The "four month sleep regression" sucks, eh?

Let's talk about cute baby clothes instead

This week’s letter is a little later than planned because my baby has not really been sleeping. He is four months old! He is getting his second tooth! He is possibly sick?! And we are travelling, so he is trying out a new, weird hotel crib. Whatever the culprit… I am very tired!

I had kind of assumed the four-month sleep regression was a bit of a myth? Babies are so different! Things that are big on Instagram parenting reels are often not a thing in real life. The idea that all parents are doomed to suffer a “regression” was surely just a ploy to get me to buy some $300 sleep secrets e-book. At the very least, I figured, this regression would happen to other babies—to the angelic babies who have been giving their lucky mothers blissful 10 hour stretches of uninterrupted sleep since they were 4 weeks old. Their regression would force their mothers to suffer through what I have tolerated for months (ie, at least 2, often 3 or 4, night wakings between 8pm and 8am—including at least a couple of feeds). “Does it count as a regression if he has never slept that well?” I laughed, a week ago.

I am a fool! It turns out your baby can wake up roughly every half an hour?! If he wants? Even after he is fed, which usually knocks him out for a decent stretch? I actually do not know how many times he wakes up overnight anymore because I have totally lost count. Unlike with my last diagram I do not have a neat lesson to draw from this experience because I am still living it but, right now, I loop this circle roughly one million times every night:

Well, moving on, I thought I would write about something easy and fun this week. Let’s talk about baby clothes!

My clothing philosophy when it comes to my own wardrobe can be boiled down to two core principles: 1) I like nice things; 2) I do not have infinite money. That means I probably spend too much money on individual pieces, but I do try not to buy too many of them—ideally I would only acquire higher quality, well-made pieces cut from natural fibres which come to have a low “cost-per-wear” over time. I do not always live up to this ideal—I am also a weak mortal and sometimes abandon these principles and impulse buy cute things I spot on other people’s Substack newsletters—but it is the goal.

Shockingly, I also like nice baby things! But I figured cost-per-wear justifications for fancy bits and pieces for baby would be impossible. Babies grow like weeds! And you cannot just buy a handful of items per size because babies are messy and often must be changed multiple times a day. Yet to my surprise (and delight) some makers of baby clothing have found ingenious ways of extending the life of certain items: a zippered footed pajama designed to last for months rather than weeks; a onesie that promises to fit for years (!); and a sleep sack that works for all seasons and many sizes. In case you also like nice baby things and do not have infinite baby clothing budgets, here are favourite low cost-per-wear discoveries for little ones.

Hanna Andersson zippered, footed pajamas

pajamas, $44 (the exact pair is an old design, but these are the same type in fun animal prints. Here is another striped pair, same style).

My all time favourite baby pajamas! These are a soft jersey material made of lyocell, a fabric made from wood pulp, and spandex, for stretch. Crucially, for newborn through 3-6m sizes, they have little fold-over mittens and fold-over socks. Invariably, babies grow too long for clothing well before they would be too chubby for it. As such it is the feet on footed pajamas that are always the constraint. One day you zip them up, your baby’s shoulders are exposed and that is that. (My mother has confessed to chopping the feet off some of our baby clothes, to get them to fit us longer).

Such tactics can be avoided with these pajamas, where you can free the feet! There is also an insane amount of stretch in the fabric. My son grew out of all his 0-3m sleepers weeks ago, but it seems like he still has months left in these (even with the feet folded over). Hanna Andersson’s bodysuits also have two sets of snaps for extended fit and lots of their leggings (such as the ones my son is wearing below) have fold over feet, too. Her pieces are pricey (the pajamas retail for $44 a piece) but there are very frequent sales, like the one now, where they have been reduced to $26.40.

Kalumi bodysuits and leggings

bodysuit, $70, leggings, $54 (as part of a set which includes a bodsuit with extended fit, too).

This German brand, Kalumi, got me with a well-targeted Instagram advert and a promise that a single bodysuit could last my son from 2 months to 18 months (or from 7 months to 3 and a half years!). Their pieces are so, so expensive for baby clothing ($70 for a bodysuit or a pair of leggings—although they run a promotion where you can purchase three items for $175)—and I cannot guarantee the bodysuits will fit him through 18 months yet (check back in about a year!) but, boy, does it feel like they will. The fabric is gorgeous: a silk, merino wool blend which stretches for miles and miles. I usually hate putting over-the-head bodysuits on my son, but these are a doddle to pull over him and the fabric makes it easy to wiggle his arms in and out, too. I love keeping one set as my diaper bag clothing change because I do not have to worry I will end up squeezing him into an old outfit that he grew out of months ago—or that is much too warm. Merino wool is kind of magic in that way, keeping babies warm when it is cool and cool when it is warm. (Note: the tag says not to tumble dry, which seems like a fatal flaw for baby wear… but… I did tumble dry and the pieces seem totally unharmed).

Woolino all-season sleep sacks

sleep sack, $109 (crib sheet, pacifier)

I was converted to these sleep sacks for two reasons. The first was being confronted with a tog-weight chart and gleaning that it added a whole additional layer of complexity and expense to normal baby clothing shopping. There are three different tog weights (for summer, for winter and for the in-between seasons) and all the regular gamut of sizes—if you want at least a sack for baby to wear and a spare in case of accidents that would mean buying, perhaps, 8 sacks for the first year of life and handful more for the second. That is so many sacks!

The second was putting my son in an inappropriate tog sleep sack (a 2.5 tog I was received as a gift, which I used in winter but when it was actually quite warm in the bedroom with the heating on) and having my son wake up every hour to nurse because, it became clear when his diaper was oddly dry the next morning, he was dehydrating. I already have enough variables to worry about when it comes to sleep (teething, was he “drowsy but awake” or just “basically asleep”). If I can eliminate one—he is not sweating away in the wrong sack! this one is all season!—I will do it.

Woolino’s sleep sacks are hardly a well-kept secret but their popularity is justified. By being size flexible (they have snaps so one sack will fit from 2m to 2 years) and “all-season” thanks to the properties of merino wool one can eliminate the need for perhaps six normal sleep sacks. I have two and that, it turns out, is just about enough (though a third would certainly be nice, for when the baby laundry has piled up).

I hope you are sleeping more than I am!

Alice

P.S. In case it was not obvious: I bought all this stuff with my own money! None of this is sponsored or gifted and the links are not affiliate ones.