but my SIXTEEN month old is outgrowing 2T already...

Yep, Dss's mom has sent him in stretchy shorts 2t shorts that fit like underwear and 18 month long sleeve sweaters that only come to his elbows. And he's a 4 year old that is 44" tall and 47 pounds.

Tymne, that sounds like a good solution

[kblackstone444]

My stepdaughter's Mother seems to think that every single thing my stepdaughter owns belongs at HER house, regardless of who bought it, regardless of how new it is, how expensive it was, how special it was (like the sweater my Grandmother made for my stepdaughter that got "lost" at her Mother's house) and regardless of how many times we ask for it back. If we want my stepdaughter to have weather appropriate clothes and the right sized clothes, we have three options- 1. keep buying her clothes, knowing that an average of 4-6 outfits will disappear per month, most likely to never be seen again, at her Mother's house, 2. dress my stepdaughter in my son's hand-me-downs, (someone on this thread said something about being angry that their child's Father dresses their child in his girlfrield's child's hand-me-downs, but I'm not sure I understand why- we try to avoid it because of my stepdaughter's preference, but if she didn't mind, or if she was a boy as well, most her wardrobe would be hand-me-downs), or option 3. is for us to limit as much as possible the clothes that we buy going to my stepdaughter's Mother's house. My stepdaughter has pretty much taken it into her own hands- "Remind me to change this shirt/take this bracelet off before I go back to my Mother's house. She never lets me bring them back."

It would be nice if we could just have one wardrobe for my stepdaughter, cheaper, too, but it's just not doable anymore. We've pretty much completely replaced my stepdaughter's wardrobe for our house twice this last year. We've bought almost in the way of clothes for our son in the last two years. We don't have the money. She gets new clothes, because her clothes "disappear" at her Mother's house, and our son's "reward" for not having his clothes disappear it to wear the same old, getting too small clothes, because we can't afford to completly replenish both children's clothes. (And yes, the situation has been brought the my stepdaughter's Mother's attention, why we need the clothes back so urgently, but she doesn't care- it's not HER problem. )

[Flor]

When we first were married and dss lived with us and saw him mom every few months, the clothes things used to drive me insane. I used to spend a lot of time and care picking out nice clothes for dss. I spent money and got nice quality items that would be left at his moms and never seen again. It shouldn't be a big deal, I know, but it used to drive me crazy. Where are your dress shoes? Where is your rain jacket? Where is that nice sweater I got you? I didn't care about random underwear, but it just seemed like there were special items we needed that were never there.
When she moved here and he started an EOW visitation schedule, I had to just let it go and assume that an outfit would go over there and an outfit would come back and hopefully things would cycle back and forth. It never really worked, mostly because he'd wear a school outfit over there on Friday and was usually still in sweats when we picked him up on Sunday. I feel like his closet is a black hole. I buy and buy and it is always empty! I guess if his mom was buying clothes, too, I'd feel better about it, but she has literally not bought him an article of clothing since he was in 2nd grade. It is just a weird situation. I feel like with my biological son, I care for his clothes, don't put certain ones in the dryer, check in with teacher for that missing sweatshirt, iron the dress shirts, sew up a hole, buy him extra soft tees and undies, but with my stepson, I have to just let it all go. Part of caring for my familiy feels like caring for their clothes, but it is something I can't control. Not a big deal, I don't stay up at night worrying about it, it's just that we never really found an easy system, and I was always slightly annoyed about missing items. Now that he is older, it is especially hard since his clothes are expensive. Missing a 60 dollar sweatshirt? That's hard on my coupon-clipping brain!

[GoodNamesGone]

I am the step-mom to 2 boys. 2 very stereo-typical, rough and tumble, dirty, forgetful, boys. I say all this with love and affection. I care for them deeply, and figure that trying to give them the ability to be gentelmen (at least on occassion) is all part of parenting.

Here's our clothes problem that might give insight to BD being so cranky about it.

We have no seperate wardrobes.

BM hardly buys them new clothes. Usually it's her parents who buy them. They only get new clothes from their grandparents when they visit, which is, at most, twice a year. And only 1 to 2 outfits.

We, (BD and I) buy them clothes on a "need" basis. If they need something nice, if they need something for sports, etc.

We noticed they'd both grown out of a lot of their clothes, so we went through what we had, tossed out things that no longer fit, and bought them some new stuff.

At the time, we had no in-house washing machine, and to save us a little money, BM washed their clothes. When told her we needed some back, she gave us a sad sack of clothes that didn't fit, were dingy with stains that would not wash out, and NO new things at all.

This kind of thing happens all the time. I would LOVE it if we could have rules that worked, but seperating clothes is annoying, time consuming, and the kids can't be expected to help.

If he insists, then try it his way- but I'm telling you that it'll get frustrating no matter what, so it's best to just not let it get to you. Make sure the kid is in weather-appropriate clothing, sure, but otherwise, let it go. Not worth it, and eventually he should see it that way too.

[Lilypie32]

I send clothes for the number of days my child is with Dad plus a few extra in case he has an accident. I do not expect Dad to buy clothes when our son is small and outgrows them rapidly. I send a bag every other weekend with my son to his Dad's filled with everything my son will need for the entire weekend.

[circuitsndaisies]

DH and I have four girls between us. They each have their own wardrobes at their respective homes. They are with each parent 50/50 and it would be a huge pain to send all those clothes back and forth, packing each time, etc. Not to mention, it gives them an added feeling of having two MAIN homes, kwim?

What they are wearing when they get dropped off, get changed in the evening, washed and sent back to their other parents house. XH and the girls step-mom are very good about doing the same.

[aricha]

We also send my step-daguhter to mom in whatever she arrived in. If for some reason we can't, we send her in something we don't mind never seeing again... we usually had a few hand-me-downs on hand for just that reason. Her mom was actually pretty good about getting clothes back to us, but we never sent something if we absolutely had to have it back.

It started because mom wanted her clothes back and we didn't have many to spare... but it actually became a part of her back-and-forth transition... when she was going back and forth every 2-3 days when she was younger, she could sometimes feel like she didn't know where she was going to be from one day to the next... but we would lay out her clothes the night before, and if she saw "mom's" clothes, she new the next day was a transition day... it actually seemed helpful to her.

Now it has become habit, and it's just part of life. Mom tends to send her on the airplane in comfy, layered travelling clothes, so it's easy to put her in the same thing to travel back the other direction.

When there was a problem with weather-appropriateness, or something stained or too small, we'd dress her in something that we didn't mind not getting back, and send the other clothing item back in her bag. If we were picking her up and planning to go somewhere right away, we made sure to have appropriate clothing with us-- like if we were going to the park after school, we made sure to bring sneakers and play clothes in case she was in a fancy dress and dressy shoes.

[melijack1]

DSD has a wardrobe here, and a wardrobe at her mom's. We rarely intermingle, but we get clothes frequently from a cousin of mine for DSD, and at that time we go through her clothes and send a bunch home for school, so she basically gets new-ish clothes for both places. I know her mother appreciates the (almost)new clothes every couple months.

With DH and I divorcing now, I would imagine we will do the same. DH can have half of DS's clothes and toys and things, and those are his, and the stuff at my house is mine. I get very nice, expensive clothing as a hand-me-down from my older sister for DS, and STBX would just let DS ruin it, or I'd never really see it again.