How to Make Your Children’s Clothes Last Longer

Guest Post

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In the old days mums had to make clothes last because for most people buying new clothes every few weeks just wasn’t an option – but children being children love to test clothes and making kids clothes last isn’t easy.

Even so, your grandma managed just fine and so can you. So if you don’t want to continuously spend a fortune on children’s clothing here are a few old fashioned tips to make those tiny clothes last a little longer and wear a little better.

Give Clothes A Purpose

Kids get up to all sorts, but some activities are harder on their clothes than others. The simplest way to keep your costs low is to make sure that they don’t mess up their more expensive clothes. Make it clear to your children which clothes are for playing and which clothes are for best – and make sure that their play clothes are the ones that are not so expensive. You can even have separate clothes for playing in the house or going to see friends.

Don’t Overload The Washing Machine

A simple one really; if you have a lot of laundry to do break it into 2 loads. Overloading the washing isn’t good for it or the clothes; it stops them moving around in the spin and causes them to rub together more, causing damage to the fibres. If you can’t stand to do even more loads of laundry then invest in a washing machine with a bigger capacity.

Prevent Stains Before They Happen

Stains are a fact of life for kids and as much as you try, accidents will happen, but you can prevent the worst of the damage by stain treating clothes in advance. There are various stain resistant products that will ‘protect’ clothes and ensure that most stains come out with minimal washing.

Another good idea is to always buy dark clothes, particularly as play clothes. Dark colors hide stains better and will look clean and new for much longer than light and white clothes will.

Prevent Stains When They Happen

If you are very organized, try carrying a stain treatment pen with you when you go out, especially when you take your kids out to eat lunch. These pens if used quickly will get to work on preventing those spillages from setting and becoming stains. Learn to get it penned out quickly and you won’t need to use harsh stain removers.

Reinforce Clothes

Play clothes go through a lot in their day to day lives and assuming they don’t get ripped or torn they will probably eventually give up by way of become thread bare or the stitching coming loose. You can make clothes last a lot longer by reinforcing the weakest areas (knees and elbows) with pads. Iron patches to the insides of the clothing so that they don’t show – they will sit there out of sight and hold the clothes together that bit longer.

Do Gentle Laundry

The thing that wears out clothes the fastest is washing them. The tips above on stain prevention should means that you don’t have to wash clothes so often or so harshly, using stain detergents and such like… But even regular laundry does damage.

Modern washing machines are better at being gentle and if your washing machine is old it might be worth investing in a new one. Look for washing machines that have extra gentle settings and don’t wash on a high heat.

Whatever machine you have you should wash on the gentlest setting – 99% of the time the clothes will be almost as clean and they will suffer less damage. Dark clothes especially don’t need to be as clean and you probably won’t be able to see a difference (except that they last much longer)

Buy Tough Clothes

Finally of course, buy tough clothes that you know will last. Clothes that are fine to go in a washing machine are a must (who has time to hand wash anyway?). Make sure that you buy clothes which have thick, quality fabric and try to notice which shops sell longer lasting clothes.

Addition resources

For a good quality washing machine that won’t damage your clothes try something by Zanussi. Thanks for reading my guest post and good luck!

6 Comments

  1. My biggest issue with clothes is they out grow them too fast, second is the darn stains.

  2. Thank you for the tips. There is nothing like good quality clothing that lasts.

  3. thanks for the ideas! I also don’t dry them in the dryer, well the gentle layette that my newborn has, the blankets i do, but i air dry the rest,makes them look new still after he’s worn them and i’ll try the rest of your tips 🙂

  4. This was very helpful as I have an infant who is constantly having accidents and/or getting food and drinks on her clothes. It seems like I’m constantly doing laundry.

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