May 23, 2018

A Tall Tale

By Verena Barthel
A Tall Tale

After our first call out for a guest mummy blogger,

We are so excited to share the winning Guest Blog by lovely Australian mum of two, Elskien Steele and the story of her 'LITTLE/BIG' BOY:

My son loves to chat with people he bumps into at the park. Whenever he does the conversation inevitably will go something like this:
Stranger at the park: And... how old are you?
My son: Four!



Stranger looks at me in disbelief and needs an eye rolling confirmation from me that, yes, he is actually only four.

My four year old son is basically the height of a seven year old and my two year old daughter regularly gets mistaken for a four year old, at least until she opens her mouth. My children are really tall and this has a much bigger impact on their clothes than you might think.

Shopping for baby boy outfits

When my son was born he weighed 4.2 kilos and was 55 cm long and sadly he didn’t fit the going home outfit I had chosen for him. The gender had been a surprise so I was excited, once I was able, to go shopping for some cute baby boy outfits. I headed to the closest department store, as looking for baby boy clothes online was not something that really occurred to me to do. I was mostly happy with the baby boy outfits I found, although it disappointed me that the girls’ range had a lot more options.

Shopping for toddler boy clothes

My husband is 6’4” so my son was never going to be short. By his first birthday, my darling son, who to me was still very much a baby, was wearing the same size clothes as an average two year old. I begrudgingly started to look for his clothes in the “big boy” section and while I was slightly upset that I already had to shop there, I became incredibly upset when I saw the range of toddler boy clothes. Colour choices included navy, black, khaki, and camouflage green. Prints included skulls, skateboards, and licensed characters. Slogans included words like “terror”, “monster” and “trouble”. I had absolutely no desire to dress my baby boy in any of these “toddler boy clothes”, I wanted him to still look like a baby and for his baby boy outfits to be cute, colourful and comfortable. 

Finding baby boy clothes online

I came home, depressed by my shopping trip and started searching for baby boy clothes online. Somewhere among my searching I found beautiful baby boy clothes online that had colourful and age appropriate prints... and they came in bigger sizes! In fact there was no “baby boy” or “toddler boy” clothes, these clothes just came in all sizes for boys and girls. The prints were so fun, just full of things that kids are interested in: bugs, animals, music, diggers, and plants. I had discovered “Scandi”...

Unfortunately I found the price of these clothes to be a bit beyond my budget and it took me a while to realise the other benefits that outweigh the cost. What convinced me to buy these beautiful clothes was the fact that they:

  • Are ethically made;
  • Can be passed down to siblings due to the gender neutral prints;
  • Are made with higher quality materials which mean the clothes last longer and stains come out easier

To make things even better, there are online communities where second hand items can be re-sold.

The best benefit

As I talked about before, both of my children are so tall that they are regularly mistaken for a couple of years older than they actually are. Even my husband and I find it hard managing our expectations of what they are capable of. When they wear their Scandi clothes, it helps me to remember that this little person, who loves that shirt covered in snails, is actually only a little person. To me, anything that can help me be a better mum and be fun and gorgeous at the same time is a good way to go!