The Little House Living Show – Episode 010 – Winter Gear for Kids

The Little House Living Show – Episode 010 – Prepping Kids for Winter

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What’s In This Episode?

 

0:36 – Introduction
1:40 – Intro to winter prepping
2:41 – How I store winter clothes
4:30 – Winter clothes list
6:12 – Notes on my daughters clothing
9:03 – PJs
10:50 – Church clothes
12:19 – Outdoor gear
15:40 – Coats
17:13 – Shoes
19:57 – Other winter things we need
21:00 Wrap up

 

Links Mentioned in This Show

• Submit a Question for the Show
• Blog Post on Winter Clothing for Kids

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Podcast Transcription

Hello everyone. And welcome back to the little house living podcast. I’m so excited to get this podcast started again. I had to take a break for a while because we were moving and I didn’t know where any of my podcast stuff was. So I’m excited to jump back on here and be able to talk to you guys again and share more ideas and hopefully do some more interviews. So I have several ideas for the upcoming episodes, but if you have any ideas of what you’d like me to talk about, please be sure and let me know. You can leave a comment if you’re listening to this through the blog post, or go ahead and email me at [email protected] either way I want to hear from you. I want to get your feedback on this podcast.

I actually really enjoy doing podcast. So I’d like to do more of it in the future. And if this is something that you want to listen to and like to listen to, like while you’re doing your housework or folding laundry or anything like that, I just want to know.

So today we’re going to get started with a topic that I recently wrote about on the blog and that is prepping kids for winter. I mentioned this in an email that I sent out a couple of weeks ago. And several of you had questions about what we do to prepare our kids for winter, the kinds of things that we buy them, just kind of what we have in their closets.

And so I wanted to share that today. I do have this all written out in a blog post, if you’d rather read it than listen to it. And then also in the blog post, I have a lot of links that I’m obviously not able to put into this podcast. So I’ll be sure and leave a link to that blog post in the show notes. And if you were interested in anything that I talk about, like I said, I tried to link to everything in the blog post so that you can easily find it. Cause I know it’s difficult when somebody is talking about something. If you can’t just, you know, go ahead and search for it. So anyway, let’s get started. So the first thing that we think about when we’re prepping kids for winter is winter clothes in the spring, we get out different clothes for summer and in the winter we get out different clothes for winter.

For us, we keep clothes in those big rubber made totes. And I have them separated into summer, winter in the same size. And so, and we just can store them in a closet. So it’s super easy just to pull them out in each season. I always buy clothes like a year in advance if possible. Sometimes I’ll have to fill in some things that I missed, but I try to buy it in advance because I get a lot of the stuff that I buy at rummage sales and at out of seasons sales. So a lot of the things that my kids are going to be wearing this winter, I actually bought this spring or kind of late winter earlier this year because that’s when they go on clearance from the store, that tends to be the best time to buy them and get, get the best deal if you have to buy new.

Now, if you’re okay with buying used and you can find good deals on use clothes in your area, rummage sales are definitely the way to go. So you can get things throughout the summer and store up for the winter or even for the next year, either way. I always try to find a good deal on what my kids are going to wear, because I know that they are pretty much going to trash it. And probably won’t wear it for more than a year or more than a season. If your kids are the same way, it’s a good deal to try to get the best price on clothing.

But so I kind of have a list of what we try to go off of for how much clothing each child has. And each child that I have might have one or two more things that I’m going to tell you in this list, but this is kind of my general rule of thumb and having a list of how much clothes that each child needs per season is really helpful because then when you are shopping online, or if you’re out at a rummage sale, then you can know, okay, I already have this many shirts.

We need this many more to kind of make a complete wardrobe and it just helps prevent you from overbuying or even under buying, just to make sure that you have just the right amount that your child needs. So for clothing we have, I’m just, I’m going to go over the basic list first and then I’ll talk about each thing. So each of my kids, this is for winter has seven long sleeve shirts, four to five pairs of pants or leggings. When did two pairs of jeans, jeans, socks, and undergarments, five to six pairs of pajamas, a warm robe and church clothes. So that makes up their entire wardrobe. I can store it in one of those nice little, they each have one of those small dressers from Ikea. Those work really perfectly. Yeah. And it’s, it’s enough for them to have clothes those, you know, in between washes.

So I’ve not, we’re not like running out of clothes, but it’s not so much that it gets overwhelming. So the seven shirts, those are all long sleeve shirts. And we have kind of a healthy mix of like the tee shirt material and the kind of thermal material they usually have about two to three of those thermal material ones. And those are really good for the colder days. Now my daughter doesn’t wear so much of the regular long sleeve shirts as she does kind of the tunics. And that’s why I said for the next one, they have four, five pairs of pants or leggings. So most of what she wears is the long sleeve tunics with leggings. And then the boys just wear long sleeve shirts and they wear those with pants.

And like I said, that’s leggings for my daughter and I try to get the fleece lined leggings just so that she stays a little warmer. And then for the boys, those are kind of like lounge pants or athletic pants or whatever they call them. Now, when I was growing up, they were just sweat pants. But so those are just, you know, warm pants that they can wear around the house. I like doing sweat pants, lounge pants, whatever, because the kids find them really comfortable. Both of my boys have some sensory issues. So it helps to have the, you know, the softer pants. So they’re not wearing jeans. And also they talk in really good underneath snow pants. So for the most part during the day, we’re just wearing the long sleeve shirts and the lounge pants or two Nixon leggings. And then each of the kids has one to two pairs of jeans.

My daughter really doesn’t wear her jeans very often. So I maybe have one pair just in case we need them. And that would be for, you know, for going out Christmas tree hunting or something out in the woods where we might not need to wear snow pants, but need something a little bit warmer than just sweat pants or leggings. The boys have one to two pairs of jeans, a piece, and they use those. They wear those to church or to town. We usually don’t wear the lounge pants to town and we definitely don’t want him to church. I’ve tried doing like the dress pants for church, but wrinkles so bad. And like, I just don’t have time to iron. So stick with the genes. And we live in South Dakota. So jeans are totally acceptable church attire. They are. So we’re really lucky that way. And then for sorry and undergarments, I buy each of them a new set of both at the beginning of each, each season or each year, I guess it just depends on how much they’ve worn them.

They don’t wear in the summer and they’re always wearing their sandals. So I usually just buy them the socks. Yes. At the beginning of winter. And then undergarments, I only buy new ones if we’ve outgrown the other ones or if they’re just getting too old. So, and then one note on socks, I always buy black or colored socks, no white socks in my house because they just get trash really quickly. Especially when you kids are playing outside and when they’re getting and stuff, it’s totally not worth it. So for the boys, I pretty much buy black socks and I buy the pack where they’re all matching. So that way, if we lose one, or if the washer it’s one, then we still have plenty to match it with my daughter. I don’t put her in black socks, but I do buy socks, pinks, and purples and stuff for her because they just were so much better than the white socks.

So then each child has five to six pairs of pajamas. Those are all warm, long sleeves, long pants, pajamas. Yes. A couple of those at least two probably are the fleece pajamas, which are perfect for like the really cold nights. I really like the Carter’s pajamas for the kids. They seem to work out really well and they always fit them really well. I have a bunch of really skinny kids and so yeah, fit wise, those work. Great. And like with pajamas, I always buy those new, I just have a weird thing about buying used pajamas, but I wait. Yeah. Until they go and clearance through Carter’s or someone else that sells it Carter’s pajamas. And I try to get them for about $5 a set. Sometimes I’ve had to buy them for, you know, a little bit more if I can’t find them on clearance and they really need another set of pajamas, but that’s kind of my goal.

So yeah, each child has about five to six pairs of pajamas, a couple of them being the fleecy ones. And then the other one’s just being belonged sleeve long pant pajamas. And then each of the kids has a robe. This is something we do. We started last year, we bought the boys robes for Christmas and they just, I loved them. They loved to put them on in the morning before they get dressed and kind of just be all cozy and warm when they come to eat breakfast. So my daughter is three now and she with kind of jealous when the boys pulled out their robes this year to start wearing on the days we’ve gotten snow already. And so we got her robe this year too. And like I said, the kids just really it joy wearing those in the morning when it’s chilly outside yet, I’m not quite ready to get dressed, but they’re ready to come down for breakfast.

So yeah, that’s not a must have, but it’s just kind of a nice thing for them to have. And I like to wear my rope too. So they want to be just like mom, I guess.

And then the last thing they have on the clothing list is church clothes. And for my daughter, this means I have two little dresses that she wears to church. And then for my boys, they have to shirts each that they wear to church. And those are the button up shirts, which you can usually find super cheap, like at a thrift store or at a rummage sale. I’ve rarely had to buy them new. But even if I found them new, I found them just for a couple dollars a piece, no one seems to be buying them, but they work really great for church shirts. So each of the boys, like I said, has to in the winter they have long sleeve ones in the summer.

They have short sleeve ones. And then my daughter has two warm dresses and it may not seem like a lot, but we just alternate them back and forth each week, you know, one week they were the one shirt the next week they were the next and then it works out fine. Honestly, mine are still at the age where they just don’t care what they wear to. So we don’t need a ton of extra clothes. I know that someday that will change, especially with my daughter. She’s very much a girly girl. And so we’ll have to have a couple more things and that’s okay. It can, maybe we can have up to four things and kind of alternate them and wearing them once a month. But this is what we do right now.

Okay. So now I want to shift, focus from the clothing and move on to the outer where that each of the kids has.

And maybe you’ll find this interesting. Maybe it’s kind of boring, but so we live in South Dakota and it’s cold here. Well, we have winter and it’s long winter usually starts sometime. We’ll get our first snow maybe in about September or the beginning of October. And the last snow can happen any time between like April and may. You know, if we’re lucky, it’s April and we get a really nice summer, but it just depends on season to season. So we plan on having, having a really long winter though. That’s, that’s just how it works up here. And so we have to have enough winter gear to last that winter, we pretty much are outside every single day, unless it’s zero or if the wind chill makes it below zero, those are the worst days. And we definitely get tempted ups down to like negative. They have 30 or negative 40 below zero if the wind is blowing.

So it can get very, very cold. Obviously we do not send the kids out out in those temperatures. We do not drive anywhere during those times pitchers. So we don’t really have to plan too much for those extreme cold because they know that the kids aren’t going to be outside during those times. But we plan for that all the times above zero when they can be outside and playing in the snow. And when we have to drive to town or be in the car, I’m going to go over the list again. And then I’ll talk about it in detail, just like I did with the clothes. So we have snow pants, gloves, coats, shoes, and hats. It’s a pretty basic list, but everything is there that we need. So each of the kids has a pair of snow pants.

We do the bib overall snow pants cause like I said, I have super skinny, any kids and nothing else stays up on them, except for them bib overalls. I always buy black snow pants because sometimes they wear them two seasons and they might have a different coat. That’s a different color. And as long as they don’t wear them out in the knees, I pass them down from kid to kid. So my daughter is currently wearing snow pants that passed down to her from my oldest son. But they are totally fine for her. Cause they’re just black. It’s a totally neutral color. It can be wear with any color coat that saves us a lot of money because snow pants aren’t really dead sheep. So yes, each kid has a pair of snow pants. If I have to, I’ll buy them just a new pair of snow pants. If he’s outgrown his last pair and then they just get passed down.

I did have to do that this year. He got a little bit taller over the summer. So we have some new snow pads in our house, which is very excited for. Okay. So then each kid has two pairs of gloves. One pair of gloves is for like playing in the snow. They’re the, you know, heavier insulated, waterproof gloves, always get the waterproof gloves, nothing else work at my boys. Like the ones with the fingers. And since my daughter is young and doesn’t care, I still get her the mittens because those are definitely warmer, but either way, there’s the waterproof insulated gloves and they’re perfect for being outside. I haven’t found any difference in, you know, wanting to spend more money on more expensive gloves. Because like I said, if it’s really cold, my kid it’s, aren’t going to be outside anyway. So just a plain insulated glove has been great for everything that we need it for.

And then each of my kids has two coats. They have one coat. That’s like their heavy winter coat, the nice thick insulated coat for being outside. And then they have another coat that we use for in the car. You definitely shouldn’t be having the big thick coats on your kids if they’re in car seats in the winter, because it can mess up how the seatbelt sits on them. And it’s just a safety issue, but we always have like a secondary fleece coat that they can wear in the car or, you know, when we’re running into stores or something like that, where we’re not going to be in the extreme cold for very long. So sometimes I get coats for the kids that pav that second layer of code load on the inside, you know, zipped on the inside and we can just unzip it and use that for their smaller coat this year.

I didn’t have that with any of the kids. But I ended up getting them. Some of those really nice, like little fleece zip-up coats, the little bit heavier ones, those are perfect for it in the car. And they keep them nice and cozy and warm. And then there are other coats they’re actually all wearing their same coats that they were last winter. I must have bought them just a little bit big, but lately I’ve been getting those at like Sam’s club or anywhere I can find a good deal. I’ve never found a good deal on used coats for kids. So I always end up buying them new, but like I said, I try to not get them too big where it doesn’t keep them warm, but I get them just a little big. So if we can, where it for two years, that helps a lot, not then the next thing on the list is shoes.

So each of my kids has two pairs of shoes per season, which might seem crazy to some of them of you that really loves shoes, but we just found that it wasn’t necessary and added way too much clutter to our house to have more shoes than that. And I think that anybody that has more than one kid can completely identify with the way too many shoes thing. So like I said, they each have two pairs of shoes and in the winter that’s a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of boots and the boots are kind of like, we do the kind of the muck style, like it’s warm and it’s insulated on the inside, but they’re like a nice rubber on the outside. So they’re perfect for being in the snow or being in the mud or whatever weather and mess we happen to have.

And they wear those shoes. When they’re around the house, they don’t take them out anywhere. Now when we’re going to town, all the kids wear their tennis shoes. And so we keep those clean as long as they wear their mud boots in the mud. And we don’t have to worry about it. They just have the two pairs of shoes. Now, my daughter got lucky this year and I found her this cute little pair of, you know, dress boots on clearance at target. So she actually has three pairs of shoes this year. I just needed to confess that to you. But so she actually has a little pair of boots that she can wear to church. The boys just wear their tennis shoes, because like I said, they’re nice and queen, but she has a special little pair of boots that she can wear to church.

And then she could wear her tennis shoes to town. So that is how many pairs of shoes that they have per season. And like I said, it helps so much because we don’t have all of these shoes all over that we can’t find matches for. And that we just have way too many because even at two pairs issues per kid, that’s six pairs of shoes just for the kids that are trying to find space in my mudroom area. So that’s quite a bit for us.

And then the last thing on here is hats. And you might notice that I didn’t include scarfs because that’s because we do the hats that have the face mask that’s built in. And so it’s just kind of an all in one piece and then they can kind of pull down the part that covers their mouth and nose, if they don’t want to wear that. And, and then it still goes around their neck, otherwise they can pull it up. And we found those to be the best. We tend to get a lot of wind here in South Dakota. And so you definitely want to cover your face when you’re outside and it’s winter. So we really like those hats and I found them really cheap this year. I think on Amazon, I think years past I’ve gotten them like from Kohl’s for a big sale or something. Like I said, those are the hats that we like and it eliminates the scarf because those never sit, like stay on kids anyway. And this way they can kind of pull it up and down, but they still keep their net covered, which has been great.

So that kind of concludes the clothing, both the clothes, and then the outerwear that we have for the kids. Now that I talk through it, it kind of sounds like a big list and it’s really not that bad. The only other things that I wanted to mention that we prepare for the kids for winter is a fleece blankets and flannel sheets. And the flannel sheets is just so they stay warm at night. This’ll be kind of a little bit more of a challenge in our new house where we only have one stove that’s heating the whole house or one fireplace. I don’t know what you want to call it. It’s a pellet stove. I keep calling it a stove. We’ll just have that stove heating the whole house. It will keep it warm, but I always like to sleep a little bit cooler. So the flannel sheets really helped with that.

And it’s just such an easy change, you know, going from summer to winter, we change out our clothes. We change out our sheets as well. And then the other thing I have on this list is fleece blankets. And those are something that we keep in the car. I just get those little like cheap ones that are just a couple of dollars that I think I usually get them at Menards, but I’m sure that you can get them at Walmart or other places like that. And we keep one in the car per child, and that’s just in case of emergencies or in case we get in the car and they’re still kind of chilly or something. Then they’ve got their little fleece blanket to keep them warm.

So I think that about covers it for what we prepare for the kids for winter. And like I said, have a blog post that covers all of this in more detail, along with a lot of links to where I find the things that we buy for the kids. And just more, more details than I can fit in this podcast before you would get bored, listening to it. So if you want those, I, like I said, I will link to that so you can check it out, but I really appreciate you joining me again today. It’s really fun to get this started. And I, like I said, I have some more topics I’m really excited to talk about, but if you have any ideas for me, please let me know. I’ll talk to you guys later. Bye