What this is about
On a cold morning, it feels wrong to send your baby to daycare in just a cardigan. But daycare playrooms are kept at 20–24°C (68–75°F) all winter, warmer than many living rooms, and your baby spends the whole day on the floor. Dressed for the sidewalk, your baby is sweating on the carpet ten minutes after drop-off.
So dress your baby for the room, and add the warmth for the trip on top: a footmuff or a snowsuit in the stroller, or a blanket over the car seat straps. It all comes off at the door and goes home with you.
What to pack for daycare
Every center hands you a packing list, and the clothes on it are the easiest part to get wrong. They end up in four places: on your baby, on the hook for outdoor play, in a spare pouch in the cubby, and at daycare for the whole season.
On your baby
A bodysuit, soft pants with an elastic waist, socks, and a cardigan or thin fleece on top.
On the hook
What outdoor play needs today: a fleece or light jacket, rain pants on a wet day, a sun hat in summer, and in winter a warm coat, hat and mittens.
In the spare pouch
Clean clothes for spills and leaky diapers, with a wet bag beside them to bring the dirty set home.
Lives at daycare
What stays there for weeks, each with a name inside: the sleep sack, rain boots, a puddle suit or snow pants, and sunscreen. Bring them home once a week to wash.
Ask what the center already has before you buy, because some keep their own rain boots and puddle suits for the yard.
What your baby wears at daycare
Daycare clothes come home with paint, sauce and sand on them, so send clothes you won't miss, and keep the gift outfits for the weekend. Think of the diaper changes, too. A teacher does a lot of them before lunch, and stiff denim overalls with a row of snaps slow down every one. Soft pants with an elastic waist pull down and back up in a second.
Two pieces are easier than one. When lunch lands on the top, only the top gets changed. A bodysuit with an envelope neck (the overlapping flaps at the shoulders) lets a teacher pull a dirty one down over the legs instead of up over the face. Leave out anything that can catch on the playground: drawstrings, hood cords, loops, and tops a few sizes too big.
Pick a top layer that opens down the front, like a cardigan or a zip fleece. When the room warms up mid-morning, a teacher can slip it off without pulling anything over your baby's head. Daycare carpet is usually the hard-wearing kind, rougher than a rug at home, so keep a crawler's knees covered even in summer. Thin cotton leggings do it without adding heat.
Apart from short or long sleeves, this indoor outfit hardly changes through the year. What changes with the weather is the trip there and what hangs on the hook.
Naps at daycare: a sleep sack over the day clothes
Most daycares don't change babies into pajamas for naps. Loose blankets aren't allowed in a baby's crib there, so the teacher zips your baby into a sleep sack over the day's clothes. That's one more reason for flat, soft clothes, because buttons down the back or a chunky waistband become a lump to lie on for an hour or two.
The sleep sack comes from you, with a spare for the day the first one comes home wet. Choose its warmth for the nap room, which is often warmer than your bedroom at night. Ask what the room's thermometer reads, and the TOG guide shows which bag fits. Most centers don't swaddle, and some need a doctor's note to do it, so if your baby still sleeps swaddled, make the switch at home before the first day.
Once your child moves up to the toddler room, naps usually move to a cot or a mat, and many centers ask for a sheet and a small blanket from home.
Leave outdoor layers on the hook, not in the bag
Most daycares take the children outside every day, usually mid-morning or after the nap. By then the weather has often changed since breakfast, and a frosty morning can turn into a bright, mild afternoon. Getting a whole room of toddlers into coats is a rush, and nobody has time to dig through backpacks. What hangs on your child's hook is what your child goes out in, so check it at drop-off with the afternoon in mind.
On wet days, the grass and the sandbox stay soaked long after the rain stops. Rain pants that pull on over the day's pants keep the clothes underneath dry, and a crawler needs them as much as a walker, because the knees go down first. Below about 12°C (54°F), fleece-lined rain pants keep the legs warm too.
Where winters bring snow, the hook holds the whole set every day: a snowsuit or a warm coat with snow pants, boots, a hat and mittens. Many parents leave the snow pants and boots at daycare all week, so nobody carries them back and forth.
Hats and mittens are the first things lost at daycare. Buy the mittens in a cheap multipack of one color, so any two make a pair, and spend the money on one good hat with a name inside. Once your child walks, choose the daycare coat for how fast it goes on: a zip rather than buttons, and nothing a teacher has to fiddle with.
The coat flip: how toddlers put on a coat by themselves
Many daycares teach it, and toddlers can learn it from about 18 months. Lay the jacket out at home the first few times, and say the rhyme together as your toddler does each step.
The coat flip: how toddlers put on a coat by themselves
Tag to the toes
Lay the jacket open on the floor, lining up. The collar (or the hood) goes right at your toddler's toes, so the jacket looks upside down from where your toddler stands.
Hands in the holes
Your toddler bends down and slides one hand into each armhole, just inside the sleeves.
Over it goes
Arms up and over the head. The jacket swings over and lands on the shoulders the right way up, arms already in the sleeves. Tug the sleeves straight and zip it up together.
How many spare clothes to keep at daycare
Most centers ask for two complete changes: two bodysuits, two pairs of pants and two pairs of socks, sealed in a zip pouch so they stay clean at the bottom of the cubby. One set runs out on the day a leaky diaper and a spilled lunch both happen before noon. Pack indoor clothes only. Anything for the cold belongs on the hook, where the teachers will find it.
The usual problem with spare clothes is that nobody looks at them for months. You pack a cute 3-month set in September, forget it exists, and when a blowout happens in January, your 7-month-old cannot squeeze into the legs. That is how babies end up in daycare loaner sweatpants with the center's name scrawled across the seat in black permanent marker. An easy habit helps: whenever you move up a diaper size, swap the spares for the new size, and when a dirty set comes home, pack its replacement that same evening.
Some stages need more. A teething baby can soak a bodysuit by mid-morning, so add a few bibs, because a wet bib is a quicker change. Potty training needs the most: five or six pairs of underwear and socks, and pants your child can pull down alone.
If you're going somewhere after pickup, the nice outfit travels in its own bag with a note on it. Otherwise it becomes the spare set the first time something spills.
Socks, shoes and rain boots at daycare
Baby rooms are usually shoe-free, and many centers ask for socks on every baby. Once your child walks, the shoes have to cope with the yard: a sole that grips, a closed toe, and a strap that keeps them on while running.
Not walking yet: socks or soft shoes
Socks with grip dots on the sole once your baby pulls up to stand, or soft leather moccasins. Anything stiffer gets kicked off.
Walking: a closed first shoe
A flexible first shoe with a hook-and-loop strap, which a teacher fastens in a second. Some centers ask for a second pair for indoors, so the mud stays by the door.
Outside: rain boots that live there
Rain boots stay at daycare once your child walks steadily, because a new walker trips in them. When the yard freezes, lined winter boots take their place.
How to label clothes for daycare
Every daycare's coat hooks look the same: rows of low hooks holding dozens of matching navy jackets, beige cardigans and yellow boots. When the children tumble back in from the yard, coats come off in seconds and land in a heap on the bench. Without a name on the tag, your favorite fleece is in the lost-and-found box by lunchtime.
Label everything that comes off during the day: jackets, cardigans, hats, rain pants, both shoes, and the socks too, because babies in a shoe-free room pull off socks all day and the pile gets sorted by guess. Stick-on name labels on the care tag survive the washer and the dryer, a clothing stamp does a whole drawer in five minutes, and a permanent marker on the tag does the rest.
Where the name goes
Four spots where a teacher finds it fast, and where a label lasts through the wash.
The care tag inside the collar
On jackets, cardigans and sweaters, where a teacher looks first.
The band inside the hat
A stick-on label holds on the inside of the band.
The heel inside each shoe
Both shoes, because they come off one at a time.
The sole of the sock
A stamp or a dot of marker. Buying every pair in one color is the other way.
Questions parents ask
What should my baby wear on the first day of daycare?
The same play clothes as every other day. Take the photo at home before you leave, because the outfit won't look the same by pickup. Bring the spare pouch and the sleep sack that morning, so the cubby is ready from the start.
How do I dress my 4-month-old for daycare?
A bodysuit with soft pants and socks, or a footed sleepsuit. Babies this young go outside in the center's stroller rather than playing in the yard, so the hook only needs a hat and a warm layer for that. The piece that matters most is the sleep sack, because a 4-month-old naps several times a day.
Will daycare take my baby outside in winter?
Yes, on most days. Centers keep children in only for a dangerous wind chill, and the cold air itself doesn't cause colds. Viruses do, and they spread most indoors, where everyone is close together.
How do I dress my baby for daycare in summer?
A short-sleeve bodysuit with light pants or thin leggings. Outside, a sun hat with a brim does the most. From 6 months, many centers ask you to put sunscreen on at home in the morning and leave a labeled tube with a signed form, so the teachers can put more on before the afternoon outside.
Should my baby wear a hat during daycare naps?
No. Babies cool down through the head, so hats come off indoors and for every sleep, and a good center takes the hat off before the crib.
Can my baby go to daycare in a sleepsuit?
Yes, until the crawling starts. A footed sleepsuit is flat, warm and one piece, which is all a baby who lies and sits needs. Once your baby crawls and pulls up, the fabric feet slide on the floor and a leak means a whole change, so two pieces with socks take over.
Do you bring a diaper bag to daycare every day?
Usually a small one. The clothes live in the cubby, so the daily bag carries the bottles, the day's diapers if the center doesn't supply them, and the replacement for whatever came home dirty. Many parents keep one bag for daycare and never unpack it.
