To the moms who gave my kids their hand-me-downs—thank you

Baby clothes are SO cute.

Maybe it’s because they are typically either designed to make children look like little bears or mini-adults. Or maybe it’s because they’re just so tiny? Any which way you look at it, they’re beyond adorable. I mean—what human can resist an infant who looks like a tiny, soft bunny?

Cute as they are, they’re also kind of pricey. And babies grow quickly, which means they need new sizes quickly. Oh, and also they get poop and spit-up on a lot of stuff, and then they eventually graduate to stains that are of the paint and peanut butter variety.

The lesson? The cost of baby clothes (and don’t get me started on shoes that fit them for two seconds) adds up, but on the other hand—with the amount they grow and stain things—you sort of feel like you need a lot and that you’re always looking for the next size stuff.

I swear, I just brought up the 18-month clothes, but now I need to get the 24-month size clothes out. (How is such a large part of motherhood constantly cycling through clothing that fits/doesn’t fit your baby anymore?)

Cue: Hand-me-downs.

I found out the sex of my babies each of the three times I was pregnant: girl, girl, and then girl again. So, let’s just say, we have gotten our money’s worth with children’s clothes over the years. Plus, my kids have cousins around the same ages so we’ve gotten a fair share of hand-me-downs from them, along with random pieces like snowsuits or extra swaddle blankets from friends. They’ve all been a godsend.

I’ve always been kind of sentimental about clothes—I can often tie memories to what I was wearing. My 21st birthday party? That very short blue and green floral number. The night my husband proposed to me? An ugly work outfit that I changed out of before we went out to dinner to celebrate ( ). My hospital stay for my youngest daughter? New black pajamas I treated myself to.

But somehow—likely the extreme cuteness levels—baby clothes kick the sentimental levels up about a hundred notches.

I remember the first piece of baby clothing I got as a gift when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. It was a sweet pink one piece with a little teddy bear in the center. It had an eyelet detail to it and the feet looked like little bear paws. My mom gave it to me the night we told our families that we were having a little girl.

I remember imagining how the tiny little human inside me would be able to fit into this tiny little outfit.

I remember imagining what it would be like to button her into it and hold her while wearing it.

I remember finally dressing her in it and marveling at how amazing all of this was. I was a mother, and this was my baby.

I remember buying each of my children’s coming home outfits and what they wore for their first Christmas. I remember seeing each of them in specific outfits that the other one wore, truly in awe that this was a new human we created, in the same outfit the other human we created wore.

I remember putting a hand-me-down sweater on my daughter that was once her father’s sweater. I never knew clothes could melt my heart until that day. Seeing some of the one-piece pajamas my girls wore all the time—like those monkey jams and the multicolored striped Zutano onesie—bring me back to the time of my life when I was a “new mom” again.

But then I remember thinking, okay, we have a LOT of clothes, and we can’t keep them all. Even if we have another baby at some point down the road, we need to get rid of a lot of stuff now. It’s overwhelming.

So, as Marie Kondo might advise, I’ve sorted through the clothes that no longer fit my kids and I’ve kept the pieces that still spark joy. Those pieces are now used as doll clothes or are safely tucked away in my children’s memory boxes in the basement so that they can have them when they’re older.

The rest? We have either passed them on as hand-me-downs to other families or we’ve donated them. And honestly, giving another family who could use our hand-me-downs (we’ve spared them the ones with poop and spit-up stains!) feels just as great, if not greater, than scoring helpful hand-me-downs for your own kiddos.

It’s one way the village is there for you in motherhood. I can’t, unfortunately, get to my sister and my niece five hours away from me to drop off a container of soup for dinner or to take her to the park to give my sister a break for an hour—but I can pack up my daughter’s clothes and bring them down the next time we visit.

In the busyness of our day-to-day, my friend and I can’t nail down a time to get the kids together—but she can lend me a snowsuit for my youngest to use—coming in the clutch and saving me about $50.

Getting a bag of hand-me-downs from another mom is equivalent to getting a big, genuine hug from a mama who knows how hard this all can be. She is thinking of you, reaching out to you and extending a helping hand. And the best part is that this helping-hand-me-down chain can continue because the clothes she gives you can then be passed along to another mama and so on and so on.

Who knew that these little cute pieces of clothing could connect us all in such a gushy, beautiful way?

To all the mothers who have passed their hand-me-downs on to another mama in need—thank you. Keep on thinking of ways to help your fellow moms when you can, because we really are all on this wild ride together.

A version of this story was originally published on Jan. 16, 2019. It has been updated.