Let Thrift shopping thrive in 25!

DigForVictory

We acquired babygrows that were less than lovely & promptly dyed them British Racing Green so all Dig offspring were promptly recognisable. That some relatives were shocked rigid by comments like "hand me that froglet" (as I took the cherub off for a nappy change) was only to be expected, but really, white for babies has to be a soap vendors dream...! I was a devout adherent of the Libby Purves' school of parenting which says so long as the child is warm & clean, that the garment is at least fourthhand & possibly for another gender is utterly immaterial.
That may have stuck slightly deeper than we realised - in primary school when someone Had Not Mentioned he had PE, his friends rummaged in their bags & rather than do circuits of the school hall in his underpants, he was nattily attired in Hannah Montana pink with rhinestones. His teacher tried not to laugh, his sweeties thought it suited his brown hair - everybody happy... We were very lucky that in having 3 under 5, every garment got a solid wearing & if all the poppers etc worked, would eventually be dropped off at the baby clinic.

itsthelittlethings

Floss said:

DigForVictory said:

There was an outgrown clothes box at the baby clinic, which had a couple of pairs of dungarees in corduroy & the receptionist nodded me to go have a look as she said my lads would look stunning - she was right, deep jewel tone purple & green, solid blocks of colour, worn over t shirts and when the youngest outgrew them, I washed them & put them back in the box, as they still had life left - corduroy is an amazing fabric! 

When I was expecting eldest, a friend whose son was then almost 12m old, gave me 2 bin bags of baby clothes. Both boys wore those things - flannelette nighties (ideal for changing nappies in those early weeks!), jewel coloured BabyGros, cotton rompers, dungarees, pram suits and vests. With the knits provided by my mum & MiL, they were well set up and it saved me a fortune.

Again, when youngest outgrew things, I passed them onto my health visitor at the baby clinic for her to pass on to families in need (late 1980s, so HVs still existed then).

Health visitors still exist now but not up to very old I don’t think.