It feels like there are a million clothing brand options for babies these days. When I was a kid I feel like the only place to shop for kids clothes was Oshkosh B’Gosh. 🤣 Nowadays, the number of available pajama and sleeper options is overwhelming so I bought a little bit of everything that looked intriguing and would love to share our favorites with you:
ONE BIG LEARNING
When it comes to babies, we found that separates only work if the top is a onesie. If you’re using a shirt as the top, inevitably the fabric is going to bunch and ride up meaning that baby’s tummy is going to be exposed. Additionally, without the onesie the pant waistband won’t have any fabric to cling to on the torso help them stay up over a diaper (as shirts never stay tucked in on babies). Both of these factors mean that a decent amount of baby’s skin won’t be covered which then results in a non-cozy baby & so much tugging / adjusting for parents or caretakers.
Pajama separates just DO.NOT.WORK for infants in my opinion and I don’t recommend them; sorry. 😜 They’re super cute, but I say save them for the toddler+ years!
NEWBORN NECESSITIES
In this section I wanted to share our most-used and most-loved products for the newborn stage… it’s fleeting, but there are some pajamas and sleep-related products that made that beginning time so much easier for us as new parents.
Baby gowns are especially ideal for the first few weeks. They make baby’s lower half so easily accessible and the little knot at the bottom of some gown styles is ultra easy to tie and untie during those overnight changes when you’re so tired you can’t even remember how a button works (I know it sounds crazy, but I promise that’s the level of tired you will be). Our favorites were these, these, and these because of how incredibly soft the fabrics are. This gown was especially helpful because it has built in mittens over the cuffs to prevent baby from scratching their face as well as snaps to convert the bottom half into pant legs!
Once you make it past the first month or so, I recommend switching from the gowns to footie pajamas and I’ll share more about them and our preferred brands in the next section.
Swaddles are absolutely necessary for keeping baby cozy and helping newborns sleep! Our favorite traditional swaddle (manually wrapping baby in one square piece of fabric) was this one — I still take these with us to the doctor’s office to wrap Sophie in to keep her warm while she is disrobed and we are waiting for the pediatrician to perform her exam. They’re also great for travel because they’re fairly thin so they can be easily tucked into a diaper bag / luggage to be used as a light blanket or to cover the car seat to block out harsh light.
If your baby is an escape artist like our Sophie, this swaddle was seriously AMAZING. If you snugly wrap your baby up in it their body weight will prevent them from undoing the wrap and it’s just awesome. I can NOT recommend it enough as it was our absolute favorite at keeping Sophie cozy as well as safe & sound.
In the cooler months, these little hats are helpful for keeping baby warm, which is key because our heads and feet control our body temperature (especially for tiny brand new babies who can’t regulate their body temps yet)!
*Just note that these hats can not be worn without supervision for obvious safety reasons.
OUR FAVORITE FOOTIES
Footie pajamas are not only super practical for babies, they’re also sooo cute. Of all of the clothes that I dress our daughter in, my husband says that he thinks she looks the cutest in her footie jammies. While footie pajamas are the best option for babies, there are differences between them (namely in fabric) that make each of the options below ideal for different climates / seasons.
Summer:
Kyte Baby has footie pajamas in a thin bamboo cotton material that is ultra soft and cozy yet breathable. It also has the parent favorite feature: the double zipper 🙌🏼 We definitely prefer zippers over snaps whenever possible, especially for overnight diaper changes, but the double zipper is a game changer because it allows you to keep the top half of baby warm and cozy while you change their diaper. So brilliant. Every pair of baby pajamas needs the double zipper!
Spring / Autumn:
We love GoumiKids footie pajamas — while their jammies are also made with bamboo cotton like KyteBaby, the fabric weave is thicker which is ideal for those transitional seasons. Of all of the brands we’ve tried, GoumiKids has arguably the best overall design of baby onesie pajamas: (1) you can flip the cuffs to become mittens / footies if wanted, (2) the knees are reinforced for the sizes that will likely have kiddos in their crawling stage (so smart), (3) there is a little flap with snaps on the bum for quick diaper checks which I didn’t think I would use, but I absolutely do, and (4) THE DOUBLE ZIPPER! 🙌🏼 Most brands have any combination of the above features, but GoumiKids is the only one that we’ve found that has them all.
Another brand of good footie pajamas in a medium-weight cotton is Pehr. Their design doesn’t have all of the same features as GoumiKids, but the most important one (the double zipper!) is there.
Winter:
We have been so impressed by this brand. They specialize in washable merino wool products for babies (sleep sacks, pajamas — both onesies and separates for bigger kiddos, socks, and base layer onesies / footie leggings for layering in cold climates). Merino wool is perfect for babies because it helps trap body heat to keep baby warm while magically not getting too hot because it’s a mildly lightweight / breathable material. They’re totally ideal for cold climates as a base layer under clothes and snowsuits if you’re leaving the house.
We also love any microfleece pajamas — we randomly found these on Amazon and they have been so great at keeping our girl toasty warm on chilly nights.
*I will note that both of these pajamas are lacking in the double zipper department, but they’re awesome enough to overlook that aspect. I hope that the brands make that adjustment in the future because that would make their products the ultimate in cold weather baby pj’s!
SECOND LAYER
Since babies can’t have any loose fabric or pillows in their crib like we do as adults (the reasoning behind it is a concern of accidental suffocation) the alternative, post-swaddle, is a sleep sack.
A few months ago, Sophie graduated out of a swaddle (😭 growing SO fast!!) is now wearing a sleep sack to bed. She may not need one, but we like the idea of her being snuggled up in (essentially!) a wearable sleeping bag overnight in case she gets cold.
We ended up choosing sleep sacks from this brand because they have a little weighted area on them that we felt may help Sophie transition from the swaddle, like a [modified] weighted blanket. To be honest, I don’t know how much it actually helped because we didn’t get any other brands to compare them to, but Sophie did adjust to sleeping without her swaddle in about ~two weeks, so you can take that data for whatever it’s worth. 🤷🏼♀️😜 I don’t know if we can attribute that to the sleep sack or just to Sophie and her natural ability to adapt to the new situation, but the sleep sack with the weighted section certainly didn’t hurt! Two things that we liked about this brand (aside from the little weighted section) was the double zipper — so clutch for diaper access — and the double shoulder snap options so that we could adjust it to Sophie’s size as she continues to grow.
Most sleep sack brands offer multiple levels of warmth called TOGs, which are also used to measure the warmth level of a duvet blanket or comforter! We have one of each sleep sack options for the various seasons of year / that we can switch out if we are traveling to a different climate (e.g. lightweight for Hawai’i, but heavyweight for winter in Aspen). They’re a great way to essentially wrap your baby in a blanket that’s safe to sleep in… a “safety blanket” if you will. 😉
I don’t think you can really go wrong with a sleep sack brand because it really depends on your baby’s needs. I’ll link all of the sleep sacks we considered below:
It’s so hard to know what you need with your first baby and there are sooo many pajama options available to choose from. I hope this post was helpful for you when navigating the world of baby jammies!
Please feel free to share your infant pajama favorites in the Comments section below for other readers!
Sending hugs —
xx, Natalie
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